Falmouth Seminar 2010
Literary Road Trips
Facilitator: Peter Aicher (bio)
Location: The Atrium at Cedars, 640 Ocean Avenue, Portland
| January 20, 2010 | Imperium by Ryszard Kapuscinski | |
| February 10, 2010 | Gentlemen of the Road by Michael Chabon | |
| March 10, 2010 | The Road to Oxiana by Robert Byron | |
| March 31, 2010 | Travels With Myself and Another by Martha Gellhorn | |
| April 28, 2010 | The Rings of Saturn by W.G. Sebald | |
| May 26, 2010 | The Snow Leopard by Peter Matthiessen |
All meetings are on Wednesdays, 6:00-8:30 pm (dinner 6:00 to 6:30 pm)
[Snow Dates: The Wednesday following a Wednesday cancellation]
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Wanna get away?
Reserve your chair now on literary road trips. All participants must enjoy great literature; a sense of adventure is highly recommended.
January 20 Imperium, by Ryszard Kapuscinski.
Published in 1994, Imperium gathers the celebrated Polish journalist’s writings about the Soviet empire, based on his travels there over many years. The first section begins with his boyhood memories of the Red Army’s advance into his hometown. The longest section of the book chronicles Kapuschinski’s journeys from 1989 to1991 as he witnesses the collapse of empire.
February 10 Gentlemen of the Road, by Michael Chabon.
The “gentlemen” of this fast-paced adventure tale are two Jewish bandits—one an axe-wielding Abyssinian, the other a melancholic Frank—who become embroiled in a dynastic dispute in the medieval kingdom of the Khazars. Attractions of the book, in addition to intrigue, include the entertaining style and the historical setting: the Khazars were Turks who settled in the Caucasus region and adopted Judaism. The novel’s portrayal of the region’s intersection of different faiths is eye-opening.
March 10 The Road to Oxiana, by Robert Byron.
Published in 1937 and based on a journey Byron took a few years earlier, The Road to Oxiana has become a classic of travel literature, on the strength of Byron’s style and the keenness of his perceptions. For readers today, the interest of the narrative is compounded by the regions in which he travels, from Jerusalem to Bagdad, Teheran, and Afghanistan.
March 31 Travels With Myself and Another, by Martha Gellhorn.
Manhattan’s Chinatown becomes almost a character in this complex mystery that takes place in the 1990s.
April 28 The Rings of Saturn, by W.G. Sebald.
Sebald’s uncanny meditations are structured by a walking trip the narrator took through East Anglia, England. The exotic places Sebald takes us, however, are reached not on foot, but on the magic carpet of sentences that circle through history. The view is not always pretty, but the mode of conveyance lends a strange beauty to a landscape in decline.
May 26 The Snow Leopard, by Peter Matthiessen.
Matthiessen’s journey to the mountains of Nepal is both a naturalist’s travelogue and a spiritual journey. As a naturalist, he is part of an expedition to study an elusive species of sheep and the still rarer snow leopard. The rougher part of the adventure, however, is interior, and part of the path that leads him to becoming a Zen priest.
You can download the Word document of the syllabus.
