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Sun After Dark: Flights Into the Foreign
One of the best travel writers now at work in the English language brings back the sights and sounds from a dozen different frontiers. A cryptic encounter in the perfumed darkness of Bali; a tour of a Bolivian prison, conducted by an enterprising inmate; a nightmarish taxi ride across southern Yemen, where the men with guns may be customs inspectors or revolutionaries–these are just three of the stops on Pico Iyer’s latest itinerary.
But the true subject of Sun After Dark is the dislocations of the mind in transit. And so Iyer takes us along to meditate with Leonard Cohen and talk geopolitics with the Dalai Lama. He navigates the Magritte-like landscape of jet lag, “a place that no human had ever been until forty or so years ago.” And on every page of this poetic and provocative book, he compels us to redraw our map of the world.
But the true subject of Sun After Dark is the dislocations of the mind in transit. And so Iyer takes us along to meditate with Leonard Cohen and talk geopolitics with the Dalai Lama. He navigates the Magritte-like landscape of jet lag, “a place that no human had ever been until forty or so years ago.” And on every page of this poetic and provocative book, he compels us to redraw our map of the world.
240 pages, Paperback
First published April 6, 2004
48 people are currently reading
1063 people want to read
About the author
Pico Iyer
126 books1,099 followersPico Iyer is a British-born essayist and novelist of Indian descent. As an acclaimed travel writer, he began his career documenting a neglected aspect of travel -- the sometimes surreal disconnect between local tradition and imported global pop culture. Since then, he has written ten books, exploring also the cultural consequences of isolation, whether writing about the exiled spiritual leaders of Tibet or the embargoed society of Cuba.
Iyer’s latest focus is on yet another overlooked aspect of travel: how can it help us regain our sense of stillness and focus in a world where our devices and digital networks increasing distract us? As he says: "Almost everybody I know has this sense of overdosing on information and getting dizzy living at post-human speeds. Nearly everybody I know does something to try to remove herself to clear her head and to have enough time and space to think. ... All of us instinctively feel that something inside us is crying out for more spaciousness and stillness to offset the exhilarations of this movement and the fun and diversion of the modern world."
Iyer’s latest focus is on yet another overlooked aspect of travel: how can it help us regain our sense of stillness and focus in a world where our devices and digital networks increasing distract us? As he says: "Almost everybody I know has this sense of overdosing on information and getting dizzy living at post-human speeds. Nearly everybody I know does something to try to remove herself to clear her head and to have enough time and space to think. ... All of us instinctively feel that something inside us is crying out for more spaciousness and stillness to offset the exhilarations of this movement and the fun and diversion of the modern world."
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 92 reviews
April 9, 2021
Travel stories always ignite my interest, especially those set in remote parts of the world, journeys that require courage, stamina and patience. And a great deal of luck. This book fulfilled my vicarious need to travel to offbeat destinations, especially during these prohibitive times of pandemic, and established Pico Iyer as the next generation Graham Greene for me.
Iyer covers India, Tibet, Cambodia, Aden, Bolivia, Bali, Japan, Easter Island and Haiti (I hope I haven’t missed any), many of these trips happening around New Year’s Day of the year, “when hopes are brightest.” His leaning towards eastern mysticism is obvious from his encounters with the Dalai Lama, his attendance at a Zen retreat where he meets none other than Leonard Cohen, another seeker, and his walks through Deer Park in Japan where individual lives are rendered infinitesimal. Many of these destinations are financially if not morally impoverished: China is trying to obliterate Tibetan culture, two and half million unexploded land mines encircle Angkor Wat in Cambodia, and the bush begins just outside his luxury hotel in Haiti.
He takes a detour in some of the essays to review the books of two writers who also lived as expatriates: W.G. Sebald and Kazuo Ishiguro. Sebald, haunted by the fallout of WWII, with his mysterious photographs and 19th century German prose, developed a new voice as a German living in England and writing in German. Ishiguro is of Japanese origin, but writing in English, recently the winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature. Both authors represent the conundrum: “The person who looks like us, may not be of us, and the one who doesn’t look like us, could be one of us.” And Iyer, with his Indian ancestry, born in Oxford, grown up in the USA, and now living in Japan, is in the same boat as these two “internationalized” authors. Even the Dalai Lama, living his pop-star image out of a refuge in Dharamsala, India, just to keep the plight of six million Tibetans alive in the global consciousness, is one of these displaced ones on a mission.
