Houseboat on the Ganges: Letters from India & Nepal, 1966-1972

(Paperback)

Publishing Details

Classifications

Physical Properties

Description

Marilyn Stablein is a well-liked and respected author and artist in Oregon. Her work will appeal to people of her generation, but also to young people setting out in the world. It will especially appeal to young, independent, artistically inclined women.

Black and white photography taken by Stablein makes this a rich travelogue. We watch and hear the young artist as she searches for spiritual meaning in the East.

Readers interested in Gary Snyder, Ram Dass and other iconic figures of the late 1960s literary and spiritual scene will be drawn to this book.

Reviews

My ideal way to travel is to lessen as much as possible the barriers that separate me from the local people, writes Marilyn Stablein in her stunning book of letters, Houseboat on the Ganges & A Room in Kathmandu. . . . In other words, I gladly sacrifice comforts and customs in order to learn another way of life. Person to person, culture to cultureI learn by living. And learn by living she does. This wondrous book is more than a travelogue detailing her years in India and Nepal; through letters Stablein writes to her family in California, we also encounter the astonishing independence of a courageous young woman at the forefront of the spiritual revolution of the 1960s. Stablein left her studies in Berkeley in 1966 as a teenager to live in the Far East for seven years prior to the heft of the counter-cultures spiritual land rush to India at a time whenwith few exceptionsmost accounts were written by the occasional male pilgrim. Stableins mother lovingly saved these letters, her daughter interweaving spiritual unfoldment, day-to-day cooking and boiling of water, and her pursuit of poetry and artall with a wisdom that belies her youth. Through the intimacy of a young woman writing an elder, this remarkable book unleashes a compelling narrative, all the more relevant today, as we continue to grapple with gender equality. I am sure it will take its place among the best narratives of the time of spiritual pursuit in the East. George Kalamaras, Poet Laureate of Indiana (2014-2016) and author of The Theory and Function of Mangoes
Today, when K-K-K-Katmandu has been on the travel itinerary of a million trekkers and climbers, and the Dalai Lama, Dharamsala and Buddhism are on every travelers consciousness, its wonderful to remember an era when even an overseas flight was something to be planned, talked about, and anticipated for months in advance, a trip could easily stretch from weeks to months to years and everything was a total surprise. Tony Wheeler, co-founder of Lonely Planet Publications
Marilyn Stablein is an intrepid adventurer and humorous chronicler. Peter Lamborn Wilson, author of T.A.Z.

Author Bio

Marilyn Stablein is an award-winning poet, essayist, fiction writer, and artist. She is the author of thirteen books, including: Splitting Hard Ground: Poems (New Mexico Book Award); Bind, Alter, Fold: Artists Books; Sleeping in Caves: A Sixties Himalayan Memoir; and a collection of eco-essays, Climate and Extremes: Landscape and Imagination. Her collages, assemblages, and artist books are exhibited internationally and published in books (Lark's 1000 & 500 Artist Books) and journals including The Bone Folder. She teaches memoir, poetry, and artist books.