Tourists with Typewriters: Critical Reflections on Contemporary Travel Writing [Paperback]

Patrick Holland (Author), Graham Huggan (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0472087061 | ISBN-13: 978-0472087068 | Publication Date: November 7, 2000

The first extensive survey of contemporary travel writing, Tourists with Typewriters offers a series of challenging and provocative critical insights into a wide range of travel narratives written in English after the Second World War. The book focuses in particular on contemporary travel writers such as Jan Morris, Peter Matthiessen, V. S. Naipaul, Barry Lopez, Mary Morris, Paul Theroux, Peter Mayle, and the late Bruce Chatwin. It examines some of the reasons for travel writing's enduring popularity, and for its particular appeal to readers--many of them also travelers--in the present.

The book maps new terrain in a growing area of critical study. Although critical of travel writing's complacency and its often unacknowledged ethnocentrism, the book recognizes its importance as both a literary and cultural form. While travel writing at its worst emerges as a crude expression of economic advantage, at its best it becomes a subtle instrument of cultural self-perception, a barometer for changing views of "other" (i.e., foreign, non-Western) cultures, and a trigger for the information circuits that tap us into the wider world.

Tourists with Typewriters gauges both the best and worst in contemporary travel writing, capturing the excitement of this most volatile--and at times infuriating--of literary genres. The book will appeal to general readers interested in a closer examination of travel writing and to academic readers in disciplines such as literary/cultural studies, geography, history, anthropology, and tourism studies.

"An eminently readable and informative study. It breathes tolerance and intelligence. It is critically perceptive and very au courant. It raises issues (coloniality, postmodernity, gender. . . ) and discusses books that readers of many different stripes will want to find out about." --Ross Chambers, University of Michigan

Patrick Holland, Associate Professor of English, University of Guelph, was born in New Zealand and educated in England, Australia, and Canada. Graham Huggan, Professor of English, University of Munich, was born in Hong Kong and educated in England and in British Columbia.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Travel writing has become a commercial success, and the popularity of the genre has increased with the global spread of tourism. Holland (English, Univ. of Guelph, Ontario) and Huggan (English, Univ. of Munich) bring a literary background to their study, which covers a selection of travel narratives written after World War II with a focus on writers they consider to be "specialists" in the genre (Bruce Chatwin, Paul Theroux, V.S. Naipaul, and others). They maintain that travel writing is a form of elitism written predominantly by white, middle-class, European American males. The chapters of the book are divided in a useful and consistent format by discipline, including history, geography, culture, gender issues, and future itineraries. The authors conclude their study with a review of the likely role of travel writing in the future. Though the audience for this book may be limited, it would be a strong addition to any collection of literary criticism.?Cynde Bloom Lahey, New Canaan Lib., CT
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Paperback: 280 pages
• Publisher: University of Michigan Press (November 7, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0472087061
• ISBN-13: 978-0472087068
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,568,124 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Tourists with Typewriters, November 19, 2007

By 

Stephen Balbach (Ashton, MD United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Tourists with Typewriters: Critical Reflections on Contemporary Travel Writing (Paperback)

Travel "literature" traditionally has not been taken very seriously in academia, and so the authors (Professors at Harvard) have undertaken a scholarly examination of some popular post-WWII authors and works, while trying, they say, not to be polemical. To give a sense of what kind of book this is, here are two illustrative quotes: "Travel has recently emerged as a crucial epistemological category for the displacement of normative values and homogenizing, essentialist views." If your eyes have not glazed over yet, try this one:

[Quote]"At first blush, it certainly seems there ought to be an affinity between travel writing and postmodernism; for among its many, not infrequently contradictory features, postmodern theory foregrounds the instability of the human subject, shifting ontologies of space and place, and the undermining of linear history, which characteristically assumes a fractured or palimpsestic structure."[End Quote]

This is the kind of writing that gives scholarly books a bad reputation, at least among general readers without a degree in literature. Yet for the intrepid adventurer willing to put in the work, there is gold to be found within. The book is structured into four main chapters, along with a meaty Prologue, Introduction and Postscript that summarize and expand on the core ideas.

Chapter 1 deals with colonial myths still lurking in modern travel literature, and the post-colonial "countertravel" writers who are not white, middle-class western males. A number of examples are examined including the "anti-racist" works of Caryl Phillip's The European Tribe and Jamaica Kincaid's A Small Place. The "resistance" work of Salman Rushdie's The Jaguar Smile. The "counter-Orientalist" narratives such as by Amitav Ghosh's In an Antique Land and Vikram Seth's From Heaven Lake: Travels Through Sinkiang and Tibet. And "anti-Imperialist" works such as Pico Iyer's Video Night in Kathmandu.

Chapter 2 discusses the concept of geographic "zones", or how regions have travel mythologies built up by previous travel writers; new writers either attempt to re-discover what they pre-suppose to be there ("the dark heart of Africa"), or attempt to tear down the myths, in both cases reinforcing and continuing the mythologies. The chapter examines the zones of of the "tropical" (Congo and Amazon); the "Oriental" (Japan); the "exotic" (South Seas); and the "liminal" (Arctic). Within each zone there are 3 or 4 case authors and works discussed.

Chapter 3 looks at women and gay male writers as alternative voices. Chapter 4 examines hybrids of travel literature such as "virtual travel" and the "eco-traveler" - some of the best examples of the later include David Quammen's The Song of the Dodo, Peter Matthiessen's Cloud Forest and Barry Lopez' Arctic Dreams.

Overall I learned a lot, even though certain passages were opaque with academic verbosity. It has made me examine my notions about the trustworthiness of travel literature as an alternative to travel; the value of travel itself and the hidden complacency (co-dependence) between the travel industry and travel writing; my own inherit prejudices as a white, middle-class male and the mythologies that travel literature re-enforce; to expand my horizons on what kind of travel literature I choose to read; and helped place many well known authors and works in better historical context.

1 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fabulous book, February 14, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Tourists with Typewriters: Critical Reflections on Contemporary Travel Writing (Hardcover)

Incisive, educated, fascinating. Great reading!