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Product Description
Metro Scotland
‘Excellent at conveying the flavour of life as a foreign correspondent’
Review
"'A brilliant collection of anecdote and reportage from a supreme master of the craft' Daily Mail 'For even his most accomplished professional rivals curiosity has meant everything-for him compassion has always meant more' Observer 'Cameron had a unique combination of moral seriousness, humour, and literary talent' Martin Woollacott"
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First Sentence
IN the immortality stakes, journalism is not a good bet. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
IN the immortality stakes, journalism is not a good bet. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
The life of James Cameron evokes the period when the life of a foreign correspondent was essentially one of adventure if not danger. Asked to traverse the globe with a wad of cash, a map and a rucksack full of initiative, the scrapes and escapades of one of the great practitioners of the craft is nothing less than absorbing. His encounters with Churchill, Onasis and a myriad of generals fighting what he sees as pointless wars in lands generally foreign to themselves is full of fascinating detail, as he paints a picture of a world where you could still get hopelessly lost and have no means of communication with the wider world.
The only quibble you might have is that Cameron is a man of his generation and makes scant mention of the 'real' world - his internal world and his family. Even when travelling with one of the world's most famous photographers, Bert Hardy, Hardy barely gets a mention from his travelling companion, which illustrates, in my opinion, something of a large ego.
This criticism aside, the description of Cameron turning up at the hospital as a young husband and walking into the delivery room anticipating to see the birth of his first child only to watch as his wife expires, is one of the most devastating passages I have ever read in a book. I had to put it down for five minutes, such was the heart-wrenching impact of the writing. For me, it merely illustrated that Cameron, like so many people of his generation, had an internal life that would never see the light of day. Luckily, his external life will more than entrance you.
The only quibble you might have is that Cameron is a man of his generation and makes scant mention of the 'real' world - his internal world and his family. Even when travelling with one of the world's most famous photographers, Bert Hardy, Hardy barely gets a mention from his travelling companion, which illustrates, in my opinion, something of a large ego.
This criticism aside, the description of Cameron turning up at the hospital as a young husband and walking into the delivery room anticipating to see the birth of his first child only to watch as his wife expires, is one of the most devastating passages I have ever read in a book. I had to put it down for five minutes, such was the heart-wrenching impact of the writing. For me, it merely illustrated that Cameron, like so many people of his generation, had an internal life that would never see the light of day. Luckily, his external life will more than entrance you.
0 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I have been an avid reader in my past and just love anything that is based on fact and a 'true life experience.' I bought this classic text after hearing about James Cameron on one of those TV book shows (I think the one where two personalities came on and with Kirsty Walker? were asked to pick their top 3.) I also have a keen interest in the displacement of people from their native Islands in the Pacific and was hoping to glean more about the Bikini Atoll tests. Sadly the chapter that covers this in this memoir is a bit thin.
Guess I may enjoy the rest of the book when I am 'in the mood.'
Guess I may enjoy the rest of the book when I am 'in the mood.'
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
1 review
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
A dashing, slashing, slapdash foreign correspondent
26 April 2005
Format:Hardcover
I can't forget 1967; it was one of the great years. I'm rereading a powerful and valuable book written in 1967, so I did a dogpile search for "James Cameron + Point of Departure" and got a website with a Studs Terkel interview in which he said this:
"Have I mentioned the name of James Cameron? Some people ask me who is the writer I most admire. I can tell you the journalist I most admire. He was an Englishman named James Cameron. Not the James Cameron who directed "Titanic" - a wholly different animal."
Wow, the great Studs Terkel likes the author I'm reading and enjoying! Terkel goes on to say:
"I suggest you find a book called Point Of Departure by James Cameron. It's available somewhere in paperback. It's one of the best pieces of writing that you've ever read anywhere. It's sort of memoiristic, through essays from different places he's been in the world. I met him when he first returned from North Vietnam. He was the first Western journalist to visit and speak with Ho Chi Minh during the bombings there - the very first. Of course Ho Chi Minh knew him, they all knew Cameron. His stories are wonderful. They're funny and they're brilliant, and incisive."
Yep, the very book I'm reading. And if you have even the slightest interest in adventure or the life of a foreign correspondent, if you are fascinated by war, if you hate war, or if you believe that everyone is entitled to the pursuit of happiness, I would tell you to read this book that I was lucky to find in the Soi 6 Library in Pattaya, Thailand.
"Have I mentioned the name of James Cameron? Some people ask me who is the writer I most admire. I can tell you the journalist I most admire. He was an Englishman named James Cameron. Not the James Cameron who directed "Titanic" - a wholly different animal."
Wow, the great Studs Terkel likes the author I'm reading and enjoying! Terkel goes on to say:
"I suggest you find a book called Point Of Departure by James Cameron. It's available somewhere in paperback. It's one of the best pieces of writing that you've ever read anywhere. It's sort of memoiristic, through essays from different places he's been in the world. I met him when he first returned from North Vietnam. He was the first Western journalist to visit and speak with Ho Chi Minh during the bombings there - the very first. Of course Ho Chi Minh knew him, they all knew Cameron. His stories are wonderful. They're funny and they're brilliant, and incisive."
Yep, the very book I'm reading. And if you have even the slightest interest in adventure or the life of a foreign correspondent, if you are fascinated by war, if you hate war, or if you believe that everyone is entitled to the pursuit of happiness, I would tell you to read this book that I was lucky to find in the Soi 6 Library in Pattaya, Thailand.
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