The two pieces that interested me the most was not so much about travel but about the consequences of it. The nightmarish recounting Iyer’s dealing with jet lag due to his constant long distance travel, particularly due to frequent visits between Japan and Los Angeles to visit his mother, a debilitating condition that occupies a sixth of his life, is compelling. Under jet lag, everything slows down and blurs, and efficiency goes out the door. The other piece, humorous, was laced with examples of how the occupation of India has impacted the English language, evidenced by the outlandish signage on Indian streets. Call it Indlish, Englian, or Hindlish, if you may – but India contributed fully 26 thousand words to the English language during the course of the colonial period. I shook my head at words like “cashmere,” “tycoon,” “thug,” “pundit,” and “mantra” – yes, all made in India! And the Indian philosophy of “Never use a word when thirty will do,” now now becomes more uderstandable!
What comes across to me when reading writers like Greene and Iyer, even Martha Gellhorn, is their absence of fear, or lack of awareness of it. There is an expectation that despite the dangerous situations they may get into, they will always get out safely. No mention is made of the escape. Iyer has his passport confiscated in Bolivia and not returned, and he doesn’t seem to care; he is taken for a terrorist and put in a cell for interrogation later in the same country. He has to take a nightmarish six-hour dash in a rackety car between Aden and Sanaa to catch a plane, on pitch dark mountainous roads, being stopped by armed militias several times enroute. How he gets to his destination safely is never quite clear, nor what he felt during those prickly situations is revealed to us. I wish they were, for that would have made for a more compelling book with a more accessible and human narrator.
Iyer covers India, Tibet, Cambodia, Aden, Bolivia, Bali, Japan, Easter Island and Haiti (I hope I haven’t missed any), many of these trips happening around New Year’s Day of the year, “when hopes are brightest.” His leaning towards eastern mysticism is obvious from his encounters with the Dalai Lama, his attendance at a Zen retreat where he meets none other than Leonard Cohen, another seeker, and his walks through Deer Park in Japan where individual lives are rendered infinitesimal. Many of these destinations are financially if not morally impoverished: China is trying to obliterate Tibetan culture, two and half million unexploded land mines encircle Angkor Wat in Cambodia, and the bush begins just outside his luxury hotel in Haiti.
He takes a detour in some of the essays to review the books of two writers who also lived as expatriates: W.G. Sebald and Kazuo Ishiguro. Sebald, haunted by the fallout of WWII, with his mysterious photographs and 19th century German prose, developed a new voice as a German living in England and writing in German. Ishiguro is of Japanese origin, but writing in English, recently the winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature. Both authors represent the conundrum: “The person who looks like us, may not be of us, and the one who doesn’t look like us, could be one of us.” And Iyer, with his Indian ancestry, born in Oxford, grown up in the USA, and now living in Japan, is in the same boat as these two “internationalized” authors. Even the Dalai Lama, living his pop-star image out of a refuge in Dharamsala, India, just to keep the plight of six million Tibetans alive in the global consciousness, is one of these displaced ones on a mission.
The two pieces that interested me the most was not so much about travel but about the consequences of it. The nightmarish recounting Iyer’s dealing with jet lag due to his constant long distance travel, particularly due to frequent visits between Japan and Los Angeles to visit his mother, a debilitating condition that occupies a sixth of his life, is compelling. Under jet lag, everything slows down and blurs, and efficiency goes out the door. The other piece, humorous, was laced with examples of how the occupation of India has impacted the English language, evidenced by the outlandish signage on Indian streets. Call it Indlish, Englian, or Hindlish, if you may – but India contributed fully 26 thousand words to the English language during the course of the colonial period. I shook my head at words like “cashmere,” “tycoon,” “thug,” “pundit,” and “mantra” – yes, all made in India! And the Indian philosophy of “Never use a word when thirty will do,” now now becomes more uderstandable!
What comes across to me when reading writers like Greene and Iyer, even Martha Gellhorn, is their absence of fear, or lack of awareness of it. There is an expectation that despite the dangerous situations they may get into, they will always get out safely. No mention is made of the escape. Iyer has his passport confiscated in Bolivia and not returned, and he doesn’t seem to care; he is taken for a terrorist and put in a cell for interrogation later in the same country. He has to take a nightmarish six-hour dash in a rackety car between Aden and Sanaa to catch a plane, on pitch dark mountainous roads, being stopped by armed militias several times enroute. How he gets to his destination safely is never quite clear, nor what he felt during those prickly situations is revealed to us. I wish they were, for that would have made for a more compelling book with a more accessible and human narrator.
