Ben's blog

The first thing I noticed were her hands. So small, so sweet, so graceful. A bit freckly and a bit pale. Almost as delicate as the girl herself. Looking up, I encountered the softest, most beautiful girl. Simple, clean skin, hair as black as can be, and the face of a child called me towards her. 
I saw her standing by a shop window, map of France in hand. Picking up my black trench coat and briefcase, I made my way over to the girl. Ten feet away. I began to notice the sunshine reflecting off her hair. Five feet. The stitchwork on her sweater became clearer. Two feet. I began to bask in the scent of her perfume. Teased, I found myself longing for her. 
Finally approaching, I asked, “Pardonnez moi, Mademoiselle, you appear lost. May I be of any assistance?”
A little flustered, the girl responded, “ I’m looking for the Coquelles station. I’m on my way to England at the moment…”
“Right this way mademoiselle, not a problem I will lead you there myself. Allow me to take your bags.”
Rolling her small duffel, I dared not walk the most direct route to the station, for I wanted to get to know her better.
“How did you spend your time in France? Holiday? School?”
The girl didn’t answer. She simply walked besides me looking ahead, almost weirded out. Her silence intrigued me.
“Now child, what are you up to all alone here?”
After a little hesitation, the girl finally replied softly, “Because of my father.”
“Where is he? Is he here?”
“China,” she replied quickly.
Now we’re finally getting somewhere. After more silence, I asked, “Are you Chinese?”
“Yes. If you don’t mind, I’d appreciate you showing me to the train station. I’m supposed to be leaving in less than an hour and I don’t want to be late.”
“D’accord mademoiselle. We’ll be getting you to the train in no time. But first, lets get a bite to eat.”
“There’s no time, please sir just show me where I need to go.”
Grabbing her arm, I assured her in an almost seductive manner, “Don’t worry my darling, but first, we must eat; I’m starving,”
“Really please,” she pleaded.
“It’ll be quick,” I assured her.
I dragged her struggling body to the café off the square of the church of the Assumption. I could tell she was uncomfortable, but I didn’t understand why. I couldn’t bear it. I just couldn’t grasp what I was doing wrong. I think it’s time to explain a little more about myself. I’m something society doesn’t foster; I can’t help it though. I’ve gone to doctors but each time I’m shooed away because I’m thought to be a creep; I try to blend in. My problem is that I’m attracted to women much younger than myself.
In order to make up for grabbing her, I told her, “Buy anything you want from here.”
She still looked upset.
Silence.
In desperation to get a conversation going, I asked, “Tell me about China.”
Still silence.
“I’ll just tell you about myself then. I’m an Englishman, turned French gent. I was born in 1970. My mum and dad and I lived in Northern England, right in the heart of the coal mining culture. Once the strike started my dad was out of a job and since me and my mum didn’t work, we didn’t have much to live off of. We were hungry a lot, and the politics of the whole matter brought out the worst in my father. He was always yelling at my mum and me, and he even hit me once. It sounds a little ridiculous, but it messed me up and all I wanted was someone to care about me. At the same time, I had finally found my love. Her name was Rose Miller. She was truly beautiful. A brunette with a pale complexion, I was so in love with here, and she loved me too. We had been courting for some time before the strikes began, and once they started, we wanted to support our fathers, who were both temporarily unemployed, so we went to the pickets. While there, the police showed up, so everyone started running away and in the stampede that pursued, the crowds trampled over people, Rose included.”
The girl looked up at me.
“Devastated, I left England as soon as I could and ended up here. Not wanting my family to recognize me and not wanting to give myself any reason to remember what happened in England, I adopted a new life, learned French, and started speaking in a French accent.”
The girl simply stared at me, with nothing to say, almost contemplative.
We sat in silence until our croissants and coffee came.
“I’m also leaving to start afresh,” she finally said. “For several years, I had a boyfriend a bit older than me. I was shocked to find out one day that I was pregnant. I didn’t know what to do and for a couple weeks, I struggled with my options. When I finally told my family, my father was outraged and yelled at me, saying “Goya, Goya you are too young! You are only fourteen!”
So she has a name! Her trust in me made me fall for her even more. She continued, not even noticing my growing affection.
 “My father took me immediately to get an abortion. There weren’t any complications, but people found out and began gossiping. They told my father that I had disgraced the family name and that I had lost their honor. We figured it would be best for me to move away for a little while, so that’s why I’m here now.”
More silence.
“So your name is Goya.”
“I’m going by the name Gina now. But yes, my given name was Goya Zheng.”
“I’m the same as you. Originally Kurt Tromper, I go by Christian Tromper now, pronounced Trom-pay, to make it the most French, of course. “
Gina smiled at me. I was overwhelmed with happiness just to have someone to talk to whom I could make happy.
“It’s almost time to be getting you to the train,” I said with sorrow.
Looking at her watch, she exclaimed, “Yes, yes. We need to go.”
She hurried out of the restaurant in front of my slowly moving self.  We caught a cab and the whole ride back, I kept thinking that this was it; this was my chance. But as we approached the station, the girl hopped out with her bag and said the sweetest little “Thank you sir” before smiling and running off. Alone, yet again, I drove away as she caught her train.
 
