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I am late, I know, and I didn’t get a lot done, but have you seen Hong Kong lately? And anyway, at least it was a month of quality over quantity.
Around The World In 80 Days by Michael Palin
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
The premise of Jules Verne’s classic novel was that 80 days was the minimum time to travel around the globe and still notice the different countries and cultures you encounter. In modern times, you can circle the planet in an airliner in less than 60 hours (including fuel stops), but you wouldn’t actually experience or even see the world. In 1988, Michael Palin hosted a BBC series in which he attempted to replicate Phineas Fogg’s journey in the allotted time frame, sticking to the modes of transport available to Fogg at the time (i.e. no air travel apart from hot-air balloons). This book is his travel diary from the journey.
I never did get to watch the TV show, so there’s a bit of genuine drama here for me as Palin and his film crew encounter numerous setbacks involving transportation delays and immigration/customs issues, racing to the next connection to try and stay on schedule. But even if I had watched it, Palin includes a lot of detail, anecdotes and personal insight you don't get from the show, which condensed the entire 80-day journey into seven hours of edited video, so it’s not simply a rehash of the episodes. And while Palin notes upfront that the journey’s timetable only allowed for very superficial tourist-level observations of each stop (and from the point of view of a reasonably well-off Westerner with the resources of the BBC at his back), he manages to absorb and convey a lot of detail of the cultures and people he encounters, as well as the drudgery of travelling by rail and sea.
It’s also interesting to read this in 2019 knowing that the details of the various countries Palin passes through are now over 30 years out of date. So in that sense it’s a fascinating snapshot of what it was like in 1988 to travel the surface of the earth without the benefit of things like the Internet and mobile phones. Palin is a great and congenial storyteller, and he makes a great case for getting out of your comfort zone, seeing more of the world and meeting the other people in it.
The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
The “underground railroad” that helped slaves escape the Southern states was of course neither an actual railroad nor literally underground – but it’s both in this novel from Colson Whitehead, which follows a plantation slave named Cora who is convinced by another slave to make a break for it via said railroad.
Whitehead’s flight of fancy doesn't stop at the railroad bit – the whole novel is not so much an alternate reality as a series of various realities of the black experience in America compressed into various stops on the railroad – or, put another way, the various guises that white supremacy has worn over the years in America, from eugenics programs and Jim Crow to all-white communities, lynch mobs and general fear of black progress. And then there’s the relentless slave-catcher Ridgeway pursuing Cora, who even in free states is still legally considered property and can be kidnapped and sent back to her owner at any time.
It’s remarkable how well Whitehead makes this work – indeed, I’ll admit I initially found it hard to suspend my disbelief regarding a literal subterranean railroad (which in the tradition of magical realism Whitehead doesn't really explain) until I realized what he was up to here. The railroad provides a metaphorical tour of America’s racist past – and to a degree its present, enabling Whitehead to tell a story showing how the horrors and evils of slavery didn't end with emancipation. It’s a great example of how art (including fiction) can tell uncomfortable truths more effectively than simply stating facts.
View all my reviews
Notes from the underground,
This is dF
Around The World In 80 Days by Michael PalinMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
The premise of Jules Verne’s classic novel was that 80 days was the minimum time to travel around the globe and still notice the different countries and cultures you encounter. In modern times, you can circle the planet in an airliner in less than 60 hours (including fuel stops), but you wouldn’t actually experience or even see the world. In 1988, Michael Palin hosted a BBC series in which he attempted to replicate Phineas Fogg’s journey in the allotted time frame, sticking to the modes of transport available to Fogg at the time (i.e. no air travel apart from hot-air balloons). This book is his travel diary from the journey.
I never did get to watch the TV show, so there’s a bit of genuine drama here for me as Palin and his film crew encounter numerous setbacks involving transportation delays and immigration/customs issues, racing to the next connection to try and stay on schedule. But even if I had watched it, Palin includes a lot of detail, anecdotes and personal insight you don't get from the show, which condensed the entire 80-day journey into seven hours of edited video, so it’s not simply a rehash of the episodes. And while Palin notes upfront that the journey’s timetable only allowed for very superficial tourist-level observations of each stop (and from the point of view of a reasonably well-off Westerner with the resources of the BBC at his back), he manages to absorb and convey a lot of detail of the cultures and people he encounters, as well as the drudgery of travelling by rail and sea.
It’s also interesting to read this in 2019 knowing that the details of the various countries Palin passes through are now over 30 years out of date. So in that sense it’s a fascinating snapshot of what it was like in 1988 to travel the surface of the earth without the benefit of things like the Internet and mobile phones. Palin is a great and congenial storyteller, and he makes a great case for getting out of your comfort zone, seeing more of the world and meeting the other people in it.
The Underground Railroad by Colson WhiteheadMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
The “underground railroad” that helped slaves escape the Southern states was of course neither an actual railroad nor literally underground – but it’s both in this novel from Colson Whitehead, which follows a plantation slave named Cora who is convinced by another slave to make a break for it via said railroad.
Whitehead’s flight of fancy doesn't stop at the railroad bit – the whole novel is not so much an alternate reality as a series of various realities of the black experience in America compressed into various stops on the railroad – or, put another way, the various guises that white supremacy has worn over the years in America, from eugenics programs and Jim Crow to all-white communities, lynch mobs and general fear of black progress. And then there’s the relentless slave-catcher Ridgeway pursuing Cora, who even in free states is still legally considered property and can be kidnapped and sent back to her owner at any time.
It’s remarkable how well Whitehead makes this work – indeed, I’ll admit I initially found it hard to suspend my disbelief regarding a literal subterranean railroad (which in the tradition of magical realism Whitehead doesn't really explain) until I realized what he was up to here. The railroad provides a metaphorical tour of America’s racist past – and to a degree its present, enabling Whitehead to tell a story showing how the horrors and evils of slavery didn't end with emancipation. It’s a great example of how art (including fiction) can tell uncomfortable truths more effectively than simply stating facts.
View all my reviews
Notes from the underground,
This is dF
