“Learning to Breath: One Woman’s Journey of Spirit and Survival” by acclaimed photojournalist Alison Wright is definitely a book of note for picture professionals. Whether you will find it amazingly and uniquely inspiring or whether they will find it frustratingly lacking will depend utterly on personality, interests and taste in literary style. From my point of view, each perspective – that the book is a soaring success or a frustrating failure – seems entirely valid.
“Learning to Breath” revolves around Wright’s horrifying, very-near-death accident in a bus in the windy, isolated mountain roads of Loas, just after New Year’s 2000. As always, Wright was busy both globetrotting around the world to photographically record endangered cultures as she also placed equal weight on advancing her own spiritual growth, which centers around Buddhist philosophies.
As Wright recounts her years-long push to recover (using both Western and Eastern medicine) from her debilitating accident – it was hardly certain that she would even walk again – she interweaves snippets of coming of age years, her discovery of photography, her professional development with National Geographic, a number of specific photographic adventures (often involving grizzly and amusing medical problems) that are not directly related to the central story.
The theme of the book is that Wright was able to survive (and ultimately thrive again) because she embraced fully to the value of the lessons she had learned about mediation, being present in the moment, focusing on her breathing.
As Wright has a personal relationship with the Dali Lama (he wrote the forward to her book) and Richard Gere (a supportive friend), and she manages to share much historical background of the cultures (especially in Asia) that she champions, it would seem that “Learning to Breath” would make a must-read for any travel-focused photographer of picture professional. And the material in “Learning to Breath” sounds like good stuff to you, I suggest you give it a try. But I also offer a word of caution.
The simple fact is that “Learning to Breath” truly irritated me from beginning to end. Partly of this irritation came from the fact that Wright’s literary style simply did not work for me. Admittedly, I am a very picky reader, especially when books aim to be “literary.” But I could not help moan at clunky writing, posed but unanswered questions, awkward leaps in progression and the sense the “deep thoughts” constantly overshadowed cleaner storytelling.
Literary style aside, the biggest frustration I experienced was that Wright’s message aimed to be so deep and so inspiring that it rubbed me the wrong way. The spiritual perspective she keeps trying to advance, while interesting, seems to be constantly contradicted by her actions in fundamental ways. She is on a Buddhism-like quest for calm, but she approaches it with a type-A, nothing-will-stop-me personality that seems to utterly contradict the lessons she is trying to share.
Actually, I believe that such a contradiction is inherently interesting to increasing numbers of professionals in “developed nations” trying to balance careers with “more simple lives.” But Wright does not dig into her own contradiction, and for all her revelations it’s not even clear whether she even identifies it.
Think of it this way: Imagine you are listening to a speaker gasping for air, sucking in violent, short breaths while she extols the virtue and her own mastery over breathing deeply and slowly. The message might be on target, but the messenger seems to ruin her own lesson.
My honest, gut-level reaction stated, I can honestly see how many intelligent, critical readers would absolutely adore “Learning to Breath” on a number of levels. If not the best author, Wright is truly an impressive person and an incredible image-maker, and even with its flaws I still appreciated “Learning to Breath” on a number of levels, even finding myself experiencing little, “Ah ha” moments of insight.
If you read “Learning to Breath” and report to me you found it deeply inspiring and not at all frustrating, I wouldn’t be surprised. However, if you report that you couldn’t get past the first few chapters, frustrated by a sense that Wright is skimming the surface, holding back on a deeper, more honest story – all the time have to listen to her endless gasping about taking deep breaths – I would know exactly what you are talking about.