The theme of 2017, for me, was travel. This was reflected in the three months I spent in Europe, obviously, but also in my reading throughout the year. I read books to help me plan, to inspire me to visit new destinations, and just to enjoy learning about people doing things I haven’t the slightest interest in doing. Some of the books were helpful, others not, some were well written, and others were absolutely cringe-worthy.
The best of the bunch was The Way of Wanderlust by Don George. So much so that as soon as I finished reading it I went back and read through my favourite bits again.
As someone who haunts the travel section of my local bookstore, George’s name was vaguely familiar to me from his work as the editor of countless collections of travel writing but that was it. I knew nothing of him as a writer or a traveller in his own right but just flipping through this book’s table of contents and seeing the variety of places he wrote about convinced me I needed to try this. Croatia, Japan, Pakistan, El Salvador, and Jordan all beckoned.
This is a collection of George’s best works and they range over his lifetime as well as over the globe. Separated neatly into three sections (pilgrimages, encounters, and illuminations), he writes about youthful adventures in Europe and Africa, family life in rural Japan, spiritual encounters in the Outback, how it feels to stand in front of a beloved painting in Paris, and so many more things that aren’t necessarily obvious subjects. But in George’s hands, they are not just worthy of attention – they are precious.
His writing style changes from subject to subject and with time but he is always engaged, empathetic and fully present in each story. I loved how confident he was regardless of his tone, able to make fun of himself but also to feel awed and humbled by the things he encounters.
One of my favourite stories, “Conquering Half Dome”, is about a vacation he took with his wife and children to Yosemite National Park in California. Despite a lifetime of travel and moderate outdoor adventures, he finds himself terrified by the cable route up Half Dome. His account of it definitely falls into the humorous category:
I’d read before the trip that the path slopes up at an angle of about sixty degrees. In my mind I had pictured that angle and had mentally traced a line along the living room wall. That doesn’t seem too steep, I had said to myself.
Beware estimates made in the comfort of your living room. From the plushness of my couch, with a soothing cup of steaming tea in my hand, sixty degrees hadn’t seemed too steep – but in the sheer, slippery, life-on-the-line wildness of Yosemite, it seemed real steep. I looked at the cables, and I looked at the sloping pate of the mountain – and I thought, This is a really stupid way to die.
I could cheerfully read an entire book written in that vein, but this is not that book. In my other favourite piece, “Japan’s Past Perfect”, the beauty of his opening paragraph shows just how well he can set the mood and how beautifully he can describe a scene:
I’m sitting on the polished wooden steps of a 300-year-old farmhouse in Japan’s Iya Valley, looking out on a succession of mountain folds densely covered in deep green cedars. Skeins of morning mist rise from the valley floor, hang in wispy balls in the air, and tangle in the surrounding slopes. No other houses are visible. The only sound in the drip of predawn rain from nearby branches and from the farmhouse’s roof of thick thatch. The faint scent of charcoal from last night’s hearth rides on the air. I feel as if I’m in the hermit’s hut in a 17th-century ink-and-brush painting.
There are 33 stories in the collection and all are fascinating. The foreword he includes for each piece is also wonderful, giving the reader some context around both the place described and George’s life. George shares a lot of himself in each story but these forewords provide even greater intimacy.
Really good travel writing isn’t necessarily about making you fall in love with a certain destination; it’s about making you fall in love with the entire world and feel that exploring it is a great and wondrous adventure. And in this wonderful collection that exactly what Don George does.
The travel sections of the bookstores near me are pretty anemic, and I don’t think I’ve ever come across Don George. I’m hoping our libraries may have this one at least.
I’ll keep my fingers crossed for you! I’m lucky that there was a really great travel store that is half books, half travel gear only a few blocks from my last office – lots of lunch hours were spent browsing there this year! That said, I read a library copy of this. It’s now on my Christmas wishlist.
They have it as an e-book, which I have now checked out. It’s the first time I have used that service, since I’ve been slow to embrace e-books. So yay, I get to read this one.
[…] The Way of Wanderlust (2015) – Don George In a year full of both travel and travel reading, this collection of Don […]