March 30, 2023
“You go into the dark to get away from what you know, and if you go far enough, you realize, suddenly, that you'll never really make it back into the light.”
This book has my heart and probably a lot more of my thoughts than I normally invest. The book reads like a tripping experience on pages taking you to surreal worlds through words that breaks down a scene into a spectrum of perspectives. When has someone pointed out the contradiction on the popularity of the Dalai Lama while sitting beside him discussing Tibet? Or wondered how Sebald and Ishiguro write more than fiction in the worlds they create filled with characters that are unsettled like ghosts? And the flights into foreign as a means of escape from who you are.
The writing does things to you - like transporting you to the streets and rooms where you were the alien - in the sense of not belonging. When you crossed a face in the crowd and recalled it later for no reason at all. During my consulting phase I was travelling like crazy and used to say that I spend more time at the airports than at client locations and swear, I could remember the air hostesses names on some frequent routes. Sitting in a hotel room, I spent inordinate amount of time on twitter just to have some familiarity to interact with.
Iyer does the opposite - urges you to get lost in the foreignness of the place. In one of the chapters called Nightwalking he explores the state of being jet lagged - how cities come alive in the night like DC's Gotham. In a chapter in Bali - he casts a spell on the night life and paints a magical interaction with a local. The ruins of Ankor sends us cartwheeling into time as the blood shed history of Cambodia meets the hopes of people for a better tomorrow. The colonization of the colonizers language had me laughing.
A bookstagram friend of mine told me this is not even Iyer's top 3 books. I jumped in joy inside with the assurance I have some beautiful worlds to lose myself into later.
This book has my heart and probably a lot more of my thoughts than I normally invest. The book reads like a tripping experience on pages taking you to surreal worlds through words that breaks down a scene into a spectrum of perspectives. When has someone pointed out the contradiction on the popularity of the Dalai Lama while sitting beside him discussing Tibet? Or wondered how Sebald and Ishiguro write more than fiction in the worlds they create filled with characters that are unsettled like ghosts? And the flights into foreign as a means of escape from who you are.
The writing does things to you - like transporting you to the streets and rooms where you were the alien - in the sense of not belonging. When you crossed a face in the crowd and recalled it later for no reason at all. During my consulting phase I was travelling like crazy and used to say that I spend more time at the airports than at client locations and swear, I could remember the air hostesses names on some frequent routes. Sitting in a hotel room, I spent inordinate amount of time on twitter just to have some familiarity to interact with.
Iyer does the opposite - urges you to get lost in the foreignness of the place. In one of the chapters called Nightwalking he explores the state of being jet lagged - how cities come alive in the night like DC's Gotham. In a chapter in Bali - he casts a spell on the night life and paints a magical interaction with a local. The ruins of Ankor sends us cartwheeling into time as the blood shed history of Cambodia meets the hopes of people for a better tomorrow. The colonization of the colonizers language had me laughing.
A bookstagram friend of mine told me this is not even Iyer's top 3 books. I jumped in joy inside with the assurance I have some beautiful worlds to lose myself into later.
April 24, 2011
i close my eyes and numb my senses every time i buy any of Iyer's books. they come at a hefty price but before i can reason with myself, my hands (which lie closer to my heart) impulsively sort out the cash and before i know it, the cashier's handing me my receipt. there goes my salary is what i always say but the thing about money is that it can be earned but these rare gems--ideas fitted onto pages---are hard to come by.
the first two Iyer books i got were gifts from an Indian friend who had been doing masteral studies while i was still a freshman. i was both terrified and intrigued by this man who had so kindly reciprocated a smile after i nearly poured a drink over him. we introduced ourselves, shuffled through the painful ordeal of small talk and soon, we were talking about books we loved and things we dreamed of doing. it was wonderful to have someone from the outside talk about what he had seen and done but i became wary when he suggested that i should visit him at his dorm in the state university. the books were tempting but the visit was asking too much. besides, i was young and impressionable and he could have been dangerous.
but then the biggest surprise came when, a week before leaving the country, he met me in school with two of Iyer's books: Lady & the Monk and his Tropical Classical. i don't think i ever forgave myself for being so narrow-minded and thinking ill of this person. i don't know where Arun is now but one day i'll get to thank him properly for having given me those two books.
