Blue Latitudes by Tony Horwitz

Blue Latitudes by Tony Horwitz, (New York: Picador; 2002), 480 pages.

These days, international travel is relatively easy. All one needs to travel across the world is a bit of money, a passport, and an airplane ticket. The traveller is moved quickly and safely around the globe with relatively little exertion. Today's traveler neither know of  or experience the challengers faced by the voyagers and discoverers of the past. Horowitz acquaints us with these difficulties in this book where he retraces the voyages of perhaps the greatest of England's navigator and explorer, James Cook. Horwitz recaptures the magnificence of Cook's achievements by retracing cooks voyages. He traces his rise from his lowly status as an impoverished farm laborer to his rise through the ranks of the Royal Navy, his voyages pf exploration, and his veneration as a great navigator. To convey the magnitude of Cook's achievements, he joins the crew of a replica of Cook's famous ship Endeavor to show the limited equipment Cook had to achieve what he did. He travels to many of the places discovered by cook, and armed with Cook's log book and other references, sees what Cook saw. Horwitz also tries to put into himself into Cook's position and tries to assess Cook's legacy, particularly in the island nations he discovered in the South Pacific.

This book is written by a fan of Cook. He likens Cook to a real-life "olden day" equivalent of Star Trek's Captain Kirk; he went where no one had gone before. The book demonstrates Cook greatness by giving a contemporary storytelling of Cook's achievements. By travelling to the major places Cook visited, Horwitz conveys to the modern reader the magnitude of Cook's achievements.

This book succeeds in conveying Cook's greatness, without slipping into iconography. Horwitz uses the right balance of reverence, balance, reflection and humour to made Cook's achievements accessible to the modern reader. This book is an entertaining and enjoyable read; its so good that you should read it more than once so you can double your enjoyment.

"Baghdad Without A Map" by Tony Horwitz

Baghdad Without A Map and Other Misadventures in Arabia, by Tony Horwitz, (New York: Plumy by the Penguin Group; 1991), 285 pages. ISBN0-452-26745-5.

In this book, Tony Horwitz, Jewish and American, follows his journalist wife to the Middle East and does some freelance reporting on life in the region. Based in Egypt, he traveled and reported his observations and experiences. His travels took him throughout Egypt and to Sudan, Iraq, Libya, Lebanon, Iran, and a voyage on a small boat through the Straits of Hormuz. The book illustrates everyday life in these places, the difficulties faced by westerners when travelling there, particularly the “culture shock” faced by westerners face when immersing themselves in the comparatively ancient world of the Middle East.

This book’s great strength is its realistic portrait of life in a number of Middle Eastern countries from the perspective of the average Middle Easterner. Horwitz meets the poor; he eats with them and is invited into their homes. He witnesses their struggles with poverty, and difficult challenges with institutions, and poverty in finding a better life for themselves and their children. He is at times humorous, but never makes fun of his hosts. His writing is characterized by sympathizing with them. Horwitz does not mingle with the wealth or privileged or powerful, a thereby gives his book an experienced “on the ground” account of these countries, and not a view from the air-conditioned comfort of a luxury hotel or resort. Therefore, we see how these places work, or more frequently do not work. He shares with us his host's  views of America and Judaism. This makes his travel writing more notable: here is a man who is both Jewish and American travelling through a region hostile to both. We see this hostility expressed in unusual ways. For example, Horwitz manages to enter Iran to report on the funeral of Ayatollah Komanehi. One funeral attendee and anti-American protester proclaims his wish to one day go to Disneyland and ride on the teacup ride with his children, during a break from his chanting “death to America”.

This book has been in print for 21 years, and I suspect that the rich description of Middle Easter life is still accurate today. Life there, I suspect, may not have changed much; only an expert would know. Regimes may have changed in some of the countries, but one expects that the discoveries and observations made by Horwitz are as relevant today as they were when the book was written.

This book is a fine travel memoir, while also being a fine analysis or investigative report of the Middle East. It is a book that will be enjoyed by people interested in the Middle East, lovers of travel writing, or fans of the writing of Tony Horwitz.

