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A review by sailorpunk
Un indovino mi disse by Tiziano Terzani
3.0
I always find particularly dramatic when I finish a book on a trip, and in this specific case was more noteworthy for a couple of reasons. First: I read the last sentence in the very moment I landed in Bilbao which was the destination of my flight and the beginning of my trip to Spain. Second: I started reading it during my last visit to my family in Italy. Third: while I was on the flight from Hamburg, I read about arriving in Hamburg. The passage is the following (translated by me, since I read the book in its original version, in Italian):
“Hamburg is a harbour. Everyone knows it, everyone repeats it; but I had never really understood that until, like an hanseatic coming back after months at sea, I saw the roof of Cuxhafen lying on the horizon, then the small houses of the captains and the white manors of the rich merchants standing up above the majestic trees in Blankenese, and finally the copper-green bell towers of the city I was longing for. I had been to Hamburg dozens of times, but I needed a fortune teller from Hong Kong to make me feel its true soul.”
In fact, the book is the travel diary of the author for the year 1993, when, according to the aforementioned fortune teller, he would have died in a flight accident. Out of dare and curiosity, rather than out of superstition, Terzani decided to follow that advice and travel only by land and sea across Europe and Asia, and visiting plenty more fortune tellers on the way. The result is a long series of reflexions about the world that is changing and how the change relates with traditions and spirituality, and an endless praise of slowness and individuality. It’s a personal report and besides the author itself and his genuine and direct way of writing, doesn’t have much to share with the collection of news articles that is In Asia. It’s a very good book, but so far I prefer the journalist to the philosopher.
“Hamburg is a harbour. Everyone knows it, everyone repeats it; but I had never really understood that until, like an hanseatic coming back after months at sea, I saw the roof of Cuxhafen lying on the horizon, then the small houses of the captains and the white manors of the rich merchants standing up above the majestic trees in Blankenese, and finally the copper-green bell towers of the city I was longing for. I had been to Hamburg dozens of times, but I needed a fortune teller from Hong Kong to make me feel its true soul.”
In fact, the book is the travel diary of the author for the year 1993, when, according to the aforementioned fortune teller, he would have died in a flight accident. Out of dare and curiosity, rather than out of superstition, Terzani decided to follow that advice and travel only by land and sea across Europe and Asia, and visiting plenty more fortune tellers on the way. The result is a long series of reflexions about the world that is changing and how the change relates with traditions and spirituality, and an endless praise of slowness and individuality. It’s a personal report and besides the author itself and his genuine and direct way of writing, doesn’t have much to share with the collection of news articles that is In Asia. It’s a very good book, but so far I prefer the journalist to the philosopher.