Cultured Travel Guide Books - Do Travel Writers Go to Hell?: A Swashbuckling Tale of High Adventures, Questionable Ethics, and Professional Hedonism |
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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 910.4092
EAN: 9780307394651
ISBN: 0307394654
Label: Three Rivers Press
Manufacturer: Three Rivers Press
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 288
Publication Date: 2008-04-22
Publisher: Three Rivers Press
Release Date: 2008-04-22
Studio: Three Rivers Press |
| Spotlight Customer Reviews: |
Customer Rating:  
Summary: A tale on being young in the 3rd millennium
Comment: ...much more than simply throwing stones on his own former glass house, Lonely Planet -- Kohnstamm has committed a grabbing road memoir on travelling through Northwestern Brazil.
One thing is the underload of cash and time and overload of rules and inflexibility his employer set for the (ad)venture into these up and coming tourist destinations, another is the lack of discipline and resistence to the many temptations the same destinations throw in his face. Beautiful and usually not unwilling women, sometimes girls. Cheap alcohol and easy drugs, a less easy drug dealing business, and not at all easy Brazilian policemen. Here a free meal without a deal, there a free night. Kohnstamm's basically just a young man being exposed to choices and often giving in to them. And being honest, and courageous, enough to share them.
True, 'Do Travel Writers Go To Hell?' will certainly make a wannabe travel writer, as well as any potential guidebook buyer -- not only of Lonely Planet but in general! -- think twice. But its first and foremost justification is the journey. A journey which is entertaining but much more so, it is a journey causing the author as well as the reader to reflect on morality, society and even humanity. On a down to earth level, in an almost frighteningly real life universe.
Kohnstamm writes in a slightly philosophical but in no way pretentious language. Behind his inviting style lures a hint of a post-20s male's indignation and self-scepticism. But Kohnstamm also suggests which roads might lead in a more acceptable direction. An absorbing book by a skilled writer with much more to say than simply bashing the standard-setting travel book publisher to earn an easy buck.
Customer Rating:
Summary: A Very fun read
Comment: I read about this book when all the buzz came out about the Lonely Planet writer you didn't actually visit the location. After the buzz ended up being about nothing, I was still interested in the book.
The writer does an excellent job keeping us in his head as he travels and lives a little on the edge. The story moves well and I found myself really looking forward to getting back to the book.
AS someone who really enjoys travel, I was inspired by the adventureness of the writer. I usually restrict myself to high end hotels and the standard tourists destinations. But it's the times that I have moved off the beaten path that I have found myself enjoying the trip most. Thomas is an expert at finding that route.
If you enjoy travel, it's likely that you'll enjoy this book.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Thomas's Inferno
Comment: Author Thomas Kohnstamm must be one of those charming, but thoroughly irresponsible, ne'er-do-wells with whom my past is littered - he certainly has a glib way with words. How else can I explain why I was up all night reading this book, fascination mingled with disgust, as he describes in painful detail his Rabelaisian descent into an underworld of booze, drugs and cheap women while gathering research for the Lonely Planet Guidebook on Brazil.
Whether you are a seasoned traveller or an aficionado of the travel writing genre in all its extremes, you'll want to add this gutter's eye view of travel to your experience, albeit, from the safety of your armchair. But -- be warned - it's not for those of faint heart and queasy stomach. And yet the extreme physical privations Thomas subjects himself to in his quest for information, although perhaps viewed as immoral by many of us, are surely no worse than those endured by the great travellers of the past (Stanley, Scott, Peter Fleming, Eric Newby, Dervla Murphy) and for no better reason.
This book may contain a certain level of hyperbole (one hopes so); after all, hyperbole is the author's business, and he readily describes with an adman's skill how he translates seedy reality into picturesque prose for the guidebook's naïve audience.
Do travel writers go to hell? I'd say Thomas has been there, but hell wouldn't have him.
I know I'll never look at a guidebook the same way again.
Customer Rating:
Summary: so much more than the whole Lonely Planet controversy/sensationalization
Comment: To begin, I will disclaim with great pride that Thomas is one of my best friends. In fact he wrote the beginning of Do Travel Writers Go to Hell? while we were living together in southern chile (after he just wrote about patagonia for Lonely Planet,) with a full view of a snowcapped volcano; I was beginning my biography on Pablo Neruda (follow up to The Essential Neruda: Selected Poems) While some have called him a jerk and a cad here, the truth is he happens to be perhaps the most conscientious person I know.
