Thursday, May 29, 2014

The Art of Travel by Alain De Botton



In this, another delightful book from Alain De Botton, of whom I’ve previously read How Proust Can Change Your Life and The Consolations of Philosophy, De Botton once again adroitly mixes personal experience, paintings, literature, and famous figures to explore different aspects of travel. Each chapter is “on”: “On Anticipation”, “On the Exotic”, “On Habit”, and so on. Each chapter is a self-contained essay that explores its chosen topic through a representative figure from history, such as Flaubert, Wordsworth, and Ruskin, to name three of the more familiar figures. Each chapter uses paintings and photography to supplement the words of the essay. “On Traveling Places”, for instance, explores works of Edward Hopper, best known for his work “Nighthawks" (not used here), but who also explored trains, gas stations, and hotel rooms along his way. Finally, De Botton includes his own experiences to provide a contemporary perspective and to sometimes test the ideas of those upon whom he has drawn. 

Part of the pleasure of De Botton’s project comes from his ability to meditate on travel from many different angles. In the opening essay, “On Anticipation”, he tells the tale of J.-K. Huysmans, who decided upon a trip to London from his French residence, only to abandon it after having made all of the necessary arrangements and consulted all of the guide books. After consulting the guidebooks, he decided he’d seen enough! Sometimes, indeed, the imagination of anticipation exceeds the reality of even the most alluring of destinations. In “On the Exotic”, the French novelist Flaubert travels to Egypt to stay and experience an alien world, while Xavier de Maistre writes about his travels around his bedroom, and then his view from his bedroom window in De Botton’s “On Habit” chapter. (De Maistre travels abroad as well.) But even within the limited purview of a bedroom De Maistre finds, upon careful and leisurely inspection, more interesting things either he or we could have imagined. 

De Botton contrasts the city with the country. Samuel Johnson found the Scottish highlands a wasteland that merely created annoyance, while not long after Johnson, Wordsworth sang the praises of the Lake District. Our views of what’s worth visiting and experiencing changes with time and varies according to our temperament. The German scientist Alexander von Humboldt traveled the Amazon basin in the early 19th century to catalogue all that was new to European scientists, loving the challenge and uniqueness of the journey. 

De Botton uses the paintings of Van Gogh to illustrate what might go unnoticed or unappreciated in a region and that can be newly (or perhaps first) appreciated only after viewing a painted facsimile of the scene. Of course, Van Gogh didn’t take a realist perspective, his cypress trees look as if they are on fire and his building are often all akimbo, but he forces us to take a new and closer look at what some once considered the boring countryside of Provence. By abstracting reality, we obtain a better appreciation of it. In a similar vein, Edmund Burke argues that we benefit when Nature overwhelms us with its grandeur and power in a manner that we label “sublime”. 

If you travel or you contemplate travel, De Botton’s book will serve as a meditative preparation, one that you can dip into at leisure, as each chapter constitutes a self-contained essay on some aspect of travel. We humans have been traveling and exploring our world for tens of thousands of years, and now, with travel easier than ever, we need to reflect upon its benefits and pitfalls. And in this, De Botton serves as an excellent guide.

Sunday, May 11, 2014

#Americaheckyeah



We recently completed a brief trip to the U.S. for a wedding. A great time & the occasion for some observations:

Upon landing at O’Hare on non-stop flight from Delhi, we made a beeline to Frontera Grill for some breakfast. If given the opportunity, I think C would leave me in a heartbeat for Rick—if he promised to share his kitchen with her. Well, he wasn’t there & for now she’s satisfied with my company to enjoy some Rick-Mexican goodness. The taste of good quality Mexican food is a real treat. We just don’t get much variety here. While fans of Indian food, we don’t have much of break from it, even on our own.

We arrive on time to DSM. We promptly and efficiently rent our car & are on the road. Aw, the road, where the few vehicles on the road (“Where is everyone?”) and drivers stay in lanes and drive wonderfully predictably. We get on the ring road on the south side of DM and looking out at the countryside we see the beautiful Grant Wood-style fields. Everything so neat, clean, and orderly. Spring is late, but a hue of green is beginning to frame the countryside. What a joy to be behind the wheel through the lovely countryside—even if it is in a Ford Focus with an automatic transmission. 

We arrive at our first destination: the “Super Target” near Jordan Creek Mall. Entering the store, we find it nearly deserted. “Where is everybody?” “Where are the hordes of people?” Although the store seems short of people, it was full of goods. I think that we in the U.S. are way too consumerist and too enamored with stuff, but it is a gift to go to a store to find all kinds of stuff that you need in a roomy, well-organized, friendly atmosphere. We had a long list of stuff we wanted to purchase, and we were just in luck. Lots of stuff, easy to find. Good quality. Wow. We left a lot lighter in the wallet, but with many of our needs met.

We then went to Cheesecake Factory for lunch (no cheesecake!). Not great, but we could order a salad, and we did, along with some steak tips. Yum. A modest but most welcome salad. We get some more stuff & then head to our digs at the Hotel Fort Des Moines, that venerable old institution from days of Republican political gatherings and basketball tournaments. The room had a radiator, which as it turns out, we needed. The down side of our visit at the beginning was the weather: cold, windy, and rainy. With our current tropical locale, this was a shock to the system but not to the mind. The mind remembers. The room was fine but for the slow internet connection and the fact that the shower heads built for short people, which I can never figure.

Downtown Des Moines seems almost like a ghost town. There are people, but so few! It’s so roomy in this part of America. So easy to walk places: the rain, cold, and wind soon give way to sunshine & warmer temperatures. A small but not insignificant joy.

The wedding is a lovely. Happy couple, seeing lots of relatives. Good times all around. Thanks to good planning, everything runs on time. What a great idea! And the wedding, while lovely, was not an extravaganza, unlike some (most) Indian weddings. Good food, but not acres of it; a celebration for family and friends, but not one for every Tom, Dick, and Hari and their gals. Like a good many things, perhaps the expense of America limits everything, and in this case, for the better.

The only downside of the trip (besides loads of jet lag there and upon return here) was that something in the U.S. didn’t agree with my lower GI tract. I was down for a day with a problem the severity of which has never been matched in my India (or Nepal or Mexico) experience. Well, nothing is perfect, not even the good ol’ US of A.