 
Tell us Ben, what were some of the themes and ideas you wanted to get across in your story.
I definitely wanted to refer back to themes from other books I’ve read, so there are several interspersed throughout the story. First off, Christian’s character is supposed to resemble Gustav from Death in Venice, with his attraction towards a younger person and attachment to them as well. Also, relating back to Sputnik Sweetheart, I tried to play with different times of people’s lives. Christian was never able to get over Rose’s death, so the hormones of his fourteen year old body remained while he grew to be an older man. Unable to control his attractions to girls, he went to a doctor but was judged disapprovingly and thus tried to hide it. When he saw Goya, his hormones became especially turned on because of her physical similarities to Rose. Goya and Rose were made to be similar to each other, so that Christian would begin to fall for Goya. Additionally, Christian and Goya share similar stories as well. The fact that they both had comparable life happenstances was supposed to draw Christian to Goya even more.
Well you certainly did a lovely job doing that.
I would have liked to elaborate more, because my notes for this short story are much longer than the story itself. There’s a lot more to each of the characters and I felt that with the short nature of this story, it was difficult to add those while actually having some form of action. One thing I wasn’t able to touch upon was elaborating on the similarities between Goya and Rose. I tried to make it clear that they looked alike, but I would have liked to show how their personalities were also alike. I also wanted to talk more about Christian and get the reader to feel more attached to him in a sympathetic way. I originally had a segment about him going to doctors trying to figure out what was wrong with him, but it didn’t flow with this part of the story, although it did add another layer of reality to his character.
Anything else?
Yes, just one more thing. I had hoped to be able to explain more about why it was Goya that Christian was falling for. It was supposed to be a play off of Sputnik Sweetheart, when Miu aged overnight without any logical explanation.
But at the end of the day, are you content with your work?
Yes of course.

The circular love sensation that spreads throughout Haruki Murakami’s Sputnik Sweetheart consists of an unattainable love that all characters seek to fulfill. Starting off with our narrator, K, we see how much he is in love with Sumire, his only “true friend.” From the beginning of the story K makes it clear that he will never feel the reciprocation of love he desires so greatly, due to the fact that Sumire is a lesbian who has fallen for an older woman named Miu, whom she met at a wedding reception and now works for. Despite her physical attraction to Miu, Sumire always remains loyal to K, for they have been best friends for years. A writer, she constantly calls him in the middle of the night asking for advice about her work or just to talk, and K gladly obliges. He is the only one Sumire trusts to let see her work, as they are each other’s only real friends. Throughout the course of the novel, their relationship never weakens, and neither does K’s love for Sumire. Over time, K slept with multiple women and had several girlfriends but he admitted to the reader that even though he had these extra distractions to get his mind off of Sumire, he still would occasionally think about her when performing sexual acts. Also, even long after the search for Sumire had ended, K would still think about her, and miss her.

Paralleling this trend of unfulfilled love is Sumire’s relationship with Miu. While in Miu’s bed in Greece, the two admit feelings for each other, but due to Miu’s past, she is unable to feel and act in a sexual manner, thus making it difficult for Sumire to cope. Though we are unsure as to why Sumire disappeared and then randomly reappeared, this incident in Miu’s bed may have something to do with it. At the end of the day, however, Sumire returns to K. As if coming full circle, he receives a call from her in the middle of the night at their “good old faithful telephone booth,” six months after her disappearance, claiming to have “gone through bloody hell” to get back to him. They will never be together in a romantic way, but they will always love each other, and even the little sexual distractions that come along the way in life will never break their friendship. 

Though one might interpret the diary-style entries of Xiaolu Guo’s A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers as cute, the content of the novel helps progress Z’s maturation into a developed young woman who is comfortable with herself.
 
