Book Reviews
Woman's Passion for Travel: Reviews "Reading these essays is like sharing a fine bottle of wine with the world's coolest women. With each small sip you share another story--stories so honest, funny, and true that you'll find yourself laughing out loud, or exclaiming, "I know exactly what you mean! More than anthing, these essays by adventurous women of all ages capture the small moments of travel that make it so enriching." For those who've journeyed through the archives of travel writing, one fact quickly emerges: historically, the writings of women travelers were rarely published, whether due to the relative rarity of women adventurers or the unwillingness of publishers to put out their tales. Times have changed, and this book, the second Travelers' Tales collection of stories by women voyagers, is a bold and wonderful statement that women not only are heading out into foreign cultures, often alone, but also that their evocative stories can easily compete with, and frequently outrun, those of men. It's hard to chose a favorite in this collection of 43 pieces written by some well-knowns, such as Frances Mayes, Mary Morris, and Pam Houston, and dozens of promising unknowns: would it be the one about what happens when a letter is delivered to a Venetian stranger, or the simple peace found in a tiny Spanish church, or the adventures of a scorpion collector in Tunisia, or perhaps the wisdom proffered by a boatman in Laos? Is it the encouraging words of older travelers such as the 70-year-old who plunges into Latin America by herself, or the lesson learned of mothers traveling with daughters? Most moving is a haunting tale of an umbrella-bearing stranger in Paris; most disturbing is the story of a health problem brought back from Belize. This is an enchanting collection that leaves one longing for more and will no doubt induce thousands of women to hop up from their chairs and run to the airport. "This powerful treasury captures the very essence of travels' many wonders and propels us to reach for even more of its infinite grace." An exemplary collection of essays, in which women deftly testify to their acts of travel. There is a wide marshaling of sensitivities, concerns, and expectations in these pages, of what foreign travel (which can mean a Californian driving through Alabama) demands of women and what women garner in return. Incidents of sloppy writing ("my reinforced concrete bravery thinly veiling my secret yellow streak") and fatuous comments (that travel is "the best revenge against aging since collagen") are rare, as are the times when money is no object and far-flung wanderings considered an entitlement. The travel is mostly hard won, and the whole processfrom planning to execution to decompression is conducted with attentiveness; where, if only for the duration, you live at that special pitch that encourages heedfulness and charges everything with meaning and significance, from sea kayaking and mushing in the Brooks Range with your teenage daughter, to bad fevers and overcoming bathing suit anxiety (a small gem, from Marilyn Lutzker, that wrings serenity from dread). A perfect example is Pier Roberts, in whose piece an Umbrian stone farmhouse, red wine, her group of women friends, a deadly viper, the poems of Mary Oliver, and "a field of wildflowers, like candy, like colored marbles, like a playground for the angels" meld and catch fire, annealing the travelers to one another and to the landscape and its graces. Keeping things from shining too bright, there are also episodes of fear and menace so terrifying (in one, a lunatic is trying to run the writer's car off a deserted road, all the while screaming hes going to kill her), you can only read them out of the corner of your eye with the book held at arm's length. Traveling, like seeing, is an exigent thing. These women figured that out before they left and conducted themselves accordingly, which is why they have stories worthy of the telling.
|
