What I Just Read: Dyer, Perrottet, Dalrymple, Tayler, Buruma, Stone, et al

Part of the task of being a good writer is being a good reader, though at times one has to strike a balance between the two activities. Last week I tallied my recent readings, and I realized that I’ve read 20 books in the weeks since I’ve returned to Thailand. This is far above my average, and I think it has something to do with the fact that I’ve begun writing my second book: Reading all those books has been a form of psychic preparation — but also procrastination. Indeed, there’s a time for cutting bait and a time for fishing, and it’s time for me to start fishing (so to speak).

The reading has been enjoyable, however, and here’s a rundown of the travel and expatriate titles I’ve read in recent weeks. (These are in addition to the travel books I’ve already commented on.)

Travel Books

Yoga for People Who Can’t Be Bothered to Do It, by Geoff Dyer
A collection of Geoff Dyer’s postmodern travels in places like Thailand, Cambodia, Bali, Amsterdam, New Orleans, Detroit, Nevada, Rome, and Libya. Dyer has a strikingly original narrative voice — an ability to capture the fleeting emotional beauty of certain moments on the road — and that alone is reason for travel-lit enthusiasts to read this book. The simultaneous charm and weakness of Yoga is that Dyer is an awful traveler — spending much of his time doing drugs, haplessly wandering tourist sites, and feeling sorry for himself. Of course, this is how many people actually travel, and — at his best (in New Orleans, Koh Phangan, and Amsterdam) — Dyer spins tales that read like short stories, as strikingly memorable as Hunter S. Thompson’s drug-fueled misadventures. At his worst, however (in Angkor Wat, Magnus Lepta, or Bali), Dyer attempts to make up for his travel shortcomings with quasi-philosophical observations that seem to have been paraphrased wholesale from Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities. Nonetheless, it’s definitely worth checking out.

Route 66 A.D. (also known as Pagan Holiday), by Tony Perrottet
Using books like Pausanias’s Description of Greece as a guide, Perrottet traces the trail of the ancient Roman tourists through Italy, Greece, Turkey, and Egypt. There isn’t much adventure or discovery in the process, but that’s exactly the point: Perrottet points out that the ancient Romans were herd-like tourists, so he doesn’t deviate much from their well-worn routes. Thus, the fascination in this book comes from Perrottet’s research, which reveals striking parallels in the way we travel now to the way Romans traveled nearly 2000 years ago.

Facing the Congo, by Jeffrey Tayler
Frustrated with life at age 33, Tayler decided to travel up the Congo River in Zaire, then paddle back down by pirogue. His resulting adventure is ultimately a nerve-wracking failure, but Tayler’s account draws you into the experience with vivid, unromanticized honesty — and you feel the effect of the swarming flies, bloodthirsty mosquitoes, whirlpools, torrents, stomach sickness, and corrupt officials that come with the adventure. Amidst this, the readers are drawn into Tayler’s tenuous relationship with the locals, who can’t understand why he’s undertaking his dangerous adventure. “I had exploited Zaire as a playground,” Tayler admits, “on which to solve my own rich-boy existential dilemmas.” Excellent armchair reading for those who’d rather not tackle the Congo themselves.

From the Holy Mountain, by William Dalrymple
Beginning in Istanbul and ending in Egypt, this book recounts Dalrymple’s journey through the shrinking Christian communities of the Middle East. A great example of travel writing that is both scholarly and engaging: the author mixes deep historical research with sharp reportage on the tenuous life of Eastern Christians in these mainly Muslim lands. Dalrymple is one of the best contemporary travel scribes out there, hailing from a long British tradition of serious travel writing; you always learn a lot when you read his travel tales.

God’s Dust, by Ian Buruma
This collection of essays about the Far East — Burma, Thailand, the Philippines, Singapore, Malaysia, South Korea, Taiwan, Japan — is a late-1980’s Asia-travel classic, along the lines of Pico Iyer’s Video Night in Kathmandu. Some of the essays have become a bit dated, but it’s still required reading for anyone planning on spending an extended period of time in East Asia.

Expatriate Novels

Paris Trance, by Geoff Dyer
The story of two love affairs between four expatriates in Paris. And, as well-worn as this kind of novel sounds, Dyer does a nice job of examining intimacy, friendship, happiness, love, and the dull compulsion to reject it all. No doubt largely based on Dyer’s own experiences, this book shows how fiction can tackle certain aspects of reality in a way that straight memoir might not be able to.

Mr. Foreigner, by Matthew Kneale
Originally published in 1987 (and no doubt reprinted on the strengths of Kneale’s newest novel), this is a disappointing expat novel about a Western English teacher in Tokyo who finds himself bamboozled into marriage with his Japanese girlfriend. It’s somewhat structured like a mystery story, but the real mystery is how it got published in the first place. Shallow characters, shallow story; it plays out like something you might read (or decide not to read) deep in the recesses of someone’s expat homepage.

Damascus Gate, by Robert Stone
An adventure-romance story involving a community of expatriate journalists and religious extremists in Jerusalem. A vivid evocation of expat life in that amazing city (it made me want to go back there, despite all the recent violence) — though one would have to actually visit Jerusalem to understand all the references (particularly the obscure religious ones). Plotted like an airport thriller, but deeply intelligent.