The Way of the World by Nicolas Bouvier is an autobiographical tale about the author and his artist friend, Thierry Vernet, at the age of 24 heading out in 1953 from Geneva to the Khyber Pass. Erudite, multi-lingual and modest in disposition but curious by intention – the journal encompasses a year and a half of their explorations, work, reflections and travels in a jalopy decorated in the script of whatever foreign language was dominant in the nation they found themselves in that was meant to elicit sympathy for travelers. With no steady work with which to pay their way, the two find themselves hustling as teachers, artists, lecturers, traders, writers, buskers and other assorted odd jobs and on the receiving end of gracious hospitality many times in the many tongues that they’ve just recently picked up the rudiments of. The journal is filled with anthropological observations about the behaviors and customs of the people he meets, extended descriptions of scenery, humanistic observations, historical asides, and of course many descriptions of car trouble. By the time that Nicolas has arrived at the Khyber Pass, having crossed through Yugoslavia, Iraq, Iran, and Afghanistan and looks up at his destination – you too can feel a sense of accomplishment, as if you were there with them.
Being a Voyager myself, it’s no surprise that I generally enjoy travelogues. This particular one had been on my Amazon reading list for quite some time, so finding it as I did made me quite pleased to pick it up. Starting in Beograde a cast of characters are introduced, both biographically and geographically. The way that cities, villages and their inhabitants are described by Bouvier are all the product of an erudite and artistic eye. The levels of details have their moments of slowness, for sure, but on the whole
I found Bouvier’s insights into how the local cultures was affected by the larger political struggles that were then going on in the world to be impressive. In The Lion and the Sun chapter Bouvier gives a brief history of why one particular Iranian town bazaar is not nearly as vibrant as it once was by sharing the story told to him by a chain-smoking French Father near the Persian quarter.
In another section in the same passage he reviews the struggles going on in Tehran:
“One the ground floor, the political level, they were busy fighting the Communist threat by using traditional diplomacy – promises, pressure and propaganda – to keep a contemptible, corrupt but right-wing government in power. On the first floor, the technical level, a large team of specialists were busy trying to improve the living conditions of the Iranian People…”
And then based on his assessment from having just been in several villages that
“…recipes for happiness cannot be exported without adjustments, and in Iran the Americans had failed to adapt theirs to a context which puzzled him.”
More often than not, however, Bouvier has his eye on the people immediately around him. Such as the merchants that are hosting or helping them, the bureaucrat that’s ensuring they have all the proper papers, the other interesting people that they meet along the way.
Having lived multiple times in my life out of a backpack for long periods at a time, I can attest to the romanticism and reality of the nomadic life Bouvier describes. The wonderful chance encounters with others that change the way that you look at things. It makes you more sensitive to things in a way that only those that have done it could ever fully understand. And each time you move, you change, it feels you have to tear yourself away from a place where you have learned to live.
Once in Afghanistan Nicolas and Thierry meets a man whose communications are similar to several of those that I’ve heard travelers tell – one wherein the inner-self remains untouched by that which is encountered abroad. Responding with similar disdain to that which I’ve felt, Bouvier’s response was much like my own.
“Maintaining his integrity – remaining intrinsically the same simpleton who first set out? He couldn’t have seen very much, then, because there isn’t a single country – as I now know – which doesn’t exact its pound of flesh.
Yes, that’s what the world does to you when making your way out in it… And that’s what this books helps show – what’s given and what’s taken in a quest for internal development and external adventure.
Sure enough I go inside and sure enough there’s a decent English langauge section. Decent not in the sense of very big, 4 small shelves, but packed with some good books.