Volume 48, Number 8 · May 17, 2001
On the Road
By Pico Iyer
Ultimate Journey: Retracing the Path of an Ancient Buddhist Monk Who Crossed Asia in Search of Enlightenment
Richard Bernstein
Knopf, 352 pp., $26.00
Books that 'follow in the steps of' a well-known traveler are more and more ubiquitous these days, but many of them are slightly suspect. Following in the footsteps of some distinguished predecessor can look a little like a gesture of defeat, suggesting that all the world's used up: everywhere we go nowadays, somebody's been there before us, often with a notebook, and prose more durable than our own, and all we can do is shuffle after, comparing our perceptions with those of the earlier luminary, and presenting the reader with a kind of before-and-after tableau. We have already had 'in the steps of' books following Alfred Russell Wallace, Mary Kingsley, the sixth-century Byzantine monk John Maschos, and Che Guevara; soon no doubt there will be people taking trips in the footsteps of Bruce Chatwin and Paul Theroux.
Review, 3155 words
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