LiteraryTraveler.net

When I read, in some travel blog or another, that Amsterdam has one of the most comfortable airports in the world — couches for napping during layovers, 2 Euro showers, stands selling Belgian waffles and peanut-butter-dipped fries — I stopped worrying about finding a hostel over Halloween weekend.  In fact, I wondered why people bothered to book hostels.  Some fellow literary nerds squeed over the possibility of staying overnight in Paris’s Shakespeare and Company Bookstore.  Despite the intensity of my Beauty-and-the-Beast-inspired library fantasies, dozing in a transportation hub took a close second.

So I was disappointed by the metal seats, the florescent lights, the loudspeaker announcements every five minutes, and, after 4:00 a.m., the airport guards who explained that, if I continued to occupy more than one seat, I could be charged with vagrancy.  In my youthful folly (ah, to be 19 again), I’d missed a crucial detail: the perks of air travel were limited to ticketholders.

This experience hasn’t diminished my dreams of airport occupation, though.  When there’s a weather emergency, or when I watch Independence Day for the millionth time, I remember Jeff, who confessed, during an Agnostic Club meeting in college, that he went to airports on Thanksgiving to people-watch, to imagine himself in their families, their communities.

Everyone traveling by airplane is in a state of transition in the terminal, separated from most of their possessions, acquaintances, and surroundings.  Unless they’re hiding out in the Red Carpet Club, they’re subject to the same sterilized, scrutinized, Starbucks-packed otherworld that I am.

Alain de Botton, a French philosophy student gone culture critic, knows what I’m talking about.  He chronicles the week he spent in London’s Heathrow Airport in his creatively-titled A Week At The Airport.  As the airport’s Writer-in-Residence, he had unfettered access to air traffic control towers, baggage handlers, and, yes, the first-class lounge.  Critics are calling it an essay collection, a meditation on a non-place.

I’m calling it the cheapest route to an extensive stay in one of my favorite places.

True to the saying, great minds often do think alike.  They also share, borrow, and sometimes steal from one another. Picasso once said that “bad artists copy, great artists steal.”  I don’t if this statement still holds water (or if it ever did, really), but he did get one thing right: the best ideas should be shared.

This may explain why so many intellectuals are drawn to one another.  It’s not necessarily because they have a lot in common (other than shockingly high IQs) or because they can’t communicate with the general population (though sometimes this is also true).  Even the most brilliant minds need to be fed in order to grow and the best food is foreign thought.

At least, this is how I make sense of certain intellectual friendships, like that of John Steinbeck and the famed biologist Edward F. Ricketts.  Though their genius was in very different fields–Steinbeck in literature, and Ricketts in science–their relationship helped both men grow and learn.  In the cramped walls of Ricketts’ lab in Monterey, California, they bounced ideas back and forth, traded inspiration, and opened new channels of thought.

In our most recent feature article, writer Victor Walsh travels to Monterey to see Ricketts’ lab, which has been left basically as it was at the time of his death in 1948.  Still filled with specimens and Ricketts’ personal belongings, the lab stands testimony to a great intellectual friendship–and the work of a great scientist.

Take a moment out of your busy weekend to read about Walsh’s visit to Cannery Row and learn a little more about the life of one of America’s greatest writers with our piece A Meeting of Minds: John Steinbeck and Edward F. Ricketts at the Lab in Monterey. And if you want to learn more about Steinbeck’s biography, please take a look at any of our other great articles on the Of Mice and Men author.

Happy reading.

In the rich literary tradition of America, tales of the supernatural have always occupied a special place. Stories of the fantastic and the unreal have not only entered our imaginations, tainting the way we think about the very ground below us, but also the cannon of great literature. From Washington Irving to Edgar Allan Poe, we have always celebrated the authors that have the power to make our skin crawl and our nights restless.

