Jill Gocher – Secret Bali: Behind the Tourist Facade
September 17th, 2022The book Secret Bali: Behind the Tourist Facade is a trinket for tourists on the Indonesian island, just like a set of postcards or a keychain. This is ironic, as the subject matter covered consists mainly of stuff the typical tourist would never encounter, like the animist cult of trees, Balians (traditional healers), and cock fights, as well as ceremonies for cremations, house building, and weddings. Text-wise, the whole thing seems like an amateur production. There are typos galore: missing words, commas where they shouldn’t be and commas missing where they should be, extra character spaces between words, and awkward grammar. The Ubud Palace chapter is not consistent with the others, as there is far less text and the worst widows (one word dangling by itself on one line at the end of a paragraph) ever. The whole thing reads like a blog that someone published as a print-on-demand book on Blurb. At least the graphic design and photos are decent (although I’ve seen much better photos of Bali on Flickr and Instagram). For a much more substantial primer on the traditional culture of Bali, just read the classics Bali: Sacred and Secret (a big coffee table book full of awesome photos) by Gill Marais and Island of Bali by Miguel Covarubias, which will fill you in on everything you need to know.
Publisher: NOW! Bali Publications Catalog Number: ISBN-13: 9786029797121 Format: Book Binding: Paperback Pages: 120 Country: Indonesia Published: 2012 More: Google Books
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