Jan Morris, Contact!

If I hadn't read 50 Years of Europe - An Album, I would have loved Contact!.  As it is, I feel somewhat cheated.  But let me explain. 

Contact! is a collection of literary snapshots collected by Jan Morris during her long and impressive life as a travel writer.  My goodness, that woman has been to everywhere!  Pieces gathered in this volume are pretty short, half a page, a page at most.  They document fleeting moments, tiny interactions of which the Welsh author must have collected thousands in her journeys.

Why oh why, then, she's recycling material already published elsewhere?

Reading Contact!, I was haunted by a powerful sense of deja vu.  I've read those stories before - in the abovementioned collection.  Not all of them, sure.  Some, maybe most, are lovely and fresh.  Yet, if I actually had bought the book (once again, library proved to be my friend), I would've felt taken for a ride. 

This tiny mishap aside, the book is quite delicious.  As the title suggests, it is focused on people that Morris encountered on the road, all over the world.  Not necessarily friends, often strangers, observed, eavesdropped on, imagined.  Yes, Morris's imagination is a potent ingredient in this mixture.  A single image is enough to start the story off, and the rest is the author's creation.  If Contact! is a book of pictures, then they are heavily photoshopped. 

Still, she's skillful in adding her modifications.  Images that emerge are not vulgar or fake, but tinged with poetic vision.  The bite-sized tales from awe-inspiring multitude of destinations blend together into an enchanting mosaic, full of colour, life and eccentricity. 

Despite the deja vu, reading Contact! was a pleasure. 

Jan Morris, 50 Years of Europe - An Album

Jan Morris is a legend in the world of travel writing, but with 50 Years of Europe - An Album she surpassed even her own excellence.  I read the book open-mouthed, full of admiration for the amount of ground she has covered and the number of stories she's collected.  Mind you, these are only the European stories - how many there would be if she decided to write a global 'album'??? 

The book is composed of tiny snapshots - half a page here, three quarters there.  It may appear slightly chaotic, as she moves freely between countries and periods, but the mini-chapters are in fact thoughtfully arranged.  I don't want to reveal too much, so you'll need to read the book to discover its hidden logic but believe me - it is there :). 

As with all best travel writing, 50 Years of Europe is a mixture of travelogue and autobiography.  Jan Morris looks back at a lifetime of globetrotting (ehm...  Europe-trotting?) and picks the best places and best stories for the readers' enjoyment.  Since in this case we're talking about more than half a century, the collection is pretty impressive. 

Usually, I am quickly tired by Morris's romantic style.  I am aggressively down-to-earth, so her fanciful musings tend to irk me.  Not in this case.  A sudden change of focus in the writing?  Perhaps.  Or maybe I read 50 Years of Europe in a more tolerant frame of mind.  Whichever is correct, this is definitely the best writing by Jan Morris that I've ever come across.  I wonder, would other readers feel the same way?

Jan Morris, Heaven's Command

I have mixed feelings about Jan Morris.  She is a giant of travel writing, with a whole bookshelf of titles to herself.  Somehow though, her prose, while undeniably beautiful, usually leaves me unexcited.  Just...  not my pair of shoes.  Too poetic, too sentimental, too intimate perhaps.  I far prefer Dervla Murphy's mischievous political incorrectness, but - I keep hoping.  Now and again I pick yet another of Morris's books, to see if my mind can be changed.  Nothing much to lose - I might end up unmoved again, but writing skill is writing skill and it never hurts to sample some.  

Heaven's Command almost did the trick.  Of all the books by Jan Morris I've read so far, this is my favourite.  Sure, the nostalgic, poetic style is as present as ever, but in this particular case it fits the subject so well that I simply can't complain.  Perhaps romantically-tinted narration is the best possible tool to use when explaining the Victorian era.

Heaven's Command is a volume one of Pax Britannica trilogy, a history of the British Empire.  I know nothing about the other two titles, but they're very likely to end up on my reading table eventually.  Not tomorrow, perhaps - Heaven's Command does not leave you with a 'to be continued' feeling, no pressure to complete the picture with further reading.  

The opening book of the trilogy covers almost all of Queen Victoria's reign.  Together with the British troops, a reader roams the Earth from India to Canada, from South Africa to Fiji, from Australia to Hong Kong, with many more exotic stops on the way.  Morris explores politics, ideologies, fashions, digs deep into the meaning of imperialism.  Plenty of heroes from the past, half-mythic by now (at least to a westernised mind) are introduced and brought to life again by anecdotes, colourful yarns, quotes and even gossip.  I'm not in a position to judge how accurate the tales are, but sure as hell they are interesting, with precious ability to fire curiosity and appetite for further study.  

A minor revelation - Jan Morris is far more fun as a historian than as a travel writer (I fully respect your right to be outraged at such a radical judgement).  Perhaps the fact that she's been to pretty much everywhere is what makes her history - global in scope, after all, at least geographically - so enjoyable.  It is quite something to read a historical account footnoted with 'when I was at the site in 19XX, it was still this or that'.  Be sure that Heaven's Command is full of such comments.  

Overall - very agreeable.

Jan Morris, Hong Kong

When I grow up, I want to write like Jan Morris (IF I ever grow up, that is, because age-wise it happened long ago).

Seriously, Morris's writing makes my jaw drop.  Where the hell does she take all those words from??  I know they exist all right, but the only other place where you can see them written is a dictionary, and you never hear them spoken at all.  If there was such a thing as a wordsmithing guild, she would be the Ultimate Grandmaster.  I am yet to come across someone with more colourful, richer vocabulary than hers and I'm seriously wondering if I ever will.  If you want to improve your brain (or language!), Jan Morris is better than crossword puzzles.

Hong Kong is a curious marriage between history and travel writing.  Morris is a travel writer, first and foremost, but in this particular case she's not rushing around, but analyses the eponymous city now and in the past.  My edition ended in 1996, a few months before the Big Takeover (Hong Kong returning to China's possession after more than a century of British rule) - I'm guessing the updated edition goes further than this, but I can't be sure.  Snapshots of various periods in the past are broken up by pictures of contemporary Hong Kong, so you get both history and present, but you don't get bored.

The result is rather delightful (even if your brain steams a bit).  History told by scholars tends to stay on the dry side, while a travel writer is specifically qualified to bringing remote geographical spots to life (should be, at least, if he or she is a good travel writer).  As I've said elsewhere, I'm not a total fan of Morris's writing style - she's a self-declared romantic, and I am everything but - still, quality quickly conquers such minor obstacles.  Whether you want to learn more about the Far East or simply savour some damn good writing, I can honestly say that Hong Kong is worth your time.

Jan Morris, Travels

If you don't know it yet, let me tell you - Jan Morris is a GIANT of travel writing.  She (or once he, having been born as James Morris) has been to everywhere on our planet, or so it seems.  Any travel writing tribute/anthology/collection includes something of hers, and so does any bookshop's and library's travel section.  I've seen her described as the greatest travel writer of our (or indeed, all) times and well, she IS good. 

Even so, I'm not joining her fan club.  I can't quite put my finger on the reason, but somehow Morris's writing...  bores me (and yes, I do feel a bit as if I was spitting on a monument when saying so).  I can't quite tune into her visionary descriptions, I can't see what she sees in places she describes.  It might be because she steers towards what I perceive as poetry or even mysticism and my preference is for cold, hard facts and saucy anecdotes.  It might be just me.  And even I can't deny that her grasp of language is truly impressive.

Travels was written long, long time ago.  In 1976, to be precise.  In this particular instance, I believe the fact to be an advantage.  The world as described in this small collection of essays (150 or so pages) exists no more.  Hong Kong is no longer British.  Dublin is no longer poor.  None of other places included in Travels is what it was thirty six years ago, and it adds to the booklet's charm.  It's no longer ordinary travel writing, it's history.  A history not written by politically-minded demagogues, but by an eye witness who's not conscious of writing a historical account. 

For that alone, Travels deserves to be read.