In looking at the plot through Z’s progression through school, we see how the material she learns there parallels her growth as an individual. Starting off the novel are a series of short, grammatically incorrect sentences, showing us that the speaker clearly doesn’t know fluent English. The simplicity of her phrases takes us into her mind and we see her naivety and the pure lifestyle she experienced in China. As she learns more English, and as her sentences develop, we see her develop as well, learning more about herself and the culture she is being immersed into. Progressing along, Z learns the past tense, and at that time, we also see her relationship with her lover develop into something more realistic and natural. As opposed to their passionate beginning, they fight more and Z learns the need to express her own feelings. Relating this back to her education at school, the point in the text where Z gains a grasp on the past tense is when she begins seeking to learn her lover’s past and what made him so needy of privacy and alone time. By the conclusion of the novel, Z has learned the future tense. This comes in the opposition to Z’s wanting of a committed future with her lover. Unfortunately, he won’t commit to spending the rest of his life with her, for he claims he wants to simply live in the present. After consulting her dictionary, Z learns of the differences between the past tense love and future tense one. This upsets her, for if “love existed in Chinese tense, then it will last forever. It will be infinite” (239).
 
This trip also sparks an awaking for Z. The progression from calling a housewife a “grass killer” after seeing her weeding her garden to exploring Europe alone shows Z’s immersion to a new culture and increased level of maturity. At first she feels the need to return back to London, but over time, she finds ways to appease her loneliness, and with that, she opens new sexual possibilities she previously hadn’t considered. After pleasuring herself atop a roof, having sexual fantasies, and indulging in the deed itself with a man that wasn’t her lover, she finally feels a sense of empowerment and claims, “I can be my own. I can. I can rely on myself, without depending on a man” (194).
 
Although the two part ways, when Z reveals the last letter she received from her lover at the end of the story, we see that they will never forget each other and their love will never cease to exist.

Throughout “The Gateway to India,” differing beliefs, cultures, and environments are examined. What may prove to be simple cultural differences ultimately result in a drastic impact for the main character. Among the environmental distinctions are the locations throughout Mumbai. While walking through the streets lined with neon-lit strip joints, Dwight described how the sour air and surrounding poverty enveloped his mind. Comparing this to Shah’s and Winky’s apartments, we see the clear distinction of the two separate worlds of India. There’s the lavish lifestyle of the rich and the desperate, meager one of the poor. Dwight notices how “at Shah’s, India almost did not exist, except in the paintings and photographs” (151). Going from this luxurious home to “the stew and stinks and harsh voices” (151) of Indru’s room shows this distinction. Additionally, we see the juxtaposition between the eating habits of Shah and the rest of the upper class. With Shah focusing on the importance of everything living, he follows Jainism, respecting “all living things, great and small” (150). When in a restaurant on a business venture, the waiter offers him succulent, cooked choices, but he and Dwight opt for simple beans and rice, so as to make sure no living being was harmed in the process of making the food. Comparing the cultures of the United States and India also occurs. Before departing for business to America, Shah lived a simple life. Upon returning, however, he sported the latest in all accessories, including a Harvard tie, a Brooks Brothers suit and a new, fancy watch. Dwight’s relationships also changed in their nature. At home, Dwight had been married, and even after his divorce, had clung to his ex-wife. In India, after going through several girls needing money, and after finding out that the two girls he’d been supporting for months didn’t even know his name, he finally realized that they were merely using him. Additionally, one day at the beach, when he ran into the older woman whom he met on his first day out, Dwight was surrounded by young adults and was yelled at and almost attacked. What at first proved to make him feel new and alive ultimately made Dwight feel lost and in need. Shah takes him to the wilderness. The novella ends with him falling asleep gazing up at the night stars, finally on his way to recovery. 

Odd as their encounter with Robert and Caroline may seem, Colin and Mary’s relationship ultimately benefit from it. Starting off as a perfectly plain, ideal, couple, the two experience a renewal in their romance. In describing their relationship, they “often said they found it difficult to remember that the other was a separate person” (17); they were completely comfortable with each other, and knew so much about each other that they spent the majority of their time together in silence. Additionally, their lovemaking was shown as a very gentle, relaxed process, with a lot of the times resulting in one of the two falling asleep.
 
