Reflections at the bookstore’s travel writing section
(Picture credit: Flickr/derekb)
This past weekend I spent a few hours nosing around the travel section at a local bookstore. With nothing much better to do in another steamy Malaysian Sunday afternoon, I got easily attracted by the air-conditioned comfort of the Temple of Vanity (i.e. one of the abundant malls). I went to the bookstore and started thumbing through the latest travel writing on offer, including magazines and a few books.
After less than half hour, I disappointingly moved to the Fiction’s rack looking for improved browsing pleasure.
Why? I give you a few quick reasons:
1. Most travel writers are too self-centered
I do not understand why I should get excited about “traveling” to a place, when on the contrary I am forced to discover it through the biased perspective of writers who postpone their own cultures ahead of others’, and essentially tell stories about themselves, and not their travels.
2. Too much personal detail is irrelevant
Sometimes telling the story of how you clogged a toilet in Beijing when a line of 20 was waiting outside can be fun. Nevertheless, most of the times a good narrative should be about the country you visit, and not the status of its toilets, your messed- up stomach or whatever else related to your bottom.
3. It should not be about the writer, but the others
Ok, you are surprised about some of the local customs and you want to describe your feelings. Perfect. But what do you expect the locals to think when you arrive in your strange clothes, brandishing an expensive camera they possibly have only seen at the movies, and try to “go local”? I wish someone published what they wrote about it.
4. Good travel writing should read like anthropology
For sure, a writer may not be using a travel grant to spend one year nosing deep into the mountains of Pakistan doing research. Still, I believe it should be a writer’s duty to bring the places he writes about to life using thick descriptions of their peoples, environs and traditions. I don’t see this very often, unfortunately.
5. Stereotypes are only OK in small doses
Travel writers often abuse stereotypical views of countries, peoples and places. As much as it can be difficult to get that “different angle”, I would love to see more engaging, thought-provoking descriptions and prose that does not jump to conclusions too fast.
Do you have any other ideas to continue my list of observations? Please comment!
April 11th, 2013 at 4:38 pm
Good list. Also, if the writing is to be funny (which I enjoy) it needs to be over-the-top funny. Half-hearted attempts at humor just doesn’t work as I recently pointed out in a book I reviewed about canoeing the James River.
April 12th, 2013 at 4:35 am
You miss the point completely. A travel GUIDE would/should provide you with practical and factual information about visiting a destination. Travel WRITING is about the experiences of the author in the place in question – naturally it will focus on their experiences, their feelings and their perceptions. It isn’t a textbook guide.
I can think of a good title for your next travel post however – Obnoxious Consciousness, by Marco Ferrarese.
April 12th, 2013 at 8:08 am
History and anthropology may make the traveler a more knowledgeable observer, but it is not what readers would read his book for. There is no information about a place that a reader cannot find more fulsomely and accurately and up to date than on the web or in a specialized reference work. Even the best reportage, six months later, reads like an old newspaper. The only value a traveler can add is his own experience and observation. The traveler should be a character in his own story. Travel literature should be literature. It should be as worthwhile to read in ten or twenty years as it is today.
There are silly, inconsequential, quotidian matters in a travelers life that are perfectly appropriate in a blog that will need to be cut out before a trip is ready to go between hard covers. It is often said that the trick of writing is knowing what to leave out.
And since my own stories sometimes come out like Winnie the Pooh at the Temple of Doom, I would hope there is a difference between half-hearted and understated humor. Evelyn Waugh and his young Englishmen hissed at by snakes were certainly able to pull that off.
April 12th, 2013 at 9:04 pm
Thanks for the comments! As I see mixed opinions, I believe that by keeping this track record of “Obnoxious Consciousness” (I agree, really apt description for some of my writing, thanks) at least I can provoke some reflection. Unfortunately, most modern travel writing really lacks it. If I have to be crucified for saying it, cool, let it be. Happy reading, anyone!
April 13th, 2013 at 2:53 am
I have lived in Sihanoukville, Cambodia for the past six years. What images are passing through your mind? Well, if they’re the stereotypical images, you’re not even half right. Some time ago, I read an article in the Sydney Morning Herald that described Sihanoukville as a “ghost town” filled with half completed hotels that looked abandoned. Most of those hotels have been completed and more are being built all the time. More recently, an article in the Phnom Penh Post (of all places) said that boutique resorts were “non-existent” in Sihanoukville. I used that as an opportunity to post a photo of a “non-existent” boutique resort on my blog along with links to several others.
I continually ask myself how travel writers get away with publishing completely uninformed nonsense and think I may have the answer. Stereotypes have a degree of authority. When an editor reads a piece that rings true because they have a stereotypical image of a place in their mind, they assume its authoritative and publish it. The myths/stereotypes are reinforced and the cycle of misinformation continues. What do you think?
May 6th, 2013 at 3:18 pm
Ultra-helpful and inspiring information that I have saved, and am sure to frequently refer to as I am getting set for a long-term trip this month, and correspondly, get busy with a blog that I set-up a while ago but didn’t do anything with it yet.
P.S.: I just started reading your book again today; and not one, but two(!) large planes flew really low over our building as I was reading it – which it is very rare to have ANY on that flight path!