This fall, Literary Traveler will feature a new theme for our feature articles: Dark New England. As the days lengthen, and All Hallows Eve approaches, we will be publishing several articles that center around some of America’s best horror writers, including Stephen King and Edgar Allan Poe. We will also highlight one of our favorite underrated writers: Shirley Jackson, author of The Lottery fame.

Join us as we journey to Vermont, Maine, and Massachusetts in search of what makes New England so uniquely suited to images of ghosts and specters, stories of hauntings and awakenings.

I just shared a positive anecdote about surrender in a culture shock situation, but it can also be a liability.  A traveler has to be willing to push boundaries, to grin and bear the uncomfortable situation.  However, especially during the early phases of adaptation, this flexibility makes her vulnerable, too.

The subtle culture shocks – tremors, as I called them – can define a culture in contrast.  You don’t know what you’ve got ’til it’s gone.  And sometimes “it” is something as minor as a healthy selection of peanut butter.

Likewise, a person can be defined in contrast – you are marked by your limits, notable for what you do not do.  Let’s add a moral element to the food, and say that a vegetarian may identify as someone who does not bloody their mouth with the inhumane slaughter of animals.  But what if the vegetarian’s host family slaughters a goat in celebration of her arrival?  If she ate it, it would be a sign of respect to the family, and certainly reflects a willingness to push her boundaries.  But at what point does she violate her own beliefs?  And, if they are constantly in negotiation, how will she know?

I tended to know when the line is crossed – rampant sexism always gets my goat – but I had trouble knowing when to keep that goat as a pet, or when to slaughter it in public (I think this feeling of disgust means the metaphor is officially exhausted).

My question is:  How and when did you learn to set boundaries when you were traveling?  Which of your convictions – culturally transmitted, personal, religious, etc. – are nonnegotiable, and how do you react appropriately in situations where they are threatened?  Where, and how, do you draw the line?

In high school, my favorite teacher, Miss Reynolds, once told our class that F. Scott Fitzgerald was famous for writing “the perfect sentence.”  I knew immediately what she meant.  While some authors are masters of the paragraph, and others shine most strongly with a single phrase, Fitzgerald’s majesty lay between two periods.  He has the rare ability to capture an image – or a feeling – completely within these bounds of punctuation.  Unlike Hemingway, Fitzgerald’s writing tends more towards prolix than terse, yet it is possible to get a real feel for his writing by reading just one of his immaculately-crafted sentences.

I have always felt that Edith Wharton came from the F. Scott Fitzgerald school of writing.  Like Fitzgerald, Wharton uses words to the utmost advantage; she does not let the reader guess at her meaning, but rather paints with phrases, colors and tints our view with her writing.  She has the ability to transport a reader back in time, to the Age of Innocence, or move us through place, to the winding streets of Morocco.

In our newest feature article, writer Inka Piegsa-Quischotte travels through Fez, searching not only for the Morocco of Wharton’s description, but also for a house. She is looking to purchase a mini-palace; a burrow of tiny bedrooms and storage spaces that she can call home.  Like me, Piegsa-Quischotte has been seduced by Wharton’s perfect sentences and her ability to conjure up an entire world through a single phrase.  Clip-clopping on the back of a mule through the covered alleys and tented streets, Piegsa-Quischotte can’t help but remember the poetry of Wharton’s language, and the aptness of her descriptions.

This week, join us in Morocco, where we ride on colorful saddles and smell the many scents of Fez in Pink Saddles & Djellabas, Edith Wharton’s Fez In Morocco. Allow yourself to be guided by Piegsa-Quischotte and her new-found friends as they work their way through a foreign land, searching for beauty and something far more lasting: a room of one’s own.

Spring has sprung, and with it, my wanderlust has returned.  Not satisfied with the budding beauty of the Cambridge spring, I have begun to look abroad for inspiration.  Itching for summer, I wonder what the air feels like in Greece, Turkey, or Morocco.  I realize I’m impatient, but all the subtle greenery makes me crave is the heat of summer and the rush of hot air.