"One For The Road: Hitchhiking Through The Australian Outback," by Tony Horwitz

"One For The Road: Hitchhiking Through The Australian Outback," by Tony Horwitz, (New York: Random House, First Vintage Departures Edition, 1988), 222 pages.

Travelling through outback Australia by car is no easy feat, but Tony Horwitz has gone one further in hitchhiking through it, alone. One For the Road is the story of Horwitz’s mid-1980's hitchhiking journey that started from Sydney and went anti-clockwise through the outback parts of the states of New South Wales and Queensland until he reached the Three Ways in the Northern Territory. Horwitz then changed direction and travelled south through Central Australia until he reached the southern coast, where he changed directions again travelling clockwise, first west, then north and later east until he reached Darwin. Hitchhiking anywhere isn't easy. Divers are reluctant of offer rides. The conditions in outback Australia make hitchhiking difficult. There is the oppressive heat, the flies, the long distances between tiny towns, the rough and unsealed roads, and perhaps alarmingly, the alcohol-fueled drivers (who regularly drink beer while driving) that take a life in their hands when they offer a ride to the hitchhiker. Horwitz endures these difficulties, survives the harsh conditions, and runs out of ways to describe the monotonous and featureless landscapes to tell us of his experiences of living on the road. The generous souls that offer him a ride are a varied lot. They include a family from Tasmania (where the mine closed) looking for work in the Western Australian mines, an angry and aggressive youth going for a drive for something to do, truck drivers who regret not being able to see their families and are strangers in their own home, a retired naval officer who hit the road when the in-laws were about to visit who still has the sailor's habit of keeping a detailed log book, a young physician out for a drive in the countryside, and a car load of young aboriginal men that drive a car that barely runs. Horwitz also visits places with strange names that the tourist rarely see, goes to small "one pub" towns where drivers only stop to re-fuel and eat before embarking on the next leg of their journey into the "ghastly blank." He also ventures into larger towns and cities like the mining town of Mount Isa, Alice Springs, Perth, exotic Broome, and his ultimate destination of Darwin. He also chronicles his unusual adventures, such as when he was lucky to avoid meeting his maker in a car accident while driving from Ayers Rock / Uluru to Alice Springs. Or there's the account of his day on a crayfish trawler off Geraldton where he spends most of the day seasick, much to the delight of the rest of the crew, and his hitching a ride with a wheat train where he spent time up front in the engine driver's cab. Much of the book has an absence of any awareness of time or deadlines, but at the end of his journey, they become a major pre-occupation because he has to be in Darwin on a certain day at a certain time to catch a place. Time is against him in the end, and he has to use his wits to avoid being beaten by it.

The great strength of this book is that it captures a part of Australia that few people, let alone the majority of coast-hugging Australians, have ever experienced. Horowitz also sees it with ordinary people. He shares with us the joys and travails of the hitchhiker who doesn't know what his next driver will be like, friendly, surly, vibrant conversationalist or it opposite. He shares with us the experience of his front-seat confessional, his driver's thoughts, aspirations, fears and regrets, all while driving through the vast landscapes slip past. It is these features that make One For The Road more than just a travel book; its an inner journey of discovery for the author, and for him, the end of his time hitchhiking. His brush with mortality keeps replaying in the videotape of his mind, reminding him of how lucky he was that the car rolled one way, and not the other. A conversation with one female driver makes him long to be at home his wife in the safety of the suburbs in Sydney. His celebration of Passover in Broome is truly moving, and perhaps the best chapter of the book: it is a reminder of how our past and the religion that we may (or in the author's case may no longer) practice is part of our identity. It is something that makes us what we are, for a brief moment or evening, unites us in a common bond with complete strangers when a long way from home and scattered throughout the world far from our loved ones.

One For The Road is an outsider's view of Australia, a view that is accurate without being condescending, sentimental or evangelical. Perhaps this is because the author is a journalist, someone who sets it all out for us to see with our own eyes with brutal honesty, compassion and affection. He shows here the skills of a fine writer, someone who unsurprisingly went on to write other fine works of non-fiction. For these reasons, it should appeal to a wide audience of lovers of good writing and interesting stories, lovers of travel stories, and readers interested in the "real Australia" that isn't seen in the travel brochures.