After meeting Robert and venturing to his and Caroline’s house, the two felt a new spark and their views and actions completely changed. What once were uninspired conversations were turned to heated, interesting debates and deep discussions that lasted all hours of the night. Their sex life also changed to extremely passionate and much more frequent. All in all, the two found a new, kindled fire. They took advantage of it and experienced a rebirth in their relationship, rediscovering themselves and each other’s histories.
 
I love this time period and the cultural aspect of it. The books we’ve read from this era thus far have all been wonderful and I’ve fully enjoyed all that the descriptions of social life have offered, however, all the books have ended tragically, with deaths in three out of four of them, and one ending in heart break. Although it wasn’t smart of Mary and Colin to enter Robert’s residence after leaving the first time, I didn’t feel the need or see the justification for Colin’s death; it seemed very sudden and unnecessary. Another aspect of the plot that confused me was at the beach when Mary swam out into the ocean. From the description McEwan provided, I thought Mary was being attacked by a shark or was drowning, but when Colin simply swam out and rescued her, I felt it was a bit random. Despite these two bits, I thoroughly enjoyed the book as a whole, including all the parts that were terribly weird, and, of course, the cultural descriptions. 

Many of the books we’ve read have been semi-autobiographical, and Thomas Mann’s Death in Venice proves no exception. As Mann stated, “Nothing is invented in Death in Venice” (Adair), so, with that said, we see that the novel parallels the life of Mann almost directly.
 
Starting with motives for embarking on their sabbaticals, both Mann and Aschenbach sought a break from their daily lives, with Mann seeking refuge from health related issues and Aschenbach fleeing from the harsh, daily routines of his work. Once abroad, they experienced “cold and cheerless” (Adair) weather and inhospitable hotels, thus forcing them to find new locations to live. This move is the cause of the love and obsessive relationship the older men develop with the young boys. Both boys were Polish and both were on vacation with three elder sisters and a caregiver. The primary difference between the two stories lies with how old each boy and each man was. In the novel, Adzio was fourteen, almost at adolescence, however, in real life, the boy Adzio was inspired by was eleven years old and was named Wladyslaw, while Mann was only in his thirties, as opposed to the fifty year old Aschenbach.
 
In searching for beauty and art, Aschenbach finds it in Adzio. He constantly relates him to different Greek gods, like Narcissus for his beauty, and Hyacinthus for his heroic divinity (Frank). In his eyes, Aschenbach found a beautiful human, a piece of art. From this point, we see how his wonder for Adzio motivated him to watch him at the beach, follow him throughout Venice, and stay in the disease-ridden city after all others had evacuated. His actions seem quite similar to those carried out by Jake in Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises, for both were influenced to act in ways they normally wouldn’t have in order to please their loves. 



Frank, Bernhard. "Mann's Death in Venice." Explicator45.1 (Fall 1986): 31-32. Rpt. in Short Story Criticism. Ed. Thomas J. Schoenberg and Lawrence J. Trudeau. Vol. 80. Detroit: Gale, 2005. Literature Resource Center. Web. 2 Nov. 2010.
 
Adair, Gilbert. "The real Tadzio of Thomas Mann." The Gay & Lesbian Review Worldwide10.6 (2003): 14+. Literature Resource Center. Web. 2 Nov. 2010.

When traveling for extended periods of time, the idea of getting away from everyday rituals and behaviors becomes minimalized. Unlike a quick trip, where one can abandon their home life for a short period of time, living in a new country for longer than a mere vacation loses the effect of getting away, and the everyday stresses and problems from home become more prevalent. One of these is the quest of love. In Henry James’ Daisy Miller, and Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises, both sets of main characters go on searches for love.
 
Daisy Miller, the sweet, innocent girl, who comes across as the more scandalous type, is only a young woman plagued by love on a family trip throughout Europe. Her constant trickery aimed towards Winterbourne underlies her actual feelings for him, and in doing this, she flirts with other men and always keeps Winterbourne on edge. Turning to several scenes in the novella, we see how she expresses her fondness towards Winterbourne.
 
Budding their quasi relationship is their first adventure at Chillon Castle, where the two fascinate themselves with each other’s company, until Winterbourne tells Daisy that he has to leave for Geneva in a few days’ time. Upon hearing this, she calls him horrid and closes herself off from him for the rest of the trip, turning from incredibly chattery to more reserved and affected. From the start, we see her curiosity for Winterbourne, and when he breaks the news about his soon-to-be departure, we also see Daisy’s letdown.
 
