travel | ZETEO

Masterpiece of a Misfit – I

March 13, 2014 by William Eaton

This is the first of three reviews of Sir Richard Francis Burton’s masterful travelogue of his journey in 1853 to Mecca and Medina, disguised as a faithful pilgrim. Read one of Burton’s masterful sentences in Misfit II Burton brings the pilrgrimage to life in Misfit III So said Tim Mackintosh-Smith, British traveler and one of today’s leading authors and students of travel writing, of Sir Richard Francis Burton’s A Secret Pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina. Burton was an outstanding linguist, but […]

Categories: Tucker Cox, ZiR • Tags: literature, travel

The Incurable Disease

February 27, 2014 by William Eaton

From Travels with Herodotus by Ryszard Kapuscinski: A journey, after all, neither begins in the instant we set out, nor ends when we have reached our doorstep once again. It starts much earlier and is really never over, because the film of memory continues running on inside of us long after we have come to a physical standstill. Indeed, there exists something like a contagion of travel, and the disease is essentially incurable. A renowned traveler and award-winning writer, Kapuscinski (1932 – 2007) is one […]

Categories: Tucker Cox, ZiR • Tags: Herodotus, Richard Kapuscinski, travel

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An Olympic Parade of Nations

February 20, 2014 by William Eaton

Like Sochi, a Black Sea resort north of the Caucasian Mountains, Neal Ascherson’s admired travelogue-cum-history of the Black Sea: Birthplace of Civilization and Barbarism celebrates its own Olympian Parade. Ascherson’s visits to cities, towns, villages and archaeological sites along the Black Sea prompt well-researched and fluidly written essays about the cavalcade of nations and ethnicities settling the region. The list is long: Scythians, Greeks, Persians, Romans, Goths, Huns, Turks, Venetians, Mongols aka The Golden Horde and Tartars, Genoese, Germans and Lithuanian […]

Categories: Tucker Cox, ZiR • Tags: reading, travel

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Sherlock Holmes, Axis Mundi and the Myth of Shangri-La

February 13, 2014 by William Eaton

The Myth of Shangri-La: Tibet, Travel Writing and the Western Creation of Sacred Landscape is Peter Bishop’s study of two centuries of travel writing on Tibet. “Wisdom, guidance, order and archaic continuity” are the qualities about Tibet that held out hope for Westerners,” he says. Arthur Conan Doyle thought so too. He sent Holmes to Tibet for rehab, after apparently plunging to his death in the Reichenbach Falls at the hands of arch-criminal Professor Moriarity. Mr. Bishop’s comment: “Holmes historical […]

Categories: Tucker Cox, ZiR • Tags: travel

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On the Road: 50 Years

February 6, 2014 by William Eaton

In breadth and depth of work, literary quality and intellectual savoir faire, Jan Morris is THE travel writer of the 20th century. She is what the Japanese call a Living Treasure. The World: Life and Travel 1950 – 2000 is a compilation of Morris’s essays about her 50 years of globetrotting, beginning with the conquest of Mt. Everest, an event he (at the time) covered as a reporter, the only one with the expedition, on behalf of The Times of London. “As […]

Categories: ZiR • Tags: New York City, sexuality, travel

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Eudaimonia or “Human Flourishing”

January 23, 2014 by William Eaton

In The Art of Travel, Alain de Botton writes about travel and art crossing paths. Edward Hopper’s paintings illuminate a traveler’s introspection en route, be it by car, train or plane. Flaubert’s urge to engage the exotic – his destination was Egypt – sheds light on why we must travel. All wayfarers share some of von Humboldt’s insatiable curiosity. Wordsworth’s poetry rejuvenated the big idea that the antidote for city dwellers’ ills is a trip to the countryside, England’s Lake […]

Categories: ZiR • Tags: travel

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A Canon of “Must-Sees”

January 16, 2014 by William Eaton

Guidebooks (GBs) have set the sightseeing agenda for millennia. They defined the “7 Wonders of the World,” now groups of sites – ancient, modern, architectural, and so on. Herodotus’ travelogues (5thC, BCE) remain among the most popular guidebooks ever written. GBs established Jerusalem as the new Delphi for medieval pilgrims. They instructed young noblemen grooming for careers in politics or diplomacy on the do’s and don’ts of the obligatory Grand Tour of Europe in the 18th century. GBs’ made the Cathedral at […]

Categories: ZiR • Tags: travel

ZETEO

Zeteo (ζητέω): to challenge, question, dispute, explore the forgotten and ignored

Tag: travel

Masterpiece of a Misfit – I

The Incurable Disease

An Olympic Parade of Nations

Sherlock Holmes, Axis Mundi and the Myth of Shangri-La

On the Road: 50 Years

Eudaimonia or “Human Flourishing”

A Canon of “Must-Sees”