Last Places : A Journey in the North

by Lawrence Millman

Release Date: 20 November, 2000

Edition: Paperback

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From Portico Birmingham Magazine

This is a really fun trip. Millman decides that he's going to follow the Vikings' original sea route from Norway to the Shetland and Faroe Islands, Iceland, Greenland, and eventually Newfoundland and the New World. The subtitle is "A Journey in the North," and that is quite true. For most of us, it is an alien landscape he travels through, eating fried seal nose bits, being propositioned in Iceland, seeing an albino moose, meeting a convicted murderer and enjoying other truly bizarre adventures. Last Places defines the success of the travel genre: you read it and then say, "I have to go there and see for myself."

A Great Journey

The term "Vikings" brings to minds an image of mystery and war. And when an author sets out on a voyage tracing the Viking routes, nothing could be better to "Vikingophiles". I was eagerly looking forward to reading this book.

Having read this book I must admit that I find Theroux's and Dalrymple's travelogues easier to read. For one, living in a tropical country and not having set foot on the cold northern countries, I found the book very difficult to read because it introduced too many unfamiliar terms to me. Only a picture dictionary could have helped me :-) Perhaps the author could have attached some photographs of the cold and lonely places to give us an idea of what it's like. Another drawback of the book is that the author has tried to be too funny and it sounds a bit artificial. Or perhaps I am more used to Theroux's humour :-)

I would still rate this as a great book and worth adding to your library of travelogues. Mr. Millman, you should now travel to Finland, Siberia, northern Japan(Hokkaido) and northern Russia and write another book on those cold places. That will be a good sequel.