Customer Reviews

Nothing to Declare: Memoirs of a Woman Traveling Alone

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Although Morris would (and does) believe that she is a natural and effortless traveller, this text attests otherwise. Morris spends the majority of the work lamenting the inefficencies of Mexico and reminding us how bold she is for taking the journey. The other portion consists of her waxing lyrical about her indifference to love or how generous she is as the privileged and revered American. She continously struck me as bitter and egocentrical.

Similarly, I think she adheres to the stereotypes she seemingly casts away. I particularly loved when she decided that she felt more like a 'man than a woman' in her relationship with the pampering/cleaning Mexican man. I also shuddered when she declared that her aforementioned Mexican love was like an 'Indian' when drunk.

As others have suggest, the cast that populates the background are more interesting than Morris herself. Beautiful writing and landscape, but intensely annoying subject.

This is a beautiful memoir of Mary Morris' travels into Central America and personal growth around the 1970's. A woman in her early 30's, she has a successful writing career and traveled extensively. Her journey into Central America is a trip embarked with a heavy heart and personal doubts. Her past needs reckoning and her search for personal equanimity is at last confronted when she moves to San Miguel, Mexico. Unknowingly, she rents an apartment in the poorest part of town instead of the more affluent area where many of the "wealthier foreigners" live. This error in judgement serves to be her silver lining. Skillfully brought to life are the neighbors that become her loving friends and substitute family. As she opens herself to their lives and stories, she feels compelled to face her inner demons.

For many, the prosect of reading another traveling diary may be stultifying. This is not one of those, but an original attempt to make the relationship of a woman's personal journey inside herself and her global journeys she bravely explores on her own.

In her past, Mary has been physically and emotional abused by some of the men in her life. I thing it is extremely important to note that in those years, many of the social/counseling/activist support groups were non-existant, or at the least, in their infancy. For Mary, her travels, and those that she met in the wake of her trips, served as her counselors and support groups.

There were a wide assortment of characters that she met in her travels, and her gift is to be able to write about what each of them meant to her. Many of them are truly unforgettable and the times she writes about capture the humor, strength and sorrow of their lives. San Miguel serves as her "base camp" and she plans many visits to the heart of Central America. Knowlingly, she ventures into some of the most unstable countries in the area (San Salvador, Honduras, Bolivia) and trusts her inner instincts to be her compass. Constantly challenging herself in these tension filled areas, subjecting herself to extreme discomfort, poor traveling conditions and appalling lodging, she nevertheless is able to note the beauty of the world, but not so idealistic that she can't complain and feel total despair. Life is NOT perfect on the road, and I respect that she does not front herself off to be in a constant state of traveler's ecstasy.

This is a book which richly deserves some judicious editing. Morris can write well, in every sense, yet gets bogged down with her own emotional dramas. Having travelled, much of it by backpacking and hitchhiking, I could easily appreciate her stories and descriptions. Yet I was frequently annoyed by her 'woe is me' whining. It makes only a good book out of what could have been a travel classic. The other reviews here cover the content quite nicely, and accurately. The book is worth reading if travel interests you, but for a far better author in the same vein, check out Tim Cahill. His writing is equally impressive, his travels more interesting, and his self-deprecating humor is a pleasant contrast to Morris, who is unfortunately quite full of herself. I know which author I'D choose to travel with, hands down.

Morris reminds me of people I've met travelling; rootless, wanting too much, searching everywhere for adventure. This book is about her trip to Mexico, alone, where she writes, thinks, loves, and makes various friends, whom she knows she will leave. In this book there's the transient community of the ageless twenty-something, who turns thirty and is still searching for everything she doesn't have, the lessons that come from simple living, and no resolution

Mary Morris' intensely personal memoir of her time spent living in Mexico resonates with honesty and beauty on every page. Morris captures the essence of the trials and joys of a woman travelling alone while at the same time revealing an insider's look at the true modern culture of Mexico. Her vivid descriptions of the small village where she spends almost a year are so vivid that even a person who has never been to Mexico will feel that they know it like a friend's backyard. The characters are not characters but people--people who think and live and grow throughout the book just as they would in real life. Morris has a unique ability to not only be able to search her own soul in prose but that of other's as well, with seemingly unfailing accuracy. The intertwining of her inner journey with the story of her physical journey is faultlessly crafted and expressed. I reread this book every few months and am moved to tears and laughter everytime. It, and Mary Morris' other travel works, are essential reading for any traveller and absolutely necessary for any woman who ever has or ever plans to travel alone.

