The Discipline of Geography, or, A Little Fry and Parker

Stephen Fry in America by Stephen Fry (HarperCollins, 2008) 313pp.: ill., maps; 25cm.

Map Addict: A Tale of Obsession, Fudge & the Ordnance Survey by Mike Parker (Collins, 2009) 330pp.: ill., maps; 19.5cm.

Here are two books whose narratives spring from an internal compass rose; narratives that follow their own cardinal points in an organic way in that each comes from a life-long fascination, one with America, and one with maps. Both books are well-written, funny and informative, and both are by residents of the UK who have had their hand in comedy at one time or another. Both authors have also been involved in writing and hosting documentaries on various subjects. Hmm, the plot thickens. Who knows, they may even have shared an elevator. Breathed the same air.

1. Stephen Fry in America:

It might be difficult to find someone who has not heard of Stephen Fry. He's even on the cover of the Video Collectibles catalog where you can order an alarm clock with his mellifluous voice proffering choice phrases to bring you to consciousness. Or you could order the latest DVD of Kingdom in which he portrays the warm and sympathetic solicitor Peter Kingdom ever calming the waters of chaos around him. Yes, from Blackadder to A Little Fry and Laurie, to Jeeves and Wooster and much before and much after, Fry is quite simply a household name. Well, almost.

I realise that Stephen Fry's book is perhaps overshadowed by his BBC film documentary of the same name, and I realise that perhaps more people have viewed the television series than have read the book, and I realise that, unfortunately, I cannot offer comparative insights for I have yet to see the BBC television documentary and therefore I may seem ironically unqualified to mention this book. Well, sod that, I'll give it a go.

If his father had accepted a teaching job at Princeton, Stephen Fry says he could have ended up a Steve instead, hence his early fascination with the United States and his phantom American doppelganger.

Among the many photographs in the book, there is a two page spread of Stephen Fry driving with seemingly unbridled spirit--to borrow a phrase--his iconic London Taxi Cab across the South Dakota Badlands; I can't tell if both hands are on the wheel or whether he was ogling his iPhone for a compass reading, but a London taxi cab in the American wilderness is a lovely juxtaposition.

From the eastern-most point of Eastport Maine to the northern-most point of Barrow, Alaska, all the way to the southern and western-most point of the cooling lava fields of Kilauea in Hawaii, his sympathetic and understandably selective rambling across the vast continent is a delight. It includes the mystery of 'hoosier', the loquacity of Ted Turner, a castle in Kansas and a great deal more. It is a fun book which made me realise how very different and diverse the States truly are. A book which had me dreaming of a road trip myself, albeit one at the helm of one of those luxurious motor homes. (My relatives in California need not worry, the likelihood of such a trip is imminently unforeseeable.) Fry's eloquent wit and writing style is present and there is a genuine interest and fascination with Americans and the American way of life. On a number of occasions, he finds himself in a location where he imagines he could live and be content. This coffee-table sized book is well illustrated and includes additional gazetteer-like facts. A very good companion to the television series. I think.

2. Map Addict: a Tale of Obsession, Fudge & the Ordnance Survey by Mike Parker:

Like most youngsters, I spent a fair amount of time ensconced in an atlas, fascinated by exotic place names, geographical landmarks, and colourful land formations. As for maps, it would have been those taken from my father's collection of National Geographics, large scale maps for specific countries. But maps for directional use were never of interest to me for they were associated with being lost on family holidays with all the stress and angst that went with that scenario. Mike Parker, however, has been a devotee of maps from an early age and his persistent interest has made him somewhat of a specialist in this area.

Map Addict is a well-written and funny book. Parker incorporates memoir, travel narrative, and a basic historical overview of maps in the United Kingdom--specifically the Ordnance Survey Maps. From his early love of the children's books by Malcolm Saville which had maps more realistic than those found in Arthur Ransome, to his ever expanding collection of Ordnance Survey maps, we journey with Mike Parker and share his fascination with all things cartographic.