Other reviews here already attest to his writing talent and the thrill and intrigue of the book's story, but what seems to be overlooked in all the Lonely Planet controversy/hype is one of the central themes of the book: The whole Lonely Planet thing was just part of the story, true circumstances which direct the book's plot. But what makes the book important is how he deals with the challenge so many young liberal art majors face, especially if they decide not to go to law school: the struggle between chasing financial stability vs. the often challenging path of following your passions.
That, plus all his great literary and historical allusions, plus the pure swashbuckling (Random House added that to the title, Thomas wouldn't have put that himself) of the Sex, Drugs, & Travel story, is what makes this book a true piece of literature.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Doesn't quite deliver
Comment: I picked this book up hoping for an insight into the travel guidebook world. What better way than through the first-hand experiences of a Lonely Planet writer?
Ultimately it was disappointing. The main point, that the editors demand the impossible of their writers, who either try to deliver it (and burn out) or sell out (becoming successful guidebook writers).
At first it's easy to be sympathetic to the author, Kohnstamm, who didn't seem to know what he was getting into. But I gained more sympathy for his editors as the book unfolds. While covering much of Brazil in two months may be an impossible task, Kohnstamm seemed as much to blame as anyone. For example, he rents a room in a house (for nearly a month I think) rather than staying in the hostels and hotels that he complains there is no time to properly check out.
But no matter, the game is stacked against him, so the only honorable solution is to tell his editors that he can't in good conscience write a highly flawed guidebook- no, that didn't cross his mind; the only solution is to accept hotel and bar freebies to finance his trip.
Fair enough, I picked the book up because it looked like an honest account of a sometimes dishonest industry. I wasn't looking for an ethical how-to guide.
But what was infuriating was that even by the last page (and I'm not giving anything away here), he seems to truly believe he stayed mostly ethical. He says something like, "I will not give a restaurant a good review just because they gave me a free plate of pasta." But since he announces himself in advance to the staff of restaurants and hotels, it would be naive to think they didn't give him exceptional service, and naive to think the average traveler will get the same.
He did share some interesting tidbits about how the sausage is made, but the bulk of Do Travel Writers Go To Hell was sometimes-remarkable, often-ordinary travel experiences that give more insight into the 20-something male traveler rather than the travel writer. Admittedly, armchair travelers may find it enjoyable.
But I wondered, how much of the time that Kohnstamm could have been visiting hotels and restaurants was spent taking notes for the book he would write about how little time there was to visit enough hotels and restaurants?
And if he didn't take detailed notes for this book, is it even as accurate as his compromised guidebook?
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| Editorial Reviews: |
For those who think that travel guidebooks are the gospel truth.
The waitress suggests that I come back after she closes down the restaurant, around midnight. We end up having sex in a chair and then on one of the tables in the back corner. I pen a note in my Moleskine that I will later recount in the guidebook review, saying that the restaurant “is a pleasant surprise . . . and the table service is friendly.” –Thomas Kohnstamm, professional travel writer and author of numerous Lonely Planet guidebooks
WANTED: Travel Writer for Brazil
QUALIFICATIONS REQUIRED
Decisiveness: the ability to desert your entire previous life–including well-salaried office job, attractive girlfriend, and basic sanity for less than minimum wage
Attention to detail: the skill to research northeastern Brazil, including transportation, restaurants, hotels, culture, customs, and language, while juggling sleep deprivation, nonstop nightlife, and excessive alcohol consumption
Creativity: the imagination to write about places you never actually visit
Resourcefulness: utilizing persuasion, seduction, and threats, when necessary, to secure a place to stay for the evening once your pitiable advance has been (mis)spent
Resilience: determination to overcome setbacks such as bankruptcy, disillusionment, and an ill-fated one-night stand with an Austrian flight attendant
As Kohnstamm comes to personal terms with each of these job requirements, he unveils the underside of the travel industry and its often-harrowing effect on writers, travelers, and the destinations themselves. Moreover, he invites us into his world of compromising and scandalous situations in one of the most exciting countries as he races against an impossible deadline.
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