This book is so fantastic that I have re-read it and also bought a copy for a friend. She was delighted and said she stayed up all night to read it.
Mary Morris has written a fascinating insight into living in San Miguel, Mexico (although she also visited other Central American countries). Her characters in San Miguel really come to life. And in the bargain, she also gives a very honest picture of her personal changes. I think her situation is one that many women can relate to. I cannot say enough good things about this book and can see why she has received so many literary awards.

In reading some of the other reviews, I think some people have not "gotten" the point of the book. Certain in terms of those expecting research to the point of giving specific names of animal species, etc., please know that those are topics for another kind of book. The reader of this book gets the big picture, and it is played out in a very personal account.

This book has a haunting quality that comes, in part, from the author's ability to capture the ephemeral quality of Mexican culture and, in part, from the author's own inner-searchings. I have read this book twice, with several years inbetween reads, and each time it made quite an impact on me. I think this book captures some soulful things that we lack as Americans and which the author finds in some of her Mexican friends. It also captures the sense of total foreigness an American can have in a Latin culture.

I finished reading this book only because I'm on vacation and short of other books. Also, I couldn't believe that there wouldn't be more to it at some point. Ms. Morris does write fairly well. There are some errors in the text and she clearly is not a craftwoman - she doesn't do the research at various points to name animals (for instance the 'large rodent' in the Guatemalan jungle). The critiques of other reviewers are very correct - she is self-absorbed, but not in an interesting way. The entire book is of her taking from others what she can, with very little giving back, except to her generous neighbor, Lupe, and even in that relationship it doesn't feel as if she's really able to be humanly touched. Her travel descriptions are pathetically shallow and useless for those of us who are curious and want to know the flavor of places. The texture and description which bring the essence of a place to a reader are mostly absent. The whole book reads as a cryptic list of 'places I've been with the crummy places I stayed while there and how I didn't like it' saga. I would have given the book one star, except Ms. Morris does have some writing ability. I'm very surprised this book is still in print. Ms. Morris has now had a number of other books printed and I for one can't imagine ever picking one of them up after having read this one. If those books are better than this one, Ms. Morris, do yourself a favor and take this one out of circulation.

A travel book can have a dislikable narrator and still be an enjoyable reading experience (i.e. Dervla Murphy's "The Ukimwi Road" - see my review - or any of Paul Theroux's productions). But since "Nothing to Declare" is more of an "inner journey" than a road trip, the author is pretty much the whole show. And by the last page, I was very glad to part company with her.

She spends a lot of time stoically lamenting the cruelty of men - both solo and accompanied by her neighbor, a veritable poster child for oppressed Latina womanhood. But judging by the shabby way Morris treats the Mexican man who dotes on her (i.e. sniffing at his enthusiasm for domestic chores while chasing other men at the drop of a hat), her relationship problems would seem to be mostly her fault.

This sort of hypocrisy appears throughout the book. Although her only reason for coming to Mexico is to escape the shambles of her life north of the border, she sneers at the other expatriates living in San Miguel - "writers and painters, or so they call themselves", "losers", "mediocre Americans". She blithely claims to be in contact with ghosts and prefers not to waste her palm-reading ability (!) on the unworthy, yet wishes a New Age healer she consults would "skip the mumbo jumbo".

I won't deny the author's writing skills succeeded in holding one's interest. And judging by the comments here (and the fact that it's still in print after a decade - no mean feat), more than a few people have responded to this book. But I won't be travelling with Mary Morris again.

I was not so impressed with this novel and felt that the author was too caught up in her own drama to take the reader on an interesting voyage with her. It was a decent read, but I can't say that I would highly recommend it. To read a great book about a woman traveling, check out Rita Goldman Gelman.