The Best Women's Travel Writing - Volume 8

This is one of the rare books that I didn't care to finish.  The Best Women's Travel Writing - Volume 8 (#222) has such a beguiling cover, promising adventures in exotic lands where I know I will never go.  But as I began to read this collection of short stories, I realized that the vast majority of journeys chronicled in this volume were tours of the authors' internal landscapes.  I should have known from the editor Lavinia Spalding's Introduction when she talks about the recurring theme of family in this batch of stories that the geography of the places was incidental.  By the time I read half a dozen stories, I felt like an overwhelmed porter, straining to deal with an unwieldy cargo of emotional baggage. 

There's the story of a woman who runs away from the grief of her daughter's death by traveling to the most remote, inaccessible places - in this short story, it's Tibet.  But my internal critic kept kicking in as I was reading this self indulgent story; what about her other child, Sam?  He's curiously missing from the narrative, although her adopted daughter features in her memories of a night star-gazing on Lake Titicaca three weeks after she joins the family.  Other people have lost children, or spouses or parents and seem to have been able to move on with their lives.  Their losses are no less devastating, but they deal with it with quiet heroism, not the "I'm the only one who's ever lost anyone..." routine.  Also, I wanted to know how on earth she could afford the money or the time to take all the journeys she described over the last few years to Southeast Asia, South America, and so on?  What did I learn about Tibet here?  The sky is blue, and everybody uses yak butter.  Nothing new or revelatory there.

Or how about the graduate student who takes two male Muslim colleagues to experience the wonders of Walden Pond by taking them swimming in a remote cove out of sight or sound of the public beach when she knows that neither of them swim well?  Both of the men flounder only a few feet from shore, both nearly drowning and taking her with them.  My reaction to this story was an exasperated why do you think they have lifeguards, lady?  And she's surprised that this incident led to the breakup of her relationship with one of the men!  He had already told her there was no future for them because he wouldn't flaunt his family's good opinion of him.  She was basically there for him as a bed mate.  Wouldn't you want to find someone who wasn't as likely to cause you grievous bodily harm after this near death experience?  Besides, she managed to spoil many childhood memories of Walden Pond for me. 

To be fair, though, if all the stories in the book were more like Kimberly Lavato's amusing Lost and Liberated or Storming the Castles by Susan Orlean, I would have loved this book.  Ms. Lavato tells of trying to find an artisinal ice cream maker in the French Dordogne when her GPS system can't find the landmarks that are her only directions to her appointment.  When she does finally arrive, the ice cream maker constantly corrects her French and subjects her to a barrage of questions critical of the United States.  How she resolves the impasse, gets her interview and samples some of the most wonderful ice cream ever, make a satisfying story that couldn't be written anywhere else.  Likewise, Ms. Orleans's bold attempt to conquer the Loire Valley and its castles with her husband and six year old son on bikes make an amateur's efforts seem possible and inviting - if you buy enough Bag Balm first!

Bottom line: a couple of gems, but a lot of emotional dross.  Didn't care to spend the time to read just more of the same emotional bombs.  Might be a good selection for Oprah's Book Club, though.  Just my opinion.