Customer Reviews

Bad Trips

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This anthology's title is off by one letter: it should be called Sad Trips, not Bad Trips. The phrase 'bad trips' (and especially the book's front cover description: "A sometimes terrifying, sometimes hilarious collection of writing on the perils of the road") suggests to me the journeys that are hell to live through but fun to look back on, like, say, the time I spent three days trapped in the Boise, Idaho airport with what seemed to be the entire population of the state of Idaho. Those are the kinds of stories I expected from this anthology.

But in Bad Trips, the editor gives us a few funny stories along with tales alternately grim, gruesome, and depressing beyond all description. Just a few examples of the topics covered: a walk through a refugee village full of starving children, the torture, death, and dismemberment of civilians in El Salvador, the city of Hue shortly after it was destroyed by the Vietcong and American armies. These are important tales, and they need to be told, but they seem somewhat inappropriate for a book purporting to be a light-hearted, funny, travel anthology.

The editor made a few other strange decisions in assembling this collection, and while one works, most don't. I laud his attempt to include the work of some great writers, and this pays off: the selections by David Mamet, Anita Desai, Martin Amis, and John Updike are wonderful, and there's a poem by Al Purdy that every off-the-beaten-track traveler should read. But the book also includes a number of extracts from works of fiction, which jars - part of the joy of travel stories is that they're *true*.

Overall, the strength of some of the individual selections doesn't make up for the strange choices the editor has made. Look for it used, or check it out of the library.

This was a book I started, got bored with, and came back to later when the book pile was about exhausted. That should tell you something: most of the stories simply weren't too enthralling. I didn't notice a lot of humour; in fact, I found very little. When I came back to finish it, I liked it a little better but not too much. Most of the stories are too short to really satisfy.

On the positive side, quite the cast of authors has been assembled, and they can indeed write. The variety of places and circumstances is impressive. I found at least half the stories interesting and worth reading.

As adventure travel, it doesn't compare to anything by Tim Cahill for excitement and uniqueness, or to William Least Heat-Moon for depth and powers of observation, but it'll do.

Bad Trips is divided into various short stories by notoriously famous authors. Mamet, Geldof, Greene, and Updike, to name a few create very funny short essays of their unusual and sometimes precarious trips throughout the world. I would recommend this book to someone taking a cross-country trip for example from Seattle to Atlanta in a big van carrying unneccessary items on bald tires traveling through the winter months and sleeping in friends of friends houses while trying to use outdated maps. Anyone who has ever taken a "not as planned trip" will enjoy this book!

A collection of travel writing, mainly excerpts from longer works, although a few are short essays, describing those trips that--well, did not seem quite so fun at the time, but make for great reading. I read this book as a primer and introduction to the writers therein, some of whom I plan to seek out later, including:

* Stuart Stevens--Reads like Mark Salzman, probably in part due to the fact that he traveled with Salzman.
* P. K. Page--Her bit on Australia was great--exactly the problems with another culture that I'm looking for.
* Norman Lewis--His Golden Earth is considered a classic of travel writing and this excerpt was enough to show some of the reasons why.
* Colin Thubron--He traveled in the USSR before the break-up. There will probably be a spate of books about the USSR now that it's easier to travel there, so this should be a fine slice of something not to be seen again, like Tibet before the Chinese takeover.
* Paul Theroux--People had already recommended Theroux to me, and this except was a confirmation.
* Mary Morris--A woman traveling alone has increased risk, and implicit bravery. This particular woman is a good writer, as well.
* Charles Nicholl--More like a one-man "60 Minutes" team--the excerpt from his investigation on the cocaine underworld of Columbia just whetted my appetite for more.
* Jonathan Raban--Sometimes our own country is the most foreign of places. Raban's trip down the Mississippi looks good.

* Gavin Young--War reportage, neither sentimental nor brusque, just frighteningly real.
* Graham Greene--I've never read any Greene until this, and given this, and his reputation, I plan to correct that.
* Eric Hansen--More Borneo, this time on foot rather than O'Hanlon's river journey. Borneo's a strange place.
* Michael Asher--This is Arabia--another bit of difficult terrain.

Humorous and well written, as would be expected, given the talent of the authors. I was also left looking at my own travels in a new light, and it had me reevaluating some of my own mishaps, which generally are, after all, what maskes travelling interesting (as long as the outcome wasn't too dire). Through this it has added to the enjoyment of my own memories. High praise, I think.

Like another reviewer, I expected this to be a collection of travel nightmare stories. You know, disasters so terrible that they become quite interesting and amusing. I know there are some books out there like that (just can't recall the titles).

What it really is, though, is quite literary - David Mamet, Umberto Eco, Martin Amis, Graham Greene, John Updike ... Yes, the travel nightmare part is still there. It's not all funny, however. As some of the other reviewers have pointed out, some of the stories are rather depressing.

Nonetheless, the writing is quite good - Mamet tries to relax in the Caribbean, Eco's piece skewers William Randolph Hearst's San Simeon, Amis is a nervous flier, Greene almost passes out taking a mule across Mexican desert and jungle, Updike describes Venezuelan Indians ...

I was tempted to give this one a 5, but the hoops the editor has to jump through to fit his odd theme (*literary* travel nightmares) mean some of the stuff in the collection is just rather odd. There are, for example, a number of poems (there are also a couple of fiction pieces). That's definitely literary, but not very "travel". There are also some rather obscure authors too. Most of these, interestingly, are Canadian (I believe the editor is Canadian too). In addition, the different efforts are quite uneven. Some at the beginning, for example, seem like mere throw-aways.

And, finally, there's that issue of false advertising. Not a bad book at all, but probably not what you were expecting it to be.

This book tries hard to be poignant, but doesn't make it. Much too depressing, and not entertaining enough.