After his return, Daisy seeks to make Winterbourne jealous, and to do so, she begins courting with a gentleman named Mr. Giovanelli. Daisy makes her intentions obvious about being viewed in public with Giovanelli, however, she still clearly shows an interest and desire for Winterbourne. Daisy was meeting Giovanelli at a garden, so when asked at a luncheon how she was planning on arriving there, she cried, “the Pincio is only a hundred yards distant, and if Mr. Winterbourne were as polite as he pretends he would offer to walk with me!” (38). Winterbourne agrees to take her, and along the way, she whines to him because he didn’t visit her the moment he returned from Geneva. Winterbourne tries to explain that she is making up things in her head, but Daisy still doesn’t believe him. The fact that she cared so much about whether or not he went out of his way to see her shows how much Winterbourne meant to her and this also explains her behavior at the castle in Chillon; once Winterbourne told her that he was heading off for Geneva, she began to sulk because she felt he was abandoning her and she was disappointed that he wouldn’t be staying. 
 
Viewing the plot from Winterbourne’s perspective, we see that the feelings of attraction are mutual. When he found out that Daisy would be accompanying Giovanelli to the Pincio Gardens, “his attention quickened” (37) from simply listening to the conversation. Also, when talking to Daisy about her flirtatious nature at Mrs. Walker’s party, he tells her that she “is a very nice girl,” (49) but he only wants her to flirt with him and him only.
 
A few days later, as Winterbourne strolls through the Palace of the Caesars, he spots Daisy with Giovanelli. When Winterbourne first glanced at her, “it seemed to him also that Daisy had never looked so pretty; but this had been an observation of his whenever he met her” (57). This constant reminder of her beauty every time he lays eyes on her adds to the proof that he is falling for her.
 
There runs the question of whether Daisy is actually engaged to Giovanelli, and when Winterbourne asks her what the truth is, her response changes each time. At first, she tells him that she is engaged, but she fears he does not believe her, so she responds with, “you don’t believe it…well then- I am not!” (58), thus changing her answer from trying to appear taken and not wanting Winterbourne, to needing and opening herself up to him.
 
The final time that Winterbourne sees Daisy is when he comes across her and Giovanelli in the Colosseum. He sees them talking in the middle of the night and when he finds out they’ve been there all night, he begins to worry; he fears she will succumb to the Roman fever, which can be caught by staying out late at the Colosseum. After urging them to go back home, he walks Daisy to the carriage, and she asks whether he believed she was engaged the other day. Winterbourne responds, saying, “I believe that it makes very little difference whether you are engaged or not” (61). He has finally realized that nothing can come out of their being together. We know Daisy is hurt after she hears this.
 
Daisy falls ill days later and Winterbourne comes almost daily to ask how she is doing. He knows that being with Daisy won’t work out, however, he still loves her. Mrs. Miller tells him that Daisy wanted her to tell him “that she never was engaged to that handsome Italian” and asked if he remembered the time they “went to that castle, in Switzerland” (62-63). She dies “the most innocent girl,” despite her flirtatious nature (63). Daisy truly cared about Winterbourne’s opinions of her, and though she tried to hide them, it’s obvious to the reader that her feelings were legitimate.
 
Jake and Brett’s experiences in geographical places parallel those of Daisy and Winterbourne. Ex-lovers, the two still share passionate feelings for each other, however, they are unable to make things work. Throughout the novel, Brett  shares intimacy with four men, all while searching for her life partner.
 
In a taxi, Jake and Brett kiss. They long to be back together, but Brett won’t commit to him because of his injury from the war. Later that night, however, she arrives at Jake’s apartment, wanting to come in and causing a raucous. She claims, “Just wanted to see you. Damned silly idea” (41) and is being playful and trying to kiss him, even though she has a Greek man waiting for her downstairs. These actions of returning to Jake occur over and over again during the course of the story.
 
After venturing to Spain, Jake learns that Brett will be arriving there soon, so he decides to cut fishing, his favorite pastime, short, in order to prepare for her arrival.
 
At a restaurant in Pamplona after Brett’s arrival, Brett begs Jake to introduce her to Romero, the matador, who she’s taken an interest in. Even though he is still in love with her, Jake agrees and follows through. Afterwards, in the park, Brett tells Jake, “I’m a goner. I’m mad about the Romero boy. I’m in love with him I think” (187).
 
They part ways, and Jake decides to spend a few days in San Sebastian while Brett stays in Madrid with Romero. Relaxing at the beach, Jake receives a telegram during his stay reading: “Could you come Hotel Montana Madrid Am rather in trouble” (242). Knowing that Brett needs help, he ends his vacation right away and takes the first train to Madrid.
 
