Many of my favorites are focused on roadtrips (a passion of mine), and that interest in turn is influenced by having read William Least Heat Moon's Blue Highways when I was in high school. There are big names of the genre, like Travels with Charley (which I've never read) and smaller names, like Highway 50 by James Lilliefors. Some are out of print, like "New Mexico, New Mexico", which I absolutely adore and has tones of Bill Bryson's dry humor, but it's buried in the library and I'm too lazy right now. (I can dig it out, if you're curious.)
A'course, I suppose you can't mention this entire genre without mentioning one of the bigger names -- Bill Bryson -- though I'm told that in some of his books, his fact-checking is either too lax or he's just too hyperbolic. (I've been told his book on Australia is particularly so.)
Although for the ultimate (if historical) renditions on America, you have to read Mark Twain's Roughing It. There's a reason the man is considered one of the greatest American humorists. He's got something to say about everything, I swear.
Harder to find, but worth it when I can: stories written by non-Americans (as opposed to Americans raised outside of wherever they're writing about), like Ilf and Petrov's American Road Trip: The 1935 Travelogue of Two Soviet Writers which I came across at the library once and wish I'd gotten a copy of, but never seem to remember when I'm actually buying/looking at books. Figures. And then there's Road Scholar: Coast to Coast Late in the Century, written by a coworker of one of my closest friends, Andrei Codrescu (born in Transylvania, came to US and worked for NPR). I adore his voice. Less friendly of a voice is Joseph O'Connor's travelogue, Sweet Liberty; Dublin-born & -raised, he comes to America to visit all towns in the US called "Dublin". If you don't mind a bit of snark in your observations, that is. And of course, Ciao, America by (journalist, not attache, my bad) Beppe Severgnini. He also wrote another about life in London, but I haven't read that one yet.
Then there are the returnees, like Afshin Molavi's Persian Pilgrimages: Journeys Across Iran. His family left Iran twenty years ago, and he goes back as an adult. And there are the expat stories, like Bill Holm's Coming Home Crazy, which is a collection of essays from his time in China. And then there are the inveterate travellers who never seem to stay in one place for very long, and seem to come at everything from the position of outsider (though I believe Bryson is one of the few that will turn the lens back on his own culture) -- like Pico Iyer, who's written a dozen or so (?) books on all sorts of places. Iyer's kind of hit-or-miss, though; parts of Sun After Dark were just flawless, and other essays... lots of flaws. I'm not sure what Iyer's story is, but when it comes to stranger-in-a-strange-land, I tend to swing more towards writers with anthropology backgrounds (that is: trained to see and question their own privilege's influence or impact), like Rosemary Mahoney. She's not perfect, and I enjoyed the questions she raises (and refuses to give pat answers for) in Whoredom in Kimmage (women in ireland), but I enjoyed Early Arrival of Dreams (urban China) better.
Unfortunately, what seems to dominate the travelogue field (or what gets stocked on shelves?) are stories written by middle-class, white, American/Anglo women who randomly decide to pick up and travel to some exotic clime. Or travel and keep travelling. They're almost never trained in anthropology, or even in realizing the observer influences the observed, hell, trained in anything, it seems. Privilege is so rarely addressed, and instead many of them seem to treat the world as though it... well, not that it owes them a favor, but as though it's just one big honking pearl and they're just traipsing through, no privilege to see here, but aren't the natives just the friendliest bunch? Such sweethearts. (Makes me want to choke, or choke the author, or failing that, just throw the book.)
It is really, really hard to find travelogues written about anywhere (in English, or translated) by women of color from non-USian cultures. Let alone from PoC women about the US itself. I'd give my eyeteeth for a female, English-translated, chromatic, dryly amused (often at the observer as well as the observed) voice like Severgnini or Bryson. I know they're out there; there's plenty of 'em posting on LJ/DW.
One I'm waiting to read once CP's done with it is George McDonald Fraser's memoirs of coming to Hollywood to write screenplays for Bond movies: Light's on at Signpost. Yes, the author of the Flashman novels! Same dry wit, same tongue-in-cheek slightly grouchy but amused tone that I also love in many of Eco's essays. (Another one from Fraser -- a war memoir -- is Quartered Safe Out Here, which is a recollection of his time in Burma during WWII.)
