It feels harder to write a review for a compilation such as this, because there are thirty stories by thirty authors. Each writer comes from a different background, a different culture, a different point of view, and each story strives to highlight one outstanding moment in someone's life far away. All the technical elements that I usually critique seem to be of lesser importance and even a bit trite here. Grammar, voice and narration, the three elements necessary in travel writing - and any type of writing - seem dwarfed by the meaningful experiences in these people's lives.
Each story is like a sip at a tea tasting ceremony. Every one tastes different, and satisfying in its own way. These are like stories told around a campfire, but committed to the text on the page and the reader's third eye. Travelers are by nature restless, and these experiences are little bits for that restlessness to snack on, before they continue on their journeys. As the Eurythmnics sang, Sweet dreams are made of these/ I travel the world and the seven seas/ everybody's looking for something... All sorts of people, all sorts of lives.
I may also be a bit in awe because of my own naivete. This is my first experience with travel writing as a genre, after all. Traveling is something I romanticize and want to do more of, but have not had the resources or chance to do yet. Someone else may find this volume not to his or her taste. I personally approve of the decisions made by the three editors who compiled this book, and feel that the person who wrote the Introduction knew how to brew a good literary appetizer.
As a Asian person, I was surprised there wasn't a story about China, but given that the international politics surrounding that country are messy to say the least, perhaps I shouldn't have been surprised. The journalists, scientists and various other visitors have been imprisoned, after all. It makes sense that a compilation about travel writing wouldn't want to get too political. In fact, the only remotely political piece here was about the city in which Stalin was born, and the later hostile Russian takeover of the nearby country Georgia.
The one that made the least impression was "Crazy Diamond," mainly because that story involved summarized conversations and reasons for leaving home to find oneself amongst strangers. My theory on this subject is that a person generally knows him or herself already, without having to escape across the world to be amongst strangers, to see how one behaves. My theory revolves around the idea that others' expectations cannot make up the individual's identity. Then again, that's me - if you ask my Communist parents, you would get an entirely different story.
So at the end of the day, this is most definitely one of the most interactive books I have ever read, simply because it's pretty much a given that everyone would respond to it differently, according to their own points of view. I feel that this compilation is mainly for a white, upper-middle class educated audience, but also that it's more interesting if you read it and you are not of this background. Hopefully, that is not a racist thing for me to say.
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