Travel writing, at its heart, is about venturing into the unknown, departing from familiar territories, both geographical and conceptual. Yet, within this genre of departures, certain well-trodden paths have emerged, becoming so predictable they risk turning into literary package tours. These formulaic approaches, while once innovative, now feel like clichés, hindering the true spirit of exploration that travel writing should embody. One might even ask, in a more abstract sense, Where Does Travel The Dead Stream when these conventions stifle originality?
Two particular forms have become overly familiar. The first, the “In the Footsteps of…” narrative, meticulously retraces the journeys of historical figures. While these accounts can be informative, they often prioritize comparing past and present landscapes over genuine discovery. The second, the “On a…” trope, relies on deliberately impractical modes of transport to generate comedic mishaps. Imagine “Round South America on a Pogo Stick” – the journey becomes more about the gimmick than insightful travel experiences, even if laced with historical and cultural tidbits related to pogo sticks.
The danger here is that travel writing, a genre predicated on venturing beyond the known, could become stagnant, a “stay-at-home genre” in disguise. A truly successful travel book needs to break free from these pre-packaged experiences, offering a departure from conventional ideas of what travel literature can be. Claudio Magris’s Danube, for instance, subtly expanded the genre’s possibilities, becoming a great piece of writing that transcends simple categorization. Sometimes, removing the “travel” label altogether reveals the true literary merit of a work. However, some books coast on the reputation of being “travel classics” while falling short of broader literary standards. Patrick Leigh Fermor’s A Time of Gifts, while beloved by some, might rely on a lowered bar of critical assessment simply because it’s categorized as “travel writing.” This raises an interesting question: could some books be considered “fake passports,” granting authors literary acclaim without facing rigorous critical scrutiny?
The most compelling “travel” books often defy easy categorization. Rebecca West’s Black Lamb and Grey Falcon, Ryszard Kapuściński’s The Soccer War, or even Don DeLillo’s novel The Names push the boundaries of what we consider travel literature. Labeling them simply as “travel books” feels as reductive as calling Miles Davis’s 1970s music “jazz.” Davis himself, seeking to move beyond genre constraints, described his albums from Filles De Kilimanjaro (1968) onwards as “Directions in Music.” This is the essence of what innovative writing should strive for: “Directions in Writing,” constantly evolving and challenging expectations.
Ultimately, we must consider what forms of writing aren’t travel writing. Reading itself is a form of transportation. We seek to be moved, to be transported from our current state, regardless of geographical distance. You can be transported reading about London while on the London Underground. Writers like Charles Dickens, Annie Dillard, Isak Dinesen, and Emily Dickinson are all, in this sense, travel writers, guiding us to unfamiliar and thought-provoking places. Even E.M. Cioran, known for his pessimistic philosophy, expressed his deep admiration for Emily Brontë through the metaphor of travel and pilgrimage, declaring “Haworth is my Mecca.” Therefore, to circle back to our initial point, perhaps the real question isn’t about the limitations of travel writing, but rather, echoing a larger concern, “Is literature dead?” The answer, hopefully, is a resounding no, as long as writers continue to explore new directions and challenge the very definition of genre, even venturing into streams where the conventional and expected no longer hold sway – even, perhaps, where does travel the dead stream, if we dare to explore the uncharted territories of narrative and form.
