julezz's blog

While Z lives in England, her world expands exponentially. She becomes immersed into a culture completely different from the one in which she was raised, learning new customs, eating new food, and falling madly in love. The plot focuses on the language barrier that creates difficulties in her relationship with the Englishman. It seems that if they both spoke the same language fluently, their love could have flourished much more. But would Z have experienced the same amount of growth if she were fluent in the language being spoken around her?

With thousands of languages spoken on Earth, there are only a limited number of countries a person can travel to that speak their language. To a traveler, a language barrier can be a nuisance. Lugging around phrase books and dictionaries, not being able to ask for directions, and other inconveniences can often lead to a person traveling only to where their native language is spoken. But maybe, we would experience much more if we traveled only to where our language isn’t spoken.

In England, Z discovers new meanings for words she often already knew. From words as simple as “properly” to as abstract as “freedom,” the words not only translate differently across languages, but also across cultures. By immersing ourselves into another language, we are much more able to absorb another culture. In maintaining our own language, we are limiting how much we can learn, change and grow throughout our travels. It is only when something confuses us that we can learn to understand it; if we understand all of it already, there is nothing more to learn.

In order to gain a new perspective, we must first train ourselves to think differently. We must take everything we know and flip it around, look at it from another angle. Language is included in this everything; it too must be changed in order for our thinking to be altered. This presents a whole other level of challenges that would not be faced if speaking in ones native tongue, but it is only when faced with challenges that a person can truly grow stronger.  
 

It’s hard to decipher Sal’s motives for traveling. They encounter many travelers who are running from the law, some who are running away from home, and some who are on their way back home. None of these are the case for Sal, however. So what is it that keeps him moving? He often talks about his restlessness and getting the feeling that it’s time for him to leave. It seems that Sal is running simply to run, for the rush of the feeling of the wind running through his hair. He has the itch.
            What is it that gives people the itch? I know I’ve felt it before myself, and I’m sure a majority of the rest of the population has as well. I live a comfortable life, similar to Sal, and I don’t have a shifty past, like Dean, that makes me want to stay on the run. And in the end, part of me knows I will want to come back home as Sal does after his stint in San Francisco and with Terry. Sal and I are living decades apart, yet the feeling is the same.
            I believe that the desire a person has to explore the world around them correlates to the fervor a person has for life. It is rare that a person will happily accept the life that has been laid out for them without questioning the other possibilities that are out there. It could be that a person, such as Sal, is quite content with the idea of getting married and settling down, yet he still has the itch. Lying in a hotel room in Denver with Rita, Sal “put[s] [his] hand over her mouth and [tells] her not to yawn. [He] tried to tell her how excited [he] was about life and the things we could do…”(pg. 55).  Sal has such a desire to live as many different ways as he can before he commits himself to one way of living for the rest of his life.
            I don’t know if this is true for everyone, but Sal’s travels sound exciting and even appealing. Despite the fact that he almost never has money and often ends up sleeping on benches, he has the most wonderful stories to tell and meets the most interesting people. And as I read, the little voice within me that is telling me to leave everything behind and run away gets a little louder. 

Author Erik Cohen writes about the existential tourist and their fevered search for meaning in their travels. I believe Kit and Port definitely fall into this category, although they have characteristics of the others as well, as they believe the “only meaningful ‘real’ life is at the centre” (Cohen 190). But what happens when the existential tourist reaches the center and finds it doesn’t live up to their high expectations? Cohen addresses this at the end of the essay, describing three ways in which the existential tourist addresses these discrepancies. In my opinion, Kit and Port definitely fall into the category of the “critical idealists,” who have trouble accepting that their dream hasn’t come true.

First I must address that this categorization only applies to Kit in the beginning of the book, when she is still a tourist. I do not believe that Kit is really a tourist after Port’s death, but rather truly becomes fully embedded in the culture. When Port is still alive, however, the two are searching for meaning in their lives through an authentic African experience. When they realize, however, that they are radically unhappy in the run-down hotels eating rabbit with fur still on it, it hits them that this is not the authentic dream they had imagined. Instead of admitting that this is not the journey they had envisioned, they continue on “attached to the ideal which the centre is meant to represent” (Cohen 196).

