Kimberly Dru Keyes
8 March 2004 

Research Review: “Against Travel Writing”

By Robyn Davidson

 Davidson, Robyn.  “Against Travel Writing.” Granta 72 (Winter 2000), 247-54.

Overview:  Robyn Davidson cleverly initiates the reader into the genre of “the literature of restlessness” or as it is more commonly known, travel writing.  She expertly addresses the following question:  “What is travel writing, and who gets to say so?” While answering this question, Davidson addresses genre, gender, and tourism and their effect on travel writing.

Main Points of Interest:

1. Davidson believes that the genre of travel writing has been compromised by the fact that there is “no such thing as a disinterested observer,” and the idea that “there is no such thing as a community isolated, spatially or temporally.”

2. Furthermore, travel writing has become not the essence of one’s travel experiences but the marketable journey that accommodates a “longing for the exotic, in an increasingly homogenized, commercialized and trivialized world.”

3. Away from the “predictable destinations,” travel literature encompasses a great deal of writing that would not normally be classified as such.  (i.e. “slaves, soldiers, and the victims of war”)  Although one may not readily accept this literature as “travel literature,” these journeys certainly do fit the acceptable definition:  “non-fiction works in which the author moves from point a to point b and tells us something about it.”

4. The value of the “literature of restlessness” is sociological as well as literary.

5. The great age of travel literature occurred during the years of Western imperialism (up to 1914). 

6. Today, travel writing blurs the distinction between “fiction and fact.”  The writer is so interested in entertaining the reader that he sometimes wanders from fact into fiction.  Basically, “Nothing happening out there in travel land?  Make it up!  What could be more postmodern?”

7. There are several reasons for the decay of travel writing.  The “pre-1914 mind” is a “species lost to time.”  And, Cherry-Garrard’s chronicle of the Scott expedition marks the beginning of the end of the heroic ideal and the classic travel book.

8. Davidson feels that there is a sort of resurgence for travel books that “create the illusion that there is still an uncontaminated Elsewhere to discover, a place located, indeed, somewhere between ‘fiction and fact.’”

9. Women vs. Men – Is women’s travel writing the same as men’s?  The author believes that gender is only ONE factor in the writer’s perception and the outcome of the piece.

10. Travel literature will always encourage one’s “desire to escape the real world rather than apprehend it better.”

Questions:

1.     How does Davidson’s Tracks conform to her definition of travel writing?  Also, is it possible that her narrative is fictionalized at any point? 

2.     Considering Davidson’s frustration with the fact that travel writing often seems to migrate between fact and fiction, do you believe there can ever be “real” travel writing or will it always blur the boundaries of fact and fiction?

3.     Do you agree or disagree with Davidson’s categorization of travel writing as embracing literature of slaves, soldiers, and other works that would not normally be classified as such?