Synopsis
"I fly to faraway places in the hopes of finding the distinguishing thing. The frequent flier miles are a bonus." With a title borrowed from Samuel Johnson, insatiable globe-trotter Russell Fraser fondly recalls his travels in China, Peru, Italy, France, Russia, Scotland, the Persian Gulf, and the Antarctic in this series of meditations on the distinguishing elements of culture and history found in far-flung locales. Fraser establishes himself as a knowledgeable guide who combines an intimate familiarity with local history, a keen eye for culture, a companionable wit, and a penchant for speculation about the grip of the past on the present. Fraser's fascination with people leads him to banter and at times to argue with locals in his quest to discern the peculiarities of a given place, be it a communist training school near Milan or the best bar in St. Petersburg. His grand appreciation for discoveries that can be made only through travel is apparent in every poetically phrased description and artfully reconstructed dialogue. Fraser begins each essay with an autobiographical passage before turning to the place and moment at hand. This technique establishes camaraderie with our learned, informative, and entertaining guide as we walk deserts and frozen plains, Old World neighborhoods and Far Eastern danger zones, the lobbies of plush new hotels and the aisles of centuries-old cathedrals. In his ruminations, Fraser circles strategically between personal and global pasts--traveling in time as well as space--to put our modernity in perspective and to ponder facets of human experience found amid the regions he describes so vividly. The heart of Fraser's memoir is a two-chapter sequence devoted to meandering through his ancestral homeland of Scotland, a narrative that ably couples family history and travelogue. In the concluding essay, the author's adventure in Antarctica parallels a trip taken decades earlier by his great-grandfather Alexander V. Fraser, the first commander of the U.S. Coast Guard, and again he deftly juxtaposes the personal with the global and the past with the present. As Fraser advocates for the existence and importance of timeless truths about all corners of the world, he makes even the roughest of environments seem intriguingly beautiful with crystal clear prose evocative of the times and places through which he moves. His tales are peppered with the anecdotes, asides, and well-chosen quotations of a traveler steeped in knowledge of the world's history and its literature. A veteran of these escapades, Fraser uses his experience to hone his observations into a special brand of truth that comes from one who is equally adept at wandering the world and sharing authentic accounts of those sensational travels. From China to Peru is a welcoming invitation to traverse the globe, if only through the insightful memories of one well-versed in such passages.
Excerpt
This book is personal memoir as well as an account of travel. Each chapter opens with a bit of autobiography, segueing into the travel piece that follows. What I say of myself isn’t freestanding but ties one chapter to another, and the essays on travel have more than the unity of what comes next. Taken as a whole, they offer a reading of what we are like, gathered from observation of the world we live in.
In each chapter time moves between present and past. I begin in the present but return to the past, creating a multilayered account of place and history. As in my earlier book The Three Romes, I am writing nonfiction stories. Though they don’t have a moral, they have an intention, describing the psychology that moves us. All the fact is true, reflecting firsthand experience, but the experience is filtered through characters, including the speaker. I watch what happens when the characters meet the experience and draw conclusions from the way they react.
The quotation I lead off with, from Dr. Johnson, suggests that observation, as wide-ranging as possible, comes first. But I haven’t gone around the world “to count the cats in Zanzibar,” and I aim to throw a little light on the places I’ve traveled to, including their mysterious soul. Seeing the world up close isn’t guaranteed to make the heart beat faster. So much humdrum goes with traveling that I’ve wondered more than once why I ever left home. To remind me where I’ve been, I take notes and keep a record of my itinerary. But a skeptical voice whispers in my ear, wanting to know if the jottings in my notebook and the lines on my map add up to a meaningful pattern. When I sit down to write, this question is before me.
Travel writers for the Sunday paper find a pattern in their daily routine: for example, “I breakfasted this morning on the Boul’ Mich, wrote a few postcards, and took the Metro to the Luxembourg Gardens.” I have a garden in my own backyard, and to justify the expense of spirit that goes . . .
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