Falling Off The Map: Some Lonely Places of the World [Hardcover]

Pico Iyer (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 19, 1993

The author of Video Night in Kathmandu describes the building of the world's biggest tourist hotel in the tourist-free North Korea, the effects of inflation in Argentina, shortages in Cuba, and crime in Paraguay. 15,000 first printing.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Time journalist Iyer ( The Lady and the Monk ) has written on travel before, but in this collection of essays he steps out to face extremes of geography, imagination and culture, visiting places that most of us haven't--Bhutan, North Korea, Iceland and five others. The point of this? To consider, at close range, the identity of countries that exist in relative isolation, or did until recently, undiluted in their "solitude, remoteness and seclusion." For example, in "My Holiday With Kim Il Sung," he journeys to Pyongyang, a city that appears to be the personal property of the North Korean president--as are most of the people who live there, more or less willingly. Iyer persuasively mocks what he sees, yet also looks on it as a rather charming aberration. Similarly, he is both critical and amusing in pieces about Cuba and Paraguay--where the "governing principle . . . seems to be one of languid illegality"--and when encountering the "cold and science-fictive beauty" of Australian twilight. Iyer is a stylist with an eye for strange things that doesn't keep him from feeling the humanity in exotica.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Only some of the "lonely places" covered in this book (North Korea, Argentina, Cuba, Iceland, Bhutan, Vietnam, Paraguay, Australia) are isolated by geography, but all are culturally or politically isolated. That few tourist itineraries include these misfit countries increases their sense of being alone in the world. Iyer, a journalist for Time and Conde Nast Traveler , writes in a cool, ironic style similar to that of the late Bruce Chatwin. His essays are more impressionistic than informative and seem intended for armchair travelers rather than adventurers. At times, Iyer is a bit too detached, too unruffled by what he experiences. He does not fully convey to us the strangeness of the strange places he has visited. Despite the lack of emotion, Iyer's impressions make interesting reading. Recommended for public libraries.
- Mary C. Kalfatovic, Telesec Lib. Svces., Washington, D.C.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 190 pages
• Publisher: Knopf; 1 Amer ed edition (April 19, 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0679422641
• ISBN-13: 978-0679422648
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.8 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #806,265 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars home is where everything is the same and yet different, May 12, 2002

By 

"martinaluise7" (Hawaii) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Falling Off the Map: Some Lonely Places of The World (Paperback)

Pico Iyer's prose caught my eye in his Time Magazine columns where he did a good job showing us how recognizable the exotic has become. This collection, his first in book form, again reiterates that the most difficult aspect of long distance travel is not any longer how to get there, how to dodge danger or how to find your way back but how to avoid to bump into the same features you left 10,000 miles and 6 timezones earlier. Showing through many examples, sometimes hilarious and sometimes profoundly sad how globalisation regurgitates the same marketing ideas dressed in different flags it really makes its point that the era of the curious gentleman(woman) traveler looking for exotic shores has been overtaken by the vastly less romantic quest to escape the onslaught of canned icons in any neck of the woods.
The book also does a nice job of illuminating the paradoxical quest of the overfed and understimulated prestigious first world traveler trying to find hidden corners where there is still some sort of exploration possible and where not all laws of our structured civilization apply only to be greeted by the not so happy natives who are dying to know how to join the West or in the least purchase its most potent logos.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Non-Guide to Non-Tourist Attractions, May 6, 2005

By 

Robert Sheard (Pinehurst, NC) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Falling Off the Map: Some Lonely Places of The World (Paperback)

I have to admit I'm a sucker for all travel narratives. I have a serious travel jones myself, and since I'm not in a position to jet all over the world right now, I have to armchair travel. Pico Iyer was recommended highly to me by a fellow armchair traveler so I set about this book with some high expectations.

The downside of this book is that he's writing about a number of places I'm likely not to visit-North Korea, Cuba, Paraguay-but after a few chapters my disappointment at reading about "lonely places" that will remain unvisited by me gradually fell away as Iyer's style became more comfortable for me.

He refers to classic travel writers frequently, and if you haven't read these authors, some of the references lose their impact, but Iyer's observations are so detailed, so full of atmosphere, that you don't necessarily get a picture of the country he's visiting, but a total feeling that's larger than the individual portraits he presents. I get the feeling he genuinely loves the people and the places he's visited and doesn't see them as part of some journalistic assignment he has to get through.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A great source of esoteric conversation fodder, October 24, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Falling Off the Map: Some Lonely Places of The World (Paperback)

The easiest read of the three books of Iyer's that I have read. Five of his eight destinations were places about which I had never read anything other than a description in the almanac. What makes Iyer's writing so appealing to me is that he accepts with equanimity the poor conditions that other top travel writers, such as Paul Theroux, devote such energy to bemoaning. Even if it weren't so well written, I would recommend this book for the originality of its material.