Passeggiata: Strolling Through Italy

Review

Throughout literature, film, music, and other media, the exultation of Italy as a paragon of culture and beauty has become something of an expected cliché. Memoirs of time spent perusing the magestic ruins and timeless, influential art are a permanent staple of any travel writing section at a bookstore. G.G. Husak’s Passeggiata: Strolling Through Italy skirts the possibility of tumbling into triteness by emphasizing areas of the country that generally go unnoticed by tourists and the ways in which she and her husband Al come to an “understanding of the larger world in ways [they] didn’t expect” (68).

The Husaks take a yearly sojourn to Italy every year, and offer up a wide variety of advice on how to handle when “the unpredictable happens” (355) for novice travelers as well as information on intriguing, overlooked locales for the more seasoned. The more popular tourist destinations are certainly touched upon, but the author’s real passion for the country shines through in her descriptions of more intimate settings going largely untouched by anyone but the locals. She relates her experiences in the cathedrals, monasteries, opera houses, cafés, and other spaces with rich detail, conveying their emotional appeal alongside the physical. It’s obvious to see why the Husaks continue to return on a yearly basis, and every one of their eager immersions yield insights into the interpersonal and intrapersonal worlds.

However, in spite of her overwhelming passion for Italy, its peoples, and its cultures, Husak does not lose her head in overidealizing her favorite destination. There are aspects of Italian society she yearns will find its way over the Atlantic, certainly, but she refrains entirely from declaring it superior to her home country and is unafraid to address her concerns and disappointments. Pickpocketing and the exploitation of tourists do not recieve a whitewashing treatment, and Husak relates the ways in which she and her husband narrowly avoided losing their valuables. It’s helpful information, certainly, but also fully illustrates the way in which the author does not allow herself to become fully carried away by the magic and romance of foreign travel. This cool-headed optimism and willingness to accept the ebbs and flows of a different rhythm is a great example for all aspiring globetrotters to fold into their repository of information. Without them, an exciting adventure could quickly spiral into a horrific nightmare.

Bibliographic Information

Husak, G.G. Passeggiata: Strolling Through Italy. Charleston, SC: BookSurge, 2008.

Further Reading

For a reversal of G.G. Husak’s annual Passeggiata, the similarly-titled Passage to Liberty: The Story of Italian Immigration and the Rebirth of America by A. Kenneth Ciongoli and Jay Parini tells the compelling story of Italians adjusting to the culture shock as they explored and attempted to forge a life in America. Anyone interested in putting pictures to place names and the works of art Husak describes would do well to peruse Annie Sacerdoti’s Wonders of Italy. The binding is stuffed to figurative bursting with stunning photographs of the celebrated Italian landscape and architecture that provide an excellent visual complement to undercut Husak’s beautifully textured prose.

~Riot

Bad Trips

Review

The title of Bad Trips, an anthology of travel writing compiled and edited by Keath Fraser, is something of a misnomer. Intended to amass together stories of mishaps and struggles abroad, Fraser unintentially bypasses the potentially humorous, schadenfreude promise of the title and ultimately ends up stoking an almost romantic sense of adventure in readers. There are certainly some devastating, truly terrible experiences related in this compilation. Mary Morris’s trip to Palenque, Mexico ends in tragedy and wrecking guilt, and the entire chapter entitled “Writers and the Effects of War,” as expected, contains the most visceral and disturbing accounts in the book. And there’s nothing pleasant about Jonathan Raban’s encounter with a knife-wielding junkie in Houma, Louisiana, though he recounts the episode with a darkly humorous sense of incredulousness.

But, as reiterated multiple times by multiple writers and journalists throughout the work, the term “bad” is entirely subjective. There are the requisite yarns of burning diarrhea, squalid hotel rooms, culture shock, seemingly endless hikes, and the colorful – occasionally antagonistic - individuals encountered along the way. With the exception of the aforementioned stories and a few others, including Martin Amis’s bemused take on an emergency plane landing in Britain through a calming haze of Valium and mixed drinks, the majority of the supposedly “bad” experiences actually had the same overall effect of “good” travel writing. It actually made me want to visit some of these distant, dangerous locales and meet the bombastic Mustapha Khan from “Under a Sickle Moon” or the barking, bald Italian tour guide nicknamed “Kojak” from John Metcalf’s “Adult Entertainment.” If I can’t go on my paltry, straight-out-of-grad-school bank account, by golly, I may as well go vicariously through literature.

While it wasn’t quite the wild ride through crazy misadventures that the back cover would imply, there are some good stories to be read in here. It is best read more as an anthology of travel writing rather than a compilation of accounts revolving around a common theme. Because, as I’ve stated, the truely “bad” experiences are recounted more with a sense of horror rather than humor, and the rest come off as enjoyable slices of the unidealized excursions that epitomize what travel is SUPPOSED to be. Just because a journey doesn’t encompass the implied unicorns and rainbows doesn’t really make it fall under a “bad” heading.

In spite of the misleading title, the only true complaint I had about Bad Trips as a whole was the inclusion of a few excerpts from fiction. While Russel Banks’s “Continental Drift” is a harrowing, shocking depiction of a man ferrying immigrants from Haiti to the United States that is worth reading, it is not true travel writing.  With so many actual accounts of such events available for inclusion, why turn to a ficticious re-imagining?

Bibliographical Information

Fraser, Keath, ed. Bad Trips. New York: Vintage, 1991.

Further Reading

It’s been a while since I read any travel writing, with Baghdad Without a Map by Tony Horwitz being the last. Though it isn’t advertised as a “bad” experience like the anthology previously reviewed, it contains enough warmth and adventure to qualify it as an effective piece of travel writing on par with the better selections from Bad Trips.

~Riot