It is not a dry subject. There is much humour to be found. A requisite chapter all about odd place names and locales that have erotic references is both amusing and informative--chalk landscape figures are involved. There is a wonderfully amusing chapter about maps and religion and specifically interesting is the planned city of Milton Keynes, where Parker has a rather startling interview with a security guard. There is an interesting chapter concerning the power politics of positioning the Prime Meridian. A chapter devoted to the fascination of borders and boundaries such as Baarle in Belgium, and other places in Europe as well as the border problem of certain counties in England, like ones that led to the fate of Rutland. There is of course an excellent chapter on the Ordnance Survey maps, and a great deal more including the portions of travel narrative dealing with his European excursions, mainly his visit to Yugoslavia and Albania. I learned a great deal from this book and an enjoyable time was had.

Now, there is that reference to "Fudge" in his subtitle, and I remember happening across the word only once in the book, and yet, though I could have sworn I made a note of it, it is not to be found. When I checked the index, it was not listed as it might have been between "Fucking, Austria 243--44" and "Fylingdales radar station, Yorkshire 170" but I am pretty sure it was not in reference to an edible sweet.

Paradise With Serpents: Travels in the Lost World of Paraguay

Paradise With Serpents: Travels in the Lost World of Paraguay by Robert Carver (Harper Perennial) 2007. 376pp. map.

Being more of an arm-chair traveller, there are better odds of my winning a major lottery than ever setting foot in Paraguay. After reading Paradise with Serpents: Travels in the Lost World of Paraguay, I imagine that could be said for the majority of the world's population. A troubled country which bewilders, saddens, and makes one shake one's head in disbelief.

Paraguay: Shaped like an internal organ of an indeterminate mammal, landlocked and located in the nether region of South America. That about summed up my knowledge of Paraguay prior to my having read Robert Carver's entertaining and perceptive travel narrative. I couldn't even recall the name of the capital. (Deceptione kept coming to mind, but that was obviously wrong.) My knowledge of the rest of South America is fairly sound in a basic sort of way: countries, capitals, history, landscape, music, literature, people, culture, but for some reason Paraguay had not entered my realm of knowledge. I felt less self-conscious about this ignorance when I read of Carver's experience while waiting in Sao Paulo for the flight into Paraguay: he noticed that, though there were newspapers and magazines from the U.S., Mexico, and numerous South American countries, there was nothing about Paraguay to be found in them. In addition, there were no periodicals from this isolated country to be found, and he comments that his "destination was as invisible as it had been in England."

Carver has done his research and, like most travel narratives, there is a mixture of information and experience. He actually begins the book with an autobiographical tale of a distant relative whose extraordinary life and disappearance in the wilds of South America is indeed stranger than fiction. This relative is one of the reasons he had wanted to visit Paraguay. It seems Robert Carver is the type of travel writer looking for the unusual experience. His first book, The Accursed Mountains: Journeys in Albania, lays the groundwork for his visit to the equally uninviting destination of Paraguay, a dangerous and disagreeable country, and therefore a desirable spot for such a writer. Carver's travel narrative is in the English tradition of the individualist adventurer seeking the unusual, the anomalous. Most of Paraguay seems rather anomalous. Then again, perhaps anomalies are relative, for he finds that Paraguayans are shocked at how many laws, orders and strictures European countries experience. (It would be interesting to read a travel narrative of a true Paraguayan who experienced Europe.) The humour, at times dark, is generally evoked by the absurdity of the extreme situations he learns of, or witnesses, and the rather stressful situations in which he finds himself, which often involve either nature: vampire bats, piranhas, crocodiles, mosquitoes--night-time and day-time-- and the dreaded candiru fish.; or humans: police, thieves, muggers, smugglers, murderous drunks swinging machetes, and mad gun-waving Nazis.

