Any Baedeker will tell us where we ought to travel, but only Alain de Botton will tell us how and why.With the same intelligence and insouciant charm he brought to How Proust Can Save Your Life,de Botton considers the pleasures of anticipation; the allure of the exotic, and the value of noticing everything from a seascape in Barbados to the takeoffs at Heathrow.
Even as de Botton takes the reader along on his own peregrinations, he also cites such distinguished fellow-travelers as Baudelaire, Wordsworth, Van Gogh, the biologist Alexander von Humboldt, and the 18th-century eccentric Xavier de Maistre, who catalogued the wonders of his bedroom. The Art of Travel is a wise and utterly original book. Don’t leave home without it.
An experienced traveler and the author of five books, including How Proust Can Change Your Life, De Botton here offers nine essays concerning the art of travel. Divided into five sections “Departure,” “Motives,” “Landscape,” “Art,” and “Return” the essays start with one of the author’s travel experiences, meander through artists or writers related to it, and then intertwine the two. De Botton’s style is very thoughtful and dense; he considers events of the moment and relates them to his internal dialog, showing how experiences from the past affect the present. In “On Curiosity,” for example, which describes a weekend in Madrid, De Botton compares his reliance on a very detailed guidebook to the numerous systematic measurements Alexander von Humboldt made during his 1799 travels in South America. De Botton compares Humboldt’s insatiable desire for detail with his own ennui and wish that he were home. There are also details about a fight over dessert, the van Gogh trail in Provence, and Wordsworth’s vision of nature. Although well written and interesting, this volume will have limited popular appeal. Recommended for larger public libraries. ~ Library Journal
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