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'The year's unquestioned winner', Jonathan Keates Observer; 'Witty...ballsy, carefree-cum-frenetic' Adam Nicholson Sunday Times; 'I didn't want it to end' Christie Hickman Women's Journal; An acute power of observation and a wickedly accurate car for the spoken word... exaspcrating and very funny' Selina Hastings Evening Standard; 'Mixed brilliance and capriciousness' Colin Thubron, Daily Telegraph.
Evening Standard
'An acute power of observation and a wickedly accurate ear for the spoken word... eccentric, occasionally exasperating and very funny.'
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
15 of 15 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
If you've read his 'One hot summer in St Petersburg' you'll expect something near to the bone and this is it. It's even more personal. His travel writing exposes warts and all, about himself as well as the places he visits. From the superficiality of the south of France to the danger and decay of Sicily. After reading this all romantic illusions you may have about the south west of Italy and Sicily will be shattered. It's a highly individual odyssey with all the highs and lows and disappointments and moments of triumph that occur on real journeys as opposed to package holidays. One of those books you will remember and talk about for years and buy for your best friends so you can compare thoughts.
14 of 15 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Fallowell is the modern day equivalent of a Victorian travel writer, and here presents an excellent travelogue of a journey down the spine of Europe. His true life experiences as he journeys from London to Noto are kitsch, louche and often self-indulgent but always humorous. At times you'll be shocked, yet charmed at his outrageous exploits.
His descriptions of his journey paint a sweeping background to his adventures. One can't help but have the feeling he is more than a touch eccentric, but long live eccentricity.
His descriptions of his journey paint a sweeping background to his adventures. One can't help but have the feeling he is more than a touch eccentric, but long live eccentricity.
VERY highly recommended, buy once - cherish forever.
Format:Paperback
I beg to differ.
This book is a description of a car journey from London to Sicily in 1986. As such, it is now a period piece (no air-conditioning!), although that's not necessarily conclusive - there is a certain charm in the best of "obsolete" travel writing such as that by Eric Newby. Duncan Fallowell claimed in an interview in 2008 to be a new (and better) kind of travel writer. So is this book now in the category "best of `obsolete' travel writing"?
As it happens I drove from London to Sicily in 1987. But I did not have Fallowell's advantages. In the book he "knows" people everywhere, he stays in the best hotels (recommended to him by relatives, friends and acquaintances), he is an expert (apparently) on food and wine and art and architecture, and wherever he goes he is the object of advances from both sexes.
And yet what a tiresome travelling companion he proves to be. He seems blithely unaware that most readers contemplating this journey would not have the option of breaking it by staying in the family house near St Tropez, nor are they likely to have an invitation to visit whoever is the current equivalent of Harold Acton in Florence - Sting, possibly? Although it has no relevance to his journey, he inserts an account of his one journalistic coup, an unproductive interview with Mick Jagger which took place in Paris on an entirely different occasion, and in St Tropez he wastes a lot of his (and our) time in pursuit of a similar interview with Regine. He displays astonishing ignorance - he knows nothing and cares less about the workings of the vehicle on which he is dependent (and which, fortunately for him, never lets him down), and is permanently unable to distinguish cement from concrete (which is surely a simple enough distinction to grasp).
Recommended? If you have done something similar yourself, the book might make an instructive comparison. But if you are thinking of doing something similar, don't read this, as you will soon realise you will never be able to emulate Fallowell's supremely self-absorbed and stately progress down what he calls "the spine of Europe".
This book is a description of a car journey from London to Sicily in 1986. As such, it is now a period piece (no air-conditioning!), although that's not necessarily conclusive - there is a certain charm in the best of "obsolete" travel writing such as that by Eric Newby. Duncan Fallowell claimed in an interview in 2008 to be a new (and better) kind of travel writer. So is this book now in the category "best of `obsolete' travel writing"?
As it happens I drove from London to Sicily in 1987. But I did not have Fallowell's advantages. In the book he "knows" people everywhere, he stays in the best hotels (recommended to him by relatives, friends and acquaintances), he is an expert (apparently) on food and wine and art and architecture, and wherever he goes he is the object of advances from both sexes.
And yet what a tiresome travelling companion he proves to be. He seems blithely unaware that most readers contemplating this journey would not have the option of breaking it by staying in the family house near St Tropez, nor are they likely to have an invitation to visit whoever is the current equivalent of Harold Acton in Florence - Sting, possibly? Although it has no relevance to his journey, he inserts an account of his one journalistic coup, an unproductive interview with Mick Jagger which took place in Paris on an entirely different occasion, and in St Tropez he wastes a lot of his (and our) time in pursuit of a similar interview with Regine. He displays astonishing ignorance - he knows nothing and cares less about the workings of the vehicle on which he is dependent (and which, fortunately for him, never lets him down), and is permanently unable to distinguish cement from concrete (which is surely a simple enough distinction to grasp).
Recommended? If you have done something similar yourself, the book might make an instructive comparison. But if you are thinking of doing something similar, don't read this, as you will soon realise you will never be able to emulate Fallowell's supremely self-absorbed and stately progress down what he calls "the spine of Europe".
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