The Art of Travel [Audio Download]

Travel is one of those things that you're supposed to be born knowing how to do. After all, it looks fairly easy, doesn't it. It's just a case of buying a ticket, boarding a plane etc.
But of course, it's typical of our materialistic culture that we only ever look at the practical obstacles or means of doing things - and ignore the psychological ones. So we never ask how we can be happy on our travels, we just head off on them - and then wonder what might have gone wrong once we're on the Acropolis in baking heat, thinking, Why aren't I at home?!
All of which makes Alain de Botton's book particularly refreshing, as ever (for readers new to this man's work, also check out Essays in love, How Proust can change your life and The Consolations of Philosophy). De Botton looks at travel from a philosophical angle - not in the strict philosophical way that you might find in a university (the last review shows why academics should get out a little more!). Rather, he just starts to think deeply and well about some of the big issues of travel - like: what's the difference between anticipating a place and actually getting there, why do we find some countries exotic, how can we be curious about the places we see, why is it nice to go into the countryside.
What I love about de Botton's writing is that he's never shy to ask the big naive questions that all the highbrows think they know the answer to already (without actually ever discussing them), while the lowbrows are too frightened to ask.
This book is also beautifully illustrated and put together. This might seem like a superficial point, but actually, in all of de Botton's work, there's a real emphasis on visual. Why not mix words and images, the author seems to be saying; magazines do it all the time, why not serious books then?
I should say that this book is a bit different from the last couple de Botton has written. It's a lot more personal, and a lot more descriptive - which I think is a step forward. There's a lot of passages which aren't trying to tell you anything directly, they're just evoking the beauty or interest of places. So for example, de Botton writes some beautiful passages about the feeling of airports and diners, about the countryside, about the sky in Provence, about the streets in Hammersmith, West London, about Madrid. This means that what you end up with in this book is a combination of beautiful descriptions and thoughtprovoking ideas. Which is rare in travel books. Travel books often seem to be written by rather idea-free kind of people: they tell you about a place, but they don't stop to reflect on it. And that's what's good about The Art of Travel. My local bookshop had a poster accompanying the book that read: This summer, don't just work on your tan. Work on your mind. OK, it's a bit glib, but the book really is worth it.

In his continuing (and admirable) quest to bring the philosophic to bear on concrete everyday topics, de Botton's latest slim work takes on the notion of why people travel, and how this is linked to the pursuit of happiness. It's very similar to his last work, The Consolations of Philosophy, in that his aim seems to be to help the reader avoid being disappointed in their travels—as so often is the case. And is the case in his other work, the answer is to be found within ourselves if only we would take a few moments of self-reflection, as he puts it: The pleasure we derive from journeys is perhaps dependent more on the mindset with which we travel than on the destination we travel to."

To illustrate this, he intertwines his own travel experiences with those of several famous European writers and artists in order to highlight his points. Although the book is divided into five distinct sections (Departure, Motives, Landscape, Art, Return), these each have various subsections and sub-subsections, making the structure is more haphazard than his previous nonfiction. Some of these sections work better than others, a particularly weak one is the examination of Flaubert in Egypt and exoticism. He takes Flaubert's self-professed kinship with the "unwashed masses" of Egypt at face value, failing to acknowledge any of the inherent power dynamics in this, or indeed any Western tourist's visit to the third world. Rather he is content to point out the self-evident fact that the lure of the exotic has always been a powerful motivator for travel.

In any event, it's hardly surprising that he uses artists and writers to piggyback his themes on, for (as is evident from the title), he equates travel with art in that one of the functions of each is to provide one with a new window on the world, a new way of seeing. His suggestion is that once we recognize this, and stop trying to use travel as an escape from our dull lives, we'll be much happier. He locates one of the major sources of our disappointment in travel in our ability to image the beach or mountain but our inability to imagine ourselves in that landscape.

Even with its flaws, the book is a useful tool for rethinking our own motivations for travel and potentially useful guide to helping us enjoy it more.

For many years I travelled around the world on business. It was exciting and somewhat startling to read my experiences again and again in the well chosen words of de Botton. I was particularly impressed by and enjoyed his use of the great writers to illustrate and to make his points. Another touch were the plentiful and apt illustrations that complete this book, a book that opens the eye of both the traveller and those who would like to travel. And it is just the right size to carry with one, at least the American edition by Pantheon Books is!
I shall give a copy to my daughter who also travels, confident that it will give her as much pleasure as it has given to me.