Book review - 'What the Traveller Taught Me'

WHAT THE TRAVELLER TAUGHT ME: REACTION TO TWO BOOKS

When we decided to choose ‘Sense of Place’ as a topic for our sub-genre presentation I didn’t know what to expect from the books I had to read. The syllabus explained the matter with the words ‘Humorous comparisons of different cultures’ and a little bit curious I started to read How not to live Abroad by Shaun Briley. And it really was humorous. I have read the book in a few days, because I wanted to know how it would end up and Briley’s way of writing was really vivid and readable.

In How Not to Live Abroad Shaun and his girlfriend Helen are going on a trip to Spain. But what starts as an extended vacation - a last fling before the dreaded reality of taking respectable jobs back home - turns into a series of madcap, real-life misadventures for the naïve young couple. They fall in love with Spain and before they realize it, they have landed in Almería, a region of arid beauty tucked away in the rugged corner of the Iberian Peninsula. There, the goats far outnumber the tourists, and with good reason.

Nearly broke already, Shaun and Helen become infatuated with a lonely farmhouse that has one particular charm: its unbelievably low price. They are certain that living off the land and the literal fruits of their labour will be blissful. But their new home is lack of electricity and running water, and the challenges of rural life in a strange land, prove daunting obstacles for recent graduates who know more about history and computer science than they do about farming.

Shaun and Helen endure one outlandish encounter after another: nasty scorpions, ornery farm animals, felonious workmen, horrified relatives, the amorous attentions of a local farmer’s cross-eyed daughters, and a neighbour who is convinced that space aliens have been landing nearby, to name just a few.

The funniest part of the book is when Shaun describes the time when they just have bought the old and lonely farmhouse.

‘Before the ink could dry on the signatures, we were on the way to our very own farm. Never had I seen anything as wonderful as that gleaming white house set against rolling hills and a deep blue sky. Helen hugged me tightly for a moment and then excused herself to go to the toilet. While Helen was gone, I just stood there in awe while it sank in that I was part owner of this splendid house. I could hear her opening and closing doors inside. Staring up at the sky, I noticed a few tiles missing from the roof and thought it odd that I hadn’t spotted them before. I suddenly wondered what other faults I might have overlooked in my infatuation with the place. Then I saw her wave at me from a window and I waved back before she disappeared again. This drew my attention to the grill on the window, which I noticed was loose - and furthermore in desperate need of some paint. I was thinking that we would have our work cut out for us when I realized that Helen was dashing from one room to another at an ever-increasing speed.
‘Are you all right? Did you find the toilet?’ I called out. Finally, she appeared panting at an upstairs window.
‘There is no toilet!’

This paragraph shows Shaun Briley as a writer in a nutshell. He describes his adventures in a clear, humorous, ironical and still sober way. And therefore his book is so funny and easy to read.
In the end of the story, Helen and Shaun decide to go back to England and they also decide to break off their relationship. During their time in Spain, there are increasing tensions between the two and as Shaun writes ‘our biggest adventure turned out to be each other’.

‘Personally, I came out to Spain thinking it was a way to avoid work. I didn’t want to struggle with the rest of them. I certainly ended up with something more than I bargained for there. I’d never worked so hard in my life as I did on that farm. It wasn’t just the valley that lost some of its innocence that year. I learned that if you don’t chop that wood you’ll freeze, and you don’t even want to think about leaving the chemical toilet unemptied.
Strangely, it was in these necessary struggles that I finally found what I was searching for. While harvesting crops and making essential renovations, I accidentally discovered a sense of purpose that I’d sorely lacked. Although I was more than averagely incompetent at these things, I felt I’d still somehow managed to achieve something. Renovating a house with my bare hands, eating food I had grown, and working for myself in a foreign land gave me maturity and a sense of fulfilment.’

This passage is one of the last paragraphs in the book and those paragraphs give the book a surplus value, because of the shown worldly wisdoms.


Bryson’s book, Down Under, was also a pleasure to read for me, but it was really different from How Not to Live Abroad.
Down Under is of course about Australia and Bryson travelled round the country in a fractured fashion, starting in Sydney and exploring the southeastern corner including Melbourne and Adelaide and much in between. He makes much of the fact that eighty percent of Australia’s population is concentrated in this peninsula and yet he can still drive for many miles without much in the way of anything at all. Few vehicles, animals or people caused him any detraction on his journey. He really gives the reader a true favour of what this part of the country looks and feels like.

Bryson really wants to share with us how perilous Australian Flora and Fauna can be. This is something that captivates most travellers to the country and one can’t help but smile at Bryson’s description of a seashell that will go for you.
The subject of Australia’s indigenous people, the Aborigines is touched upon and Bryson tries to understand how they have ended up in poverty, poorly educated and why it is not a popular topic of conversation with other Australians. He doesn’t really justice this topic, because this is a travel book and political observations should be left out.
The book is ‘as funny as ever’, as said in the Daily Telegraph and I can recommend it, just as How Not to Live Abroad.