In the end, Port’s disenchantment leads to his death, his last attempt to make the whole journey “real.” He attempts to “preserve [his] dream, while denying the adequacy of its earthly embodiment” (Cohen 196). The only way Port can really live out his expectations of experiencing an authentic journey is to die in the process, the most authentic death of all. The couple tries to act as if they are “starry-eyed idealists,” by pretending they have found self-realization even though it is “based on self-delusion” (Cohen 196). But in reality, they have not found self-realization and they are not deluding themselves into thinking they have. They accept the fact that they are not going to find self-realization, and force it upon themselves anyway. They “reject the reality” of their failure (Cohen 196). 

Paul Bowles seems to think he knows what he’s talking about when he describes the characters as travelers. Port explains that “the tourist generally hurries back home at the end of a few weeks or months, the traveler, belonging no more to one place than to the next, moves slowly, over periods of years, from one part of the earth to another” (pg. 6). It seems that this is the only reason Port actually wants to travel: to maintain the image that he belongs nowhere and at the same time everywhere, making his home in even the most tourist unfriendly locations of the world. Something about this definition and lifestyle of a “true” traveler, however, does not seem right, especially in Port and Kit’s case. 

The travels of the Lyle’s are juxtaposed with those of the Moresby’s, attempting to show how false the Lyle’s travels are in comparison to the traveling of Porter, Kit and Tunner. Mrs. Lyle  shows no tolerance for the natives of the towns they are staying in, often appearing disgusted and offended by their existence. She says the Arab women are “all contaminated” (pg. 82), and in Ain Krorfa is paranoid that the “thieving” children will steal from her car (pg. 111). Porter even believes that most of Eric’s travel stories are made up, taking further credibility away from the Lyle’s status as travelers. 

Taking a closer look, however, it appears that as fraudulent as some of the Lyle’s stories may seem, they are probably much more of “real” travelers than Port and his companions. At one point, Port reveals that he read an article warning tourists to stay away from French Africa, and admits that this is mostly why he wanted to travel there. He wants to feel as though he’s “pioneering” (pg. 101), yet they only stay in the nicest hotels and spend their whole time complaining about them. Moreover, the only real interactions they have with the natives are negative: Smail, Marhnia the dancer, Kit getting lost on the train, and tea with M. Chaoui.

To me, it looks as though Port is only in Africa so he can say he’s been there in order to elevate his status as a traveler. The Lyle’s, on the other hand, are genuinely there to stay, know the areas like the back of their hand, and haven’t left despite the extreme discomfort and illness they endure. Mrs. Lyle even calls Ain Krorfa a “charming town” (pg. 111), while Kit calls it a “nightmare” (pg. 127). And as horrible as the Lyle’s are made out to seem, even being called monsters by Port and Kit, they spend more time with them then anyone else. In fact, it seems that they spend more time with them then they do outside of their hotel at all. The more of the book I read, the less Port seems to fit his own description of himself. 

Wandering the back streets of Florence completely lost, with no interest in getting found, we stumbled upon a cute little restaurant. It looked the like the label sticker for a bottle of expensive Italian wine; from the cobblestone streets to the paint chipped shutters, everything about it fulfilled my cliche mental image of Italy. We stepped inside, and it quickly became clear we were the only ones in the establishment who spoke English. We ordered glasses of wine by pointing at the menu and smiling, then leaned back in our seats to enjoy an authentic Italian experience.

Tables were crammed into every open area of the small space, and chairs had been squeezed around every table to allow for more people. The place was packed, and waiters dodged small children as they slid between tables and chairs to deliver trays of homemade pasta and fresh veal. A small TV hanging over the bar played music videos quietly in the corner, barely audible over the murmurs of the patrons. Upbeat jazz with creamy Italian vocals over a slideshow of pictures of wine country completed the atmosphere, and we did nothing but sip our wine and listen as a different table erupted into laughter every few seconds.

As the jazz song faded away and ended, we were snapped out of fantasy Italy and into 21st Century Italy: Beyonce's "Single Ladies" began to blare out of the TV. I looked around expecting confusion, as I was quite confused myself. They couldn't listen to Beyonce in Italy, she sang in English! I listened to Beyonce with my friends at home, not in a small restaurant in Florence! But to my even greater astonishment, several of the tables began to sing along when the chorus came around and someone yelled something in Italian to the bartender I took to mean as a request for the volume to be raised. At first, I was heartbroken that my perfect Italy had been destroyed. But when the bartender put the song on full blast and one of the tipsy middle-aged men stood up and began to dance as everyone watched, I couldn't help but smile. And then I pulled out the iPhone that I had forgotten was in my pocket and took a video. So maybe Italy wasn't the "authentic" wonderland I had pictured in my head; instead I have an "authentic" video of a chubby Italian man doing the single ladies' dance.