But he does meet various interesting people who are the sources of much general and detailed social and historical information on the culture and history of the country, such as the youthful Welsh Patagonian Argentinian, Alejandro Caradoc Evans--the name clues us in to his character--a type of youthful remittance man exiled in Ascuncion, critical of everything Paraguayan, and eventually, everything South American. We learn of the maté addicted male population, the failure of the banking systems, the general corruption and criminality of the political elite, and the utter hopelessness that faces the average Paraguayan every day. Firearms are as common and visible as cell-phones in our world--perhaps even more common. Along with present day realities, Carver weaves into the narrative interesting historical information about Paraguay's past, such as the horrors and atrocities of the past regimes, the British involvement in the country, the Jesuits attempts to convert the Guarani indians, and the Australian attempts to build Utopian communities. His ventures into the interior lead him to many encounters with smugglers and odd characters but also with positive encounters such as with the Mennonite community of Filadelphia where the prosperous nature of their town and area make him feel as if he was in another country altogether.

Carver winds the story up to high suspense as the impending political unrest and stress drive him to the extreme feelings of panic, wondering why he ever set foot in the country, and we are also glad to be with him on the plane fleeing the country, and thinking, with a shake of the head, a book is about as close as one would want to get to Paraguay.

Ghost Train to the Eastern Star

Paul Theroux - Ghost Train to the Eastern Star: On the Tracks of the Great Railway Bazaar (2008) (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt) (McClelland and Stewart).

Beyond the Oxus
In the autumn of 1934, the 27 year old Peter Fleming, adventurer, journalist, travel writer--and elder brother of the yet to be famous Ian--embarked on a trip from Krasnovodsk on the Caspian Sea coast, to Samarkand: a three or four day journey through the deserts of Central Asia aboard the Trans-Caspian Railway--the "express" train. His brief account of this rough trip through parts of the Soviet world--old Transoxiana--was later given as a BBC radio piece and collected in his With the Guards to Mexico! (1957). His descriptions of the conditions of this train and his co-travellers is strangely parallel to the experiences of Paul Theroux as he travelled the Bukhara Express to Samarkand in the year 2006, recounted in his latest travel book, Ghost Train to the Eastern Star: on the Tracks of the Great Railway Bazaar. Certainly there have been many historical changes over the 70 years, but it seems the conditions of the trains--possibly the same rolling stock--and the conditions of the co-passengers have changed very little. Considering that Paul Theroux ended up having nine people crammed into a four-person compartment for the over-nighter is perhaps a sign that conditions have actually deteriorated. But, as he has said, "luxury is the enemy of observation." I have to tip my imaginary Tilly to Paul. He was 65 years old, and this section of his trip was but a fraction of the journey which had him retracing the steps of his 1973 adventure by train through Asia and back, The Great Railway Bazaar (1975), in an effort to revisit the ghost of his younger self, and to see what has changed, and what has remained the same.

Beyond South London
Paul Theroux was born in 1941 and grew up with his large family in Medford, Massachussetts. By the 1960s, a well-informed, intelligent young man, he had joined the Peace Corps and was off to teach in Africa and later in South East Asia, taking opportunities to travel when he could. By 1973, in his early thirties, he was living the exile's life in London with his wife, a BBC producer, and their two young children. He was a seasoned professional writer by this time, with six published novels under his belt, one more set for the printers, and one in the making, plus a book of criticism, many "pieces" of journalism, and many, many book reviews. What possessed him to leave this professional existence behind for a four months journey of adventure and discomfort? (Sitting in a room for most of the day writing sentences may have had something to do with it.) Perhaps he had reached a point in his life, an arrival if you will, which rubbed up against a need for a grand departure: a need to abandon the static position in favour of one of locomotion; a need for reality in lieu of imagination; a need for conversation rather than soliloquy; a need to throw himself into the world and let the depths of possibility help keep him afloat. A romantic suggestion. Akin, perhaps, to Stein's dictum in Joseph Conrad's Lord Jim. However, he has written that he wanted to make more money--a refrain amongst writers--and he received his first advance for what would become The Great Railway Bazaar, a book that became a best seller. It was a pivotal time in his life. He succeeded in forging an innovative template for travel writing--which others were to follow--and he used this template creatively to write further books based on further travels such as The Old Patagonian Express, The Kingdom by the Sea, Sailing Through China, Riding the Iron Rooster, The Happy Isles of Oceania, The Pillars of Hercules and Dark Star Safari, experiences that also helped fuel his prolific output of novels, novellas and short stories.