Arun is a character straight off Iyer's books. Sun After Dark in particular is a good collection of some of his most stirring work. This is a reflective read and more than just transporting you from one place to another, there's that sense that another kind of movement is going on.
My favorite is an essay called Nightwalking. It's his account of being jet-lagged. i haven't found the words for it yet but if you find yourself wanting to read something different, then Iyer might be your guy. he's a mix of adventure, meditation and incredible sincerity that's hard to come by among travel writers.
so yeah, he's highly recommended!
the first two Iyer books i got were gifts from an Indian friend who had been doing masteral studies while i was still a freshman. i was both terrified and intrigued by this man who had so kindly reciprocated a smile after i nearly poured a drink over him. we introduced ourselves, shuffled through the painful ordeal of small talk and soon, we were talking about books we loved and things we dreamed of doing. it was wonderful to have someone from the outside talk about what he had seen and done but i became wary when he suggested that i should visit him at his dorm in the state university. the books were tempting but the visit was asking too much. besides, i was young and impressionable and he could have been dangerous.
but then the biggest surprise came when, a week before leaving the country, he met me in school with two of Iyer's books: Lady & the Monk and his Tropical Classical. i don't think i ever forgave myself for being so narrow-minded and thinking ill of this person. i don't know where Arun is now but one day i'll get to thank him properly for having given me those two books.
Arun is a character straight off Iyer's books. Sun After Dark in particular is a good collection of some of his most stirring work. This is a reflective read and more than just transporting you from one place to another, there's that sense that another kind of movement is going on.
My favorite is an essay called Nightwalking. It's his account of being jet-lagged. i haven't found the words for it yet but if you find yourself wanting to read something different, then Iyer might be your guy. he's a mix of adventure, meditation and incredible sincerity that's hard to come by among travel writers.
so yeah, he's highly recommended!
July 3, 2020
I am a Pico Iyer groupie ever since I heard him interviewed several years ago on NPR and realized that no one else, from Paul Theroux to Tony Bourdain and back, has the same combination of curiosity, genius, wanderlust and insightfulness.
I have to say, when a writer is that good in speaking extemporaneously in an interview, his writing and ideas have to be worth a read.
I love his travel writing and Sun After Dark is no exception. Pico Iyer travels to what can only be defined as the road far, far less traveled: Oman, Boliva, Tibet, and Japan and he sees something there that none of us would see. Experiencing it through his perspective makes for a thoughtful and encouraging journey.
I have to say, when a writer is that good in speaking extemporaneously in an interview, his writing and ideas have to be worth a read.
I love his travel writing and Sun After Dark is no exception. Pico Iyer travels to what can only be defined as the road far, far less traveled: Oman, Boliva, Tibet, and Japan and he sees something there that none of us would see. Experiencing it through his perspective makes for a thoughtful and encouraging journey.
September 20, 2019
At times I feel Iyer is less a travel writer than an evangelist/philosopher, intent on pushing his readers toward Buddhism (although he is not Buddhist) or some practice, which is ok. He also seems to focus on similar images, possibly as a result for his penchant for going to similar places. Not that any of this is bad, and I like his writing, though this collection of essays pleased me less than some of his work. I enjoyed the material on Cohen and Cambodia, and his biographical sketch on the Dalia Lama. Some of the others just didn't seem to hang together well, and I didn't feel as travel enlightened as I enjoy. I don't like my travel literature to make my head hurt.
March 9, 2021
Perhaps I'm missing something, given that this is my first Pico Iyer book, but this doesn't make sense to me as a book. I don't see the thing that's holding all these essays together, even though the subtitle -- flights into the foreign -- suggests otherwise. A lot of the stories seem very familiar to the author. Although my favourite stories are the ones not-so-familiar.
It's mostly a hit-and-miss for me, but the hits really hit.
It's mostly a hit-and-miss for me, but the hits really hit.
December 6, 2007
Something has become more muted in the essays of "Sun After Dark" -- the heavy romanticism demonstrated in "Abandon" is not there, and the tone of these essays seems less melodramatic than his other essays somehow. Was it something in him that had changed, I wondered, or was it me as the reader, or was it both of us... in his essay on Cambodia, I noted the tone of detachment adopted in his description of the moral cesspool of the country, which was usually perversely attractive to people looking for spiritual peace or their refuge from living in displacement in a technological world. Previously, in the essays of "Video Night in Kathmandu" and "The Global Soul", I thought I had glimpsed this strong desire to discover and preserve the traditional and the exotic, to ensure that these