Customer Reviews

The Best American Travel Writing 2009

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

 

 

I am a huge fan of the The Best American Travel Writing series, but this year (2009) is not as well edited as year 2007, which I thought was the best yet. 2009 is still a good read, but not an edition that I would keep. Still . . . I read it cover to cover and enjoyed the read.

I've been buying these since 2000 and it's always a highlight of my book reading year. But it seems like the last couple of years the collections haven't been as strong, which I chalk up to the guest editors. Still worth reading though.

I agree with the reviews above, that the 2009 edition isn't as compelling as editions from previous years. Also, Winchester's introduction, which boasts about the British sense of adventure that led to its empires, is offensive. Do people really still regard colonialism that way in the 21st century?

The editor is Simon Winchester and the identity of the person doing the selection does make a difference. It seems the five hundred years of empire supported the British writers' belief that the best travel writing is British. Good British universities have exploration clubs. Wanderlust is not the same in America Winchester has discerned. Geography isn't taught much in the schools. For writers, however, the num ber of periodicals is a feast of opportunity. Excellent articles pertaining to geography are numerous.

Patrick Symmes writes of Burma, the storm, and the generals. After the cyclone the waterways went putrid. The generals turned away aid. Rangoon is described as an Asian Havana. Burma lacks tourist infrastructure. The writer had a two week ticket and a tourist visa. The great apostle of nonviolence and Nobel Prize winner, Aung San Suu Kyi, is known as 'the lady'. In Burma objective criticism does not exist for cultural reasons. A luxurious and conformist society surrounds the generals. In the aftermath of the storm between one hundred thousand and two hundred thousand people died.

Frank Bures explains that in Lagos, Nigeria there is a din, the clatter of seventeen million people. The writer discusses the concept of a culture-bound syndrome. Bronwen Dickey heard stories of a river in Southern Appalachia from her father, the poet. The river is called the Cahulawagee in DELIVERANCE. Andre Aciman writes of returning to Rome after a long absence. His neighborhood had street names drawn from Virgil. He sought to put away the shame of having lived for three years in a blue collar area and misleading others as to the family's address. At Via Clelia the author had read novels, creating a world for himself, D.H. Lawrence, Dostoyevsky, Lampedusa, Baudelaire.

Chuck Klosterman lives in former East Germany. He teaches a class on American culture at the University of Leipzig. Asking prospective students to write essays on American cultural figures yields interesting results. In Lacoste Pierre Cardin has staged a festival and renovated gallery spaces. The author of the piece finds his own name, Perrottet, on a 1608 tax list for Lascoste. In 1806 a Perrottet was mayor.

'A Dip in the Cold' by Lynne Cox is about swimming in Arctic water and Roald Amundsen's discovery of the last link of the Northwest Passage. Cox swam in Prudhoe Bay for thirty minutes. Matt Power, 'Mississippi Drift', met Matt Bullard in Arcata, California in 1999. He was a dumpster diver and anarchist. Matt Bullard believed Americans were TV addicted and subject to celebrity worship. Bullard doesn't work often, although the sugar-beet harvest in North Dakota has become a source of seasonal farm labor for the punk-traveler community. Bullard planned a river trip on his homemade houseboat prior to leaving the country. There were twenty-nine locks and dams between Minneapolis and St. Louis. Dumpster diving was to provide food for the journey. The writer left the boat in Iowa.

Seth Stevenson visited the nation-state of Disney in Florida. The writer prepared to spend five days within the Disney empire. Epcot opened in 1982. It resembled a trade expo. Animatronic figures appear in a movie history section of the Disney empire. It is a very Disney notion to watch a machine imitate a person. (It is soulless.) The cluster of amusement parks has become a rite of American childhood. Walt Disney pioneered animatronic robots in the 1960's. Now they are dated, but still Disney. Disney properties have, inter alia, insane attention to detail. The writer visited Celebration. It is a Rockwellian, New Urbanism mixture.

Rwanda is a country defined by bloodshed. Convicted genocidaires wear pink uniforms. The government is focusing its energy on park preservation. A lodge had to be reclaimed from the baboons for the turistas. The laws of sanctuary were violated in the massacres. Priests and nuns have been found guilty of assisting in the killing. The writer is taken to an area to view the gorillas.

Tthere are two hundred monasteries in Tibet. Border policies with China, Bhutan, and Nepal are of concern. There are terrible landslides. Sikkim has military checkpoints. Sikkim was annexed by India in 1975. 'Tigerland' is about India's tiger reserve. Project tiger was inaugurated by India in 1973. it has been learned that tigers do not invade villages, but when humans invade tiger forests there are problems.

Sahel means shore in Arabic. It is a bridge. Regeneration is happening in Niger, Mali, and Burkina Faso. The gao, an acacia, is a nitrogen-fixer. Kano is Nigeria's second largest city. In this travel piece the writer was put into prison in Darfur! 'My Servant' is about India. The servant involved in the tale is a boy of twelve. The servant turns out to be a wizard with fax machines and printers. The servant relationship turns into a filial one and raised expectation are created.

The book is always interesting and sometimes amazing in its diversity and range of experiences.

After reading this I read the next one with Anthony Bourdain. I love this series. The articles are so entertaining and educational.