In Madrid, we learn that Brett has let Romero go, adding to the list of men unqualified for her. Though she seems picky, she ultimately is trying to find love. Her first husband died and she has never been able to fully get over him. Because of this, she has never been capable of finding one man and being content with him; her search for perfection has led her to keep on looking.
 
As if coming full circle, the couple shares a final moment together in a cab after leaving the hotel. Driving through Madrid, we see that despite all the men Brett has been interested in, and all the times Jake has changed his plans to accommodate her, the two share a common love for each other. Brett says, “Oh Jake… we could have had such a damned good time together” (251), finally showing her reciprocated feelings for him.
 
In each place, Jake and Winterbourne endured similar emotions and treatment. Jake’s actions mirror those of Winterbourne, but to a more higher extreme. While we can assume that Winterbourne loved Daisy, the extent to which Jake loved Brett was so high that it caused him to act in ways he would never have originally done and abandon his values and favorite pastimes. Unlike Winterbourne, Jake is unable to get himself to take charge of his life and realize that by hanging out with Brett, he is merely teasing himself; he never comes to terms that he must get over her.
 
It is clear that, while in each place abroad, we still face common problems we sometimes seek to get away from. In this case, the search for love, ultimately influenced many of the decisions the characters made in these stories. 

Yi-Fu Tuan presents the idea of home as a “nurturing shelter” (Tuan), one that you can always return to and be able to find comfort in. They are the “centers of meaning to individuals” (Tuan) in that they ground us. After a bad day, we always return back to their familiarity. Tuan claims homes to be “devoted to the sustenance of the body.” He defines as a place, “a center of meaning constructed by experience,” and believes that one must have lived in a certain place for quite some time in order to truly know and understand it. By just touring, people aren’t able to grasp the true essence of a place, because they are there for such a short amount of time; they don’t gain the knowledge that a native does. Because the whole concept of place is reliant on a knowledge of the area, Sal can’t say that he has gotten to know places in the sense that residents have. In moving across the whole country, he never stayed in one spot for more than a few days, with the exception of Southern California with Terry and home with his aunt.
 
Although he doesn’t have what Tuan calls a “place,” Sal does experience place. Kerouac’s description of Ritzy’s Bar helps us imagine the seedy, lowly vibes of the place. He says, “all types of evil plans are hatched in Ritzy’s Bar-you can sense it in the air.” The fact that this bar is where Dean asks Sal to try to see if Marylou would be unfaithful shows the spirit of it. Relating back to Tuan, we approach the idea of sense and how it affects our perceptions. “Seeing is thinking, in the sense that it is discriminating,” (Tuan) discussing how our senses play a major role in how we view things. Besides this, it is also largely reflective of Dean’s personal behavior; he merely used other people to get what he wanted. Overall, Kerouac does a wonderful job describing the scenery and places enveloping his story.

Though many tourists seek authenticity on their voyages, Sal’s journey in On the Road shows that finding absolute authenticity takes a heavy toll on the traveler. In traveling all the way to Los Angeles from his home on the East Coast, Sal takes great care to save as much money as possible, thus proving his trip a more authentic one and a less recreational one. Without spending money, he has to rely purely on the common man’s way of life, which is far from the recreated, fake illusions that are presented to tourists every day. Though he achieves what so many tourists strive for, the fact that he is facing real, unfabricated life has a great impact on Sal’s emotions. Many times, he finds himself stranded, alone, and in uncomfortable situations. During the first part of his journey, he meets a pal named Eddie who leaves him after only a short while traveling. When a man offers a hitchhiking ride for only one of them, Eddie hops into the car without any contemplation or discussion with Sal about who should be able to take the ride, and that is the last time he believes he’ll ever see Eddie. Additionally, while living with his friend Remi and Remi’s girlfriend, Lee Ann, Sal has to sit on his bed in the corner and wait when the couple gets into a fight. In response to their fighting, he says, “Gad, what was I doing three thousand miles from home? Why had I come here?” To make matters worse, Sal woke up at different times on the road to find that his travel companion of the time had abandoned him in the night.
 
Through his hardships on the road, it’s clear that Sal didn’t take the typical trip a recreational tourist would take. Instead, he journeyed on an experimental one; he often encountered the struggles of living at that time period. After meeting his short-time lover, Terry, the two worked together to help take care of themselves and Terry’s son. To do this, they worked 14-hour days picking cotton and living in a tent.
 
