Word: journeyer
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...JOURNEY TO KARS by Philip Glazebrook; 246 pages; Atheneum...
...Short Journey...
...answer, skillfully shuttled through the narrative of his own journey, is that the adventurers of yore were misfits. The squaring of these pegs, he suggests, began in school with tales of bold Westerners challenging sinister enchanters in the East. The heroes of antiquity, the knights-errant and the pathfinders of empire, symbolized virtues that quickened young hearts. But mercantile Britain offered few opportunities for a romantic. "Where was the use of valor and a knowledge of Xenophon and all the rest of the accoutrements?" Glazebrook inquires. "He had put on knight's armor to play croquet...
...other travel writers distances him from his own encounters on the trail. By ranking subjectivity above literal facts, he finally removes himself to that lonely height where the artist, not the soldier-adventurer, is hero. "Writing the book," he thinks before catching the train home. "That was the real journey...
...experience of hardship and inconvenience is largely the point of Journey to Kars. Travel is defined as an accumulation of instances of self-sufficiency. Being dumped into a remote town, at night and reservationless, is a challenge to be savored; cashing a traveler's check in Trabzon takes two banks an entire morning and involves the police. Months on the road lead to some choice distinctions ("It isn't the badness of bad hotels which is distressing, it's the badness of 'good' hotels"). There are also useful tips...