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3.25 AVERAGE
3.25 AVERAGE
I read this a long time ago, shortly after it came out and before it seemed possible that I would ever live in Albania, and I remember it with some distaste. The picture it paints is bleak and it's widely accepted now to have been unfair even then. I don't read travel books for their accuracy and impartiality... but even so, this was rather heavy with paranoia and misery. Relentless really. I would read it again, though, if I could get it from the Inverness shed where my copy is presently buried. Hard to find otherwise. I may have to buy it from the amazing Adrion bookshop here in Tirana, where it has just appeared in the stacks. As has a lot of Murakami, alongside of course all of Kadare, in four languages. As if I had time to read anything.
I read this book because I'm traveling to Albania in May and it showed up on some list.
I began the book thinking I'd take the useful observations and file the rest under, "product of its time," meaning the day when salty [white male] journalists rolled handmade cigarettes as they rode with locals in rattly trucks around the war-torn countryside. Huzzah.
But the book wasn't published in 1950, but 1998.
Carver reports interesting observations about Albania in a particular time and place, while recovering from Soviet occupation. He describes the bunkers, falling statues and a people struggling to recover. Although the more I read the more I'd Google places he'd seen and wonder why all he could talk about was getting charged too much at a fish restaurant when surrounded by such stupendous beauty.
The sexism is laughable. HA. This Brit clearly yearns to see himself as some Sean Connery Bond. HA.
Carver whines about dysentery (and who doesn't get "tummy trouble" while traveling?) and refers to his anus as his "bottom." HA.
By the end, Carver's repetitive lectures geared towards Albanians grate, reminding me of J.D. Vance waving his recently-acquired Ralph Lauren bootstrap, "See this here? Get to work, fellas." I lost patience.
Carver is a solid writer. Wish he'd used those skills to show more compassion and insight to the country he visited. Anthony Bourdain would have hated this guy.
I look forward to visiting these same places and expressing more gratitude to the people who show me hospitality, and more admiration of the stunning lakes, rivers, and mountains.
I began the book thinking I'd take the useful observations and file the rest under, "product of its time," meaning the day when salty [white male] journalists rolled handmade cigarettes as they rode with locals in rattly trucks around the war-torn countryside. Huzzah.
But the book wasn't published in 1950, but 1998.
Carver reports interesting observations about Albania in a particular time and place, while recovering from Soviet occupation. He describes the bunkers, falling statues and a people struggling to recover. Although the more I read the more I'd Google places he'd seen and wonder why all he could talk about was getting charged too much at a fish restaurant when surrounded by such stupendous beauty.
The sexism is laughable. HA. This Brit clearly yearns to see himself as some Sean Connery Bond. HA.
Carver whines about dysentery (and who doesn't get "tummy trouble" while traveling?) and refers to his anus as his "bottom." HA.
By the end, Carver's repetitive lectures geared towards Albanians grate, reminding me of J.D. Vance waving his recently-acquired Ralph Lauren bootstrap, "See this here? Get to work, fellas." I lost patience.
Carver is a solid writer. Wish he'd used those skills to show more compassion and insight to the country he visited. Anthony Bourdain would have hated this guy.
I look forward to visiting these same places and expressing more gratitude to the people who show me hospitality, and more admiration of the stunning lakes, rivers, and mountains.