All in all, though Sal doesn’t embark on an existential journey, he does embark on an experimental one, moving from place to place after having spent sufficient time at each one.  He “engages in the authentic life, but refuses to fully commit himself to it; rather, he samples and compares the different alternatives” (Cohen). He experienced life all over America, and at the end, he truly believed himself to be “a man of the earth.”

For, MacCannell and Boorstin, tourists fall exactly on one side of a spectrum: either “demand[ing] authenticity” or simply being a “shallow modern mass.” Erik Cohen spends his essay elaborating on his views, which compose a much more moderate take on tourism, broken down into five categories. Though each one remains its own entity, the different types of tourism that Cohen describes can mix together to make a form of tourism that is unique in itself and explains a specific individual’s motivations for traveling.
To explain these, Cohen uses the concept of centers, the prime areas that individuals are located in and carry on their daily lives in. His whole theory of travel relates back to these and how a need for a change in the center prompts travel.

In the case of Kit and Port from Paul Bowles’ The Sheltering Sky, two types of travel explain their intentions. First off, there is diversionary tourism, for those seeking to get away from normal life and get their minds off their problems. They choose to leave their normal centers because they aren’t content with them and explore a new area to simply get their minds away from everyday life. For Kit and Port, their marital problems explain the diversionary aspect of their travel.

The other type of travel Kit and Port embark on is existential, meaning that they elect a new center to call home. As opposed to the other types, which include visiting another center for relief, this type involves living “in two worlds: the world of their everyday life… and the world of their elective centre.” Kit and Port seek another cultural way of life. Instead of being experimental tourists, immersing in the authentic life of another culture, but not fully committing to it, they decide to fully immerse in the culture and lose themselves there. They truly are existential travelers, for they stay in Africa forever; with Port dying and Kit wandering into the Acbah, they never return to their original home. As Cohen would say, they “switch[ed] worlds.”

The main aspect of the novel that caught my eye was the distinction between different social classes and different religions and races.
 
Mrs. Lyle warns Port of the Arabs for she believes them to be thieves and claims they spy around for the government. After Port speaks of the Arabs as sympathetic, Lyle counters in saying “They flatter you and fawn on you. And the moment your back is turned, off they rush to the consulate” (pg. 63). She continues to speak negatively of other races, including the Jews of Spain, and how when she visited there, she laughed in their faces because they claimed to be Catholic and that their temple hadn’t been used for centuries. Kit immersed herself into another cultural and social area when she boarded the 4th class car on the train heading for Boussif. As she stepped into the new compartment, she was overwhelmed with the crowded and loud atmosphere.
 
I enjoyed reading all about the different areas and everyone’s opinions on them. Bowles did an exceptional job describing the scene encompassing the plot as well as helping the reader get into the minds of the characters. I felt like I could see what was going on.  It was also interesting to imagine what it is like in the places the characters go to, like the many taverns, the Turkish fortress, and the rooftop restaurant where Mrs. Lyles, Eric and Port have breakfast in Boussif.
 
In addition to being exposed to so many cultures and beliefs, there was one other element that stood out to me in the novel, and that was the attitude of Mrs. Lyle. As already seen, she wasn’t the most welcoming of all people, in fact she was rather discriminatory. On top of all that, she defines exactly what Huxley described as the typical tourist. Characteristics fitting the mold of Huxley’s tourist include travel as a means to brag later about one’s journey and to show social status. Not wanting to do anything but lounge in the hotel, she says “I believe there’s nothing at all to see in Boussif, so we shall be spared going into the streets” (pg. 68).
 
Overall, it’s been a strong start to an interesting travel story.

Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises proves a fascinating and informative guide to life in 1920’s Europe. In describing the world the principal characters lived in, he was able to bring the reader right alongside them in an effective manner.
 
One of my favorite aspects of Hemingway’s writing was his simplicity. It provided for easy reading, but despite the lack of complexity in his descriptions, I still was able to imagine the culture of the time. Throughout the course of the book, I saw what it would be like to be strolling along le Rue Moufetard just like Jake and Brett did or to eat at one of the many bars they went to. Hemingway did an exceptional job surrounding the reader in the environment of the time; I definitely got the sense of the culture Jake encountered while in France, and later in Spain. His constant use of customs from the era helped even more to make their surroundings imaginable. I loved his description at the end of the novel when Jake and Brett are sitting at the bar inside of the Hotel Montana. He detailed everything they drank and followed them through their meal. All and all, this was by far my favorite part of the book.
 