There is something about natural beauty that seems to always ask for more – more heat, more greatness, more overpowering beauty.  The Romantics wrote of the sublime – the overwhelming appreciation of a natural phenomenon, tinged with awe and fear.  This is the experience many of us seek through travel, although we do not always find something so humbling.

Our newest feature article, by freelance writer Vanessa H. Larson, takes us to Cirali, a small town in Mediterranean Turkey.   Larson is seeking the Chimera, a self-replenishing burning rock that has spawned many myths and inspired countless writers.  However, Larson is interested in one novelist in particular: Nazli Eray.  In 1983, Eray published Orpheus, a surrealistic retelling of the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice.  Larson walks through the August night to rock formation, searching for a place to locate Eray, and in the process, she rediscovers her own sense of awe and wonderment.

I, too, have recently found myself staring at rocks, looking for answers.  Just last weekend I visited Purgatory Chasm in Sutton, Massachusetts, for the first time.  Reading about the Chimera, I am reminded of this incredible natural formation – the violent, rocky gash that opens out of the earth.  While I can’t offer forth any great epiphany, I can say this: whether you are able to travel far, or only have the time for a local jaunt, there is always the opportunity to be wowed by nature.

Join us this week in celebrating the intersections between mythology and landscape (and wishing for summer’s heat) by reading The Chimera, A Mystical Journey of Nazli Eray’s Orpheus.

We’ve entered an era where much of our correspondence occurs over e-mail and cellphones; we are not without words, but our words are generally without object.  The things we write to one and other are disembodied, floating on screens, written with light rather than ink.  While the modern methods of communication have allowed for some wonderful things – our thoughts have never been able to travel so freely, and so quickly, across oceans and continents – I still occasionally mourn the loss of the most old-fashioned form of transmission: the letter.

A handwritten letter is a truly beautiful thing.  It bares the mark of the writer in a way that no text message ever possibly can.  It also contains a permanence, a strength of sorts, that allows us to feel as though the abstract concepts put into writing are real, tangible and forever ours.

Perhaps this can help explain why the Portuguese have not given up their fascination with Mariana Alcoforado, a nun who supposedly conducted a passionate, clandestine affair with a French soldier, which she documented in a series of letters.  The letters show the arching trajectory of her love, from passion to eventual heartbreak.  However, some literary historians doubt the veracity of the romantic tale, and suspect that Mariana was not the true author of the moving documents.

Looking for the truth, writer Andrea Calabretta journeys to Portugal.  She visits Beja, the city where Mariana supposedly spent her days pining for her faithless soldier, to learn a little something about the mystery of the nun.  Join Calabretta in her search by checking out Literary Traveler’s newest feature article, Letters of a Portuguese Nun: A Literary Mystery in Beja.  You might learn a little something about literature – or at the very least, be inspired to put pen to paper and create something truly lasting.

Every Friday, starting this week, the staff at Literary Traveler will gather up the relevant book news from around the web, bringing it together in a handy post for book lovers to peruse.  Enjoy!

• Will the iPad change the very way we read?  It certainly seems possible.  Penguin and Apple have teamed up to create interactive “books” with audio, video, and streaming content.  The first offering: Vampire Academy.
• Speaking of vampires, Seth Grahame-Smith, author of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies has published his second book: Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter.   According to the LA Times, it’s actually pretty good.
• Congratulations are in order for Abdo Khal, winner of this year’s International Prize for Arabic Fiction for his novel She Throws Sparks as Big as Castles.
• Here’s something to keep in mind for your next visit to Boston: literary-minded diners are welcome at the Boston Public Library, where you can “dine with Shakespeare, Aristotle and Dante.”
• Sally Wolff-King, professor of Southern literature from Emory University, talks to PBS about one of Faulkner’s most important sources of inspiration – the 1,800 page antebellum diary of plantation owner Francis Terry Leek.
• Reminder: Tim Burton’s “Alice in Wonderland” comes out today. But before you buy tickets, read up on the making of the movie, and the history of the books, with this interesting article from the New York Times.