Adventures in Africa [Hardcover]

In 1997, Gianni Celati, well-known Italian literary figure since the nineteen sixties and author of fiction, essays and translations, embarked on a journey into West Africa, accompanied by his friend, the film maker Jean Talon, with the intention to research the work of the traditional Dogon healers, based in the Malian "Centre for Traditional Medicine" in Bandiagara. Traveling unaccompanied into a world they did not know much about, not able to communicate except in the lingua franca of the educated, French, they negotiated their way through the country with local people for transport, guides and accommodation. It is as Celati confesses "a comedy of errors, delays, misinformation, and wandering about, as contacts are unfindable, means of transportation are unreliable, and complications arise at every turn". Celati's observations and musings have been published as "Adventures in Africa", based on a series of notebooks (nine altogether) that he kept like a travelogue during the trip that took them beyond Mali also to Senegal and across the border to Mauretania.

It took me quite a while to get into the spirit of Celati's writing: jottings also in terms of unfinished sentences and thoughts... much is left to our own knowledge or imagination. His description of daily details of their first days of wandering through Bamako, Mali's capital, and traveling to other cities en route to Bandiagara, the centre of the Dogon region, can be anything from tedious to repetitive to slightly funny and ironical. Only when they finally reach their intended destination do the short information snippets unfurl into a more comprehensive account of their experiences and encounters. Even then, Celati is more concerned with his "stinginess" and his frustrations with the people around him than much else. Still, amidst all these ramblings we can detect gems of observational clarity, astute depiction of individuals and their demeanour in their Dogon context. While the original objective of the trip, to prepare for a documentary on the Dogon healer, does appear to become questionable, the visit itself is extended beyond Mali's borders. Eventually Celati relaxes into the local rhythms and attitudes that make him feel closer to the locals than to the other tourists they encounter... and he has wonderful comments about those as well as the would-be experts expats and anthropologists. Celati gives a detailed caricature of the "tourist", somebody innocently bumbling along in a foreign environment where he perceives everybody as a kind of trader, "starting with less than ten years old". He also gives himself the aura of the "writer on vacation", writing in more or less hospitable surroundings, losing himself in the colours and atmosphere of the locale, losing his sense of time...

While I found "Adventures in Africa" overall, despite its weaknesses spelled out above, a worthwhile read, I cannot really recommend it highly to readers who are not already familiar with this region of Africa, unless they are willing to undertake much background research themselves first. Other than the interesting introduction by Rebecca West into Celati's writing history and some context for the book, the reader is left very much to his own devices to follow the itinerary, place the towns and villages, visualize the people and landscapes. There are no maps, no explanation of local terms, no background information to historical and socio-political context, no images of what the book is describing. [Friederike Knabe]

Maybe there are two ways of writing about travel. First, you write about startling things or things that other people normally might not notice. Second,you present a somewhat ordinary world but you do so in high-flown prose that---because of the quality of the writing---carries the reader along no matter what. This journalistic travel book seems one that a publisher might have picked up ONLY because the writer is well known. It is neither well written nor particularly acute in what it sees and reports. Too often there is a grim habit of stereotype, and always there is a languid sense of a prose style that suggests little more than some jottings in a loose-leaf along the way. A Graham Greene brings heart, keen perception, and inspiration to his "Journey without Maps" into Africa, and may other writers encounter people who remain in your mind. Celati just putters along.

I ordered two copies for gifts and one for myself to share. For the travler on the road or simply in life, that understands that often things are beyond our control but that does not have to be a bad thing. A mini vacation for an older travler on a Montana winter night, making longing for the next adventure somehow more appealing and a plesant way to drift off for the evening, quiet and safe.