In looking at the characters, I drew similarities when comparing the relationship of Jake and Brett and the relationship of Winterbourne and Daisy from the novella Daisy Miller. Brett’s constant flirtatiousness and pursuit of different men reminded me greatly of Daisy. Additionally, her admittance of her love for Jake at the end and her saying “we could have had such a damned good time together” gave me similar vibes to that of Daisy when towards her death she had her mother tell Winterbourne that it was he who she loved all along and it was he who she really cared about.
 
I enjoyed learning about the culture that immerses the story and I felt like it was important in how the plot unfolded. As opposed to the society in Daisy Miller, this group seemed much more care-free and less judgmental. There was more of an emphasis on enjoying life and less on bragging and fitting in. As mentioned earlier, Hemingway did a fantastic job detailing even the most normal occurrences, like Jake’s afternoon at the beach and his lunch with Cohn. An extensive list of French terms and detailed descriptions of literally every single alcoholic beverage mentioned in the book made discovering life at that time easy.
 
Hemingway helped me imagine life of an upper class American at the time.

The tourist, as described by Aldous Huxley, plans a trip around being able to brag afterwards about everything that was seen and done. Though published later than Henry James’ Daisy Miller, Huxley’s essay about the tourist directly mirrors the actions and intentions of tourists from earlier times. This said, the society that sets the background for Daisy Miller’s travels throughout Europe is strikingly similar to that of Huxley: a world where traveling for the sake of seeing other places and cultures does not exist and instead lies a constant battle to outdo one’s neighbors and to fit in with society. For Miss Daisy Miller, seeking to fit in proves detrimental. A young woman, she yearns to see the world, but unfortunately for her, her flirtatious attitude and chattery personality give her the wrong reputation among the other Americans abroad.
 
As done by many, Daisy Miller travels to Europe with wide eyes and ambition. I completely understand where she comes from because the idea of traveling all around Europe with the nicest hotels and food is exciting to me. Though I sincerely believe that Daisy had good intentions and that she wanted to see the world, her actions, like courting with multiple gentlemen in public and showing up to countless parties in order to move higher up in the social ranks, mimic those of the tourists Huxley describes. Unfortunately, her personality leads her to her death; in seeking status, she courted for the sake of courting and not for love, causing her to be viewed negatively by society.
 
I personally felt that Daisy’s death had no place. It was obvious that she was naïve and that she wanted to appear as grand as possible, but her being taken advantage of by Mr. Giovanelli went too far; there are other ways to prove one’s point and I don’t believe death to be one of them.
 
Despite Daisy dying, I really enjoyed reading this book; I would definitely read it again. 

25 Tamuz, 5768:

I sit in Tel Aviv’s Independence Hall where David Ben-Gurion declared Israel as an independent state in 1948, waiting for an information session to start. Like many other Jewish high schoolers, I was on a summer program to Israel. Out of all the groups that went, mine was a bit different; instead of being four weeks long like most other trips, ours was almost seven and included an academic component to help bond us as a group and to help us better understand the history and present struggles of Israel. Our teachers and counselors always told us how our program was different from other summer programs to Israel in that we wouldn’t just be tourists, but we would also ultimately feel like citizens of the country and treat it as our home.

The tour was a regular tour; it wasn’t a special event, just one of the multiple tours offered in one day at Independence Hall. I’m sure the leader of the session felt it to be rather monotonous, for she probably had led other ones right before ours. She opened up the information session with basic remarks about Israel and its independence, then proceeded to play a recording of “Hatikvah”, the national anthem, that was sung right after independence was proclaimed. In addition to it being a pretty song and very moving, the passion and emotion I heard in the people’s voices got to me. In everyday life, like in class, knowing that people were fighting for their freedom and what they believed in would have interested me, but it never would have moved me to the extent that this particular recording did. It inspired me and from that moment I no longer felt like a tourist, but instead a resident.

In the following weeks, I made sure to make the most of my time. At Jerusalem’s major cemetery, I saw all the graves of soldiers killed in the many wars Israel has dealt with since its inception and I was truly thankful for all of them. Although Aldus Huxley claimed that travel was such a big industry because people felt like they had to brag about their journeys and one-up their neighbors, I honestly felt an Israeli pride; something that could have never come from simply going to a country because one felt the need to do so.