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Date: 28 Jun 2011 09:22 pm (UTC)A'course, I suppose you can't mention this entire genre without mentioning one of the bigger names -- Bill Bryson -- though I'm told that in some of his books, his fact-checking is either too lax or he's just too hyperbolic. (I've been told his book on Australia is particularly so.)
Although for the ultimate (if historical) renditions on America, you have to read Mark Twain's Roughing It. There's a reason the man is considered one of the greatest American humorists. He's got something to say about everything, I swear.
Harder to find, but worth it when I can: stories written by non-Americans (as opposed to Americans raised outside of wherever they're writing about), like Ilf and Petrov's American Road Trip: The 1935 Travelogue of Two Soviet Writers which I came across at the library once and wish I'd gotten a copy of, but never seem to remember when I'm actually buying/looking at books. Figures. And then there's Road Scholar: Coast to Coast Late in the Century, written by a coworker of one of my closest friends, Andrei Codrescu (born in Transylvania, came to US and worked for NPR). I adore his voice. Less friendly of a voice is Joseph O'Connor's travelogue, Sweet Liberty; Dublin-born & -raised, he comes to America to visit all towns in the US called "Dublin". If you don't mind a bit of snark in your observations, that is. And of course, Ciao, America by (journalist, not attache, my bad) Beppe Severgnini. He also wrote another about life in London, but I haven't read that one yet.
Then there are the returnees, like Afshin Molavi's Persian Pilgrimages: Journeys Across Iran. His family left Iran twenty years ago, and he goes back as an adult. And there are the expat stories, like Bill Holm's Coming Home Crazy, which is a collection of essays from his time in China. And then there are the inveterate travellers who never seem to stay in one place for very long, and seem to come at everything from the position of outsider (though I believe Bryson is one of the few that will turn the lens back on his own culture) -- like Pico Iyer, who's written a dozen or so (?) books on all sorts of places. Iyer's kind of hit-or-miss, though; parts of Sun After Dark were just flawless, and other essays... lots of flaws. I'm not sure what Iyer's story is, but when it comes to stranger-in-a-strange-land, I tend to swing more towards writers with anthropology backgrounds (that is: trained to see and question their own privilege's influence or impact), like Rosemary Mahoney. She's not perfect, and I enjoyed the questions she raises (and refuses to give pat answers for) in Whoredom in Kimmage (women in ireland), but I enjoyed Early Arrival of Dreams (urban China) better.
Unfortunately, what seems to dominate the travelogue field (or what gets stocked on shelves?) are stories written by middle-class, white, American/Anglo women who randomly decide to pick up and travel to some exotic clime. Or travel and keep travelling. They're almost never trained in anthropology, or even in realizing the observer influences the observed, hell, trained in anything, it seems. Privilege is so rarely addressed, and instead many of them seem to treat the world as though it... well, not that it owes them a favor, but as though it's just one big honking pearl and they're just traipsing through, no privilege to see here, but aren't the natives just the friendliest bunch? Such sweethearts. (Makes me want to choke, or choke the author, or failing that, just throw the book.)
It is really, really hard to find travelogues written about anywhere (in English, or translated) by women of color from non-USian cultures. Let alone from PoC women about the US itself. I'd give my eyeteeth for a female, English-translated, chromatic, dryly amused (often at the observer as well as the observed) voice like Severgnini or Bryson. I know they're out there; there's plenty of 'em posting on LJ/DW.
One I'm waiting to read once CP's done with it is George McDonald Fraser's memoirs of coming to Hollywood to write screenplays for Bond movies: Light's on at Signpost. Yes, the author of the Flashman novels! Same dry wit, same tongue-in-cheek slightly grouchy but amused tone that I also love in many of Eco's essays. (Another one from Fraser -- a war memoir -- is Quartered Safe Out Here, which is a recollection of his time in Burma during WWII.)