With Theroux's revisitation in 2006, his retracing the route of his youthful journey, he offers revelations of his personal life concerning not only the present, but of the past as well. Seeing memory itself as a ghost train, he fills in the backcloth to the first journey with the personal context he did not reveal the first time round. The ghost theme plays throughout the book, rather like a musical leitmotif. Many of the train trips are night trains to dream-like destinations: Night Train to Baku: the Trans-Caucasian, Ghost Train to Mandalay, or Night Train to Kyoto: the Twilight Express, and Theroux often muses philosophical about travel itself, what he refers to as his Tao of Travel. The archetypal structure to his trip, the hero's circular journey, is lightly played upon in his present book, his wife playing the part of Penelope, knitting while she worries over her husband's return, while he, an older Odysseus, always travelling alone, benefits from the openess of strangers. As a reader, I felt like a ghost hovering over his shoulder, listening in on conversations with multi-charactered humanity, and attentively following his observations and gleanings on the overland route.

With this contrast between youth and age, between the first and second journey, we have the comparitive contrasts of countries and cultures--the historical context. In the first railway trip, he travelled through Iran and Afghanistan, but for this trip he had to follow a northern route through Georgia, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan and we see such a striking contrast of these countries and their oppressive governments, with India where every rickshaw driver has a cell-phone and there is a positive and polite work ethic, though one challenged by over-population and poverty. Theroux provides us with glimpses of the "dystopia of Turkmenistan, melancholy rural India, the open prison of Burma, the social laboratory of Singapore", and a great deal more. And he has his requisite meetings with fellow authors, this time Orhan Pamuk in Turkey, Arthur C. Clarke in Sri Lanka--an aged oddity--Haruki Murakami in Japan--a fascinating outsider and observer of his own society--and his good friend Pico Iyer in Japan as well. And there are the many characters he encounters such as Mr. Karpoorchand on the train to Jaipur with his unusual retirement plan, Mr. Kumara on the train to Kandy who reads Theroux's palm, Oo-Nawng, the rickshaw driver in Mandalay who Theroux befriends and reaches out to, and the Bernard family at Candacraig, a small hotel in Maymyo, Burma, the relatives of the Mr. Bernard he had written about in the first book and many, many more. Theroux has a keen eye for interesting characters, and this is one of the great strengths of his travel narratives, the interesting characters he discovers and brings to the page. His well-burnished ability for "casting strangers for roles in my narrative" as he puts it in his most recent book, seems almost an innate talent for observing human nature.

The opening of his first travel narrative The Great Railway Bazaar, reads very much like a novel due to his observations of character. Leaving London in 1973, he finds himself bunked together on the delapidated Orient Express with a Mr. R. Duffill, a rather odd man who reminded me immediately of Anthony Burgess's creation, Enderby, the oh so idiosyncratic poet. Poor old Duffill, with his essence of Enderby, his name becoming a verb, duffilled in Domodossola, watching in stilted horror as the train left the station without him. And of course there was Molesworth and his mineral water. Theroux reveals the true name of the man who was Molesworth in his latest book. One could do worse than be cast by Theroux. If one made it to the page, one could dine out on it for quite some time.

Though he mentions it is common to hear of young upstarts trying to make a name for themselves by retracing the footsteps of famous journeys made in the past, it is not common for writers to retrace their own footsteps. It seems Paul Theroux has managed, once again, to find his way home in an original way.

New Note: from Bill Thompson's Eye On Books: an audio interview with Paul Theroux:

Further audio interviews can be found here.