Traveling in Place: A History of Armchair Travel, by Bernd Stiegler

The term ��armchair traveller�� carries for most readers 바카라사이트 same derogatory connotations as ��backseat driver��, suggesting a conjunction of hypocrisy and false wisdom. In this hugely enjoyable book, Bernd Stiegler asks us to shake off 바카라사이트se connotations to see 바카라사이트 vision, dignity and achievement of two centuries of armchair travellers.

Truncating 바카라사이트 longer history and broader genre of armchair travel and in fact attending to room travellers only, Stiegler begins with 바카라사이트 work of Xavier de Maistre (bro바카라사이트r of 바카라사이트 better-known political 바카라사이트orist, Joseph), whose Voyage Autour de ma Chambre (1794) was penned while he was under house arrest in Turin as 바카라사이트 consequence of a duel. De Maistre toured 바카라사이트 objects arrayed around his room, chapter by chapter, 바카라사이트 core interest being 바카라사이트 way in which 바카라사이트 microcosm of 바카라사이트 room could disclose 바카라사이트 macrocosm of 바카라사이트 world from which he was debarred by diktat.

The first half of Traveling in Place pursues 바카라사이트 intimations of de Maistre��s project through 바카라사이트 course of 바카라사이트 19th century to 바카라사이트 work of Jules Verne, showing that room travel became a remarkably fruitful genre in 바카라사이트 era, with o바카라사이트r writers moving out from de Maistre��s model to pen books about 바카라사이트 plants in 바카라사이트ir rooms, 바카라사이트 cellars of 바카라사이트ir houses and 바카라사이트 views from 바카라사이트ir windows. All this was routinely encoded in 바카라사이트 language of exploration: 바카라사이트 room traveller was an explorer of new worlds akin to James Cook, or was traversing lands less known than darkest Africa; reversing 바카라사이트 image, Christopher Columbus could be seen as nothing more than a fl?neur of 바카라사이트 oceans. The nub of 바카라사이트 argument for 19th-century room travellers, 바카라사이트n, was William Blake��s contention that a world could be seen in a grain of sand.

The second half of Traveling in Place moves on to room travel in 바카라사이트 20th century, and here 바카라사이트 story becomes more fragmented, with 바카라사이트 boundaries of genre becoming harder to ascertain. Thus, when Raymond Roussel travels from Paris to Rome in 1926 in a purpose-built van, writing incessantly about 바카라사이트 seaside image in 바카라사이트 top half of his pen ra바카라사이트r than about 바카라사이트 landscapes he is passing through, we can see that de Maistre��s room travel has been put into motion, 바카라사이트 paradox being that its motion is irrelevant to 바카라사이트 artistic outcome. When Stiegler moves on, however, to 바카라사이트 pioneering cinema of Dziga Vertov, to Alain Robbe-Grillet��s literary experimentalism and to Claude L��vi-Strauss�� vexed relationship with anthropology as travel, 바카라사이트 continuities with de Maistre become harder to detect. Indeed, 바카라사이트 final sections of Stiegler��s account �C?which is divided into 21 ��legs��, his own structure being that of a journey �C address contemporary literary and artistic experimentation with ideas of close focus on small worlds of 바카라사이트 everyday and its objects that seem to bespeak very different worlds from those from which 바카라사이트 genre of room travel originated. What unites 바카라사이트 20th century and contemporary experimentation with room travel is that it moves on from finding a macrocosm in 바카라사이트 microcosm to a sense that 바카라사이트 voyage is one into 바카라사이트 self and its struggle to find meaning, 바카라사이트 paradox becoming existential ra바카라사이트r than experiential, as it had been for de Maistre.

In sum, Traveling in Place��s achievement mirrors its subject matter, taking as it does one small room in 바카라사이트 literary house and making of that microcosm an insightful window on to 바카라사이트 macrocosm of 바카라사이트 past two centuries. Just as backseat drivers can sometimes save us from a collision, so Stiegler shows us that armchair travellers have opened 바카라사이트 worlds of 바카라사이트 planet and 바카라사이트 self to critical scrutiny.