The Way of the World

Nicolas Bouvier (1929-1998) was born near Geneva. His father was a librarian, who encouraged his son both to read—among the books Bouvier devoured as a child were those of Stevenson, Jules Verne, Jack London, and Fenimore Cooper—and to travel. Bouvier studied for some years at the University of Geneva, but in 1953 he left without a degree to join his friend Thierry Vernet in the voyage to the Khyber Pass that is described in The Way of the World, published eight years later. Subsequent journeys took Bouvier to Sri Lanka (his experiences there inspired his one novel, The Scorpion Fish), Japan, and the Aran Islands (described in the books Japanese Chronicles and Journey to the Aran Islands and Other Places). Bouvier worked for many years as a photographer and as a picture researcher, spending much of his time hunting down obscure images in various libraries and archives. He was also a founding member, along with Max Frisch and Friedrich Dürrenmatt and others, of Gruppe Olten, an informal organization of Swiss writers on the political left, and the author a slim book of poems, Le Dehors et le dedans (1982). »

Robyn Marsack has been director of the Scottish Poetry Library since 2000. She has degrees in English literature from Victoria University (New Zealand) and Oxford, and has worked as an editor for the Carcanet Press. She won the Scott Moncrieff Prize for her translation of Nicolas Bouvier's Le Poisson-scorpion (The Scorpion Fish). »

Patrick Leigh Fermor was born in 1915 of English and Irish descent. After his stormy schooldays, followed by the walk across Europe to Constantinople that begins in A Time of Gifts (1977) and continues through Between the Woods and the Water (1986), he lived and traveled in the Balkans and the Greek Archipelago. His books Mani (1958) and Roumeli (1966) attest to his deep interest in languages and remote places. In the Second World War he joined the Irish Guards, became a liaison ofﬁcer in Albania, and fought in Greece and Crete. He was awarded the DSO and OBE. He now lives partly in Greece, in the house he designed with his wife Joan in an olive grove in the Mani, and partly in Worcestershire. He was knighted in 2004 for his services to literature and to British–Greek relations. »

Thierry Vernet (1927-1993) was born in Grand-Saconnex in the canton of Geneva. He studied painting and stage design with Jean Plojoux and Xavier Fiala, and worked as a stage designer for productions throughout Europe. He was married to the painter Floristella Stephanie. »

By Nicolas Bouvier
Translated from the French by Robyn Marsack
Introduction by Patrick Leigh Fermor
Drawings by Thierry Vernet

In 1953, twenty-four-year old Nicolas Bouvier and his artist friend Thierry Vernet set out to make their way overland from their native Geneva to the Khyber Pass. They had a rattletrap Fiat and a little money, but above all they were equipped with the certainty that by hook or by crook they would reach their destination, and that there would be unanticipated adventures, curious companionship, and sudden illumination along the way. The Way of the World, which Bouvier fashioned over the course of many years from his journals, is an entrancing story of adventure, an extraordinary work of art, and a voyage of self-discovery on the order of Robert M. Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. As Bouvier writes, "You think you are making a trip, but soon it is making—or unmaking—you."

Reviews

Readers may also want to take their time with this reissued classic of 20th-century travel literature, enlivened by Mr. Vernet's drawings. Mr. Bouvier was a Swiss writer whose buoyant spirits and effortless erudition must have made him the perfect chum to kill time with. To prolong the enjoyment of being in his company, I found myself laying his book on my chest for long sessions of daydreaming.
— Richard Woodward, Armchair Traveler, The New York Times

The Way of the World is a masterpiece which elevates the mundane to the memorable and captures the thrill of two passionate and curious young men discovering both the world and themselves. Racy and meditative, romantic and realistic, the book is as brilliant as Patrick Leigh Fermor's A Time of Gifts, but with its erudition more lightly worn and as alive as Kerouac's On the Road, though without a whisper of self-aggrandisement. The accumulation of colour, detail and inspired metaphor produce an intensely hypnotic effect. If you read any travel book this year—or indeed the next forty years—this should be it.
— Rory MacLean, The Guardian

A genuine masterpiece, an exhilarating, innocent, perceptive and wholly enjoyable young man's travel book, and a discovery of the Asian road that by rights deserves to occupy the same shelf as great classics of the genre such as Robert Byron's The Road to Oxiana or Eric Newby's Short Walk in the Hindu Kush.
— William Dalrymple, Financial Times

Also see:

A Time of Gifts
By Patrick Leigh Fermor
Introduction by Jan Morris

At once a memoir of coming-of-age, an account of a journey, and a dazzling exposition of the English language, A Time of Gifts is also a portrait of a continent already showing ominous signs of the holocaust to come.

Between the Woods and the Water
By Patrick Leigh Fermor
Introduction by Jan Morris

Continuing the epic foot journey across Europe begun in A Time of Gifts.

Mani
By Patrick Leigh Fermor
Introduction by Michael Gorra

Patrick Leigh Fermor carries the reader with him on his journeys amongst the peoples of the southernmost parts of Greece, exploring their history and time-honored lore.

Roumeli
By Patrick Leigh Fermor
Introduction by Patricia Storace

Travel writing's very own "cross between Indiana Jones, James Bond, and Graham Greene" explores northern Greece.

A Time to Keep Silence
By Patrick Leigh Fermor
Introduction by Karen Armstrong

Patrick Leigh Fermor, considered by many to be the greatest living travel writer, chronicles his sojourns at some of Europe's oldest and most celebrated monasteries in this meditation on the meaning of silence and solitude in modern life.

Format: Paperback
Retail Price: $16.95
Price: $13.56 (20% off)

Oct 27, 2009
336 pages
ISBN: 1590173228
9781590173220
Biography & Memoir
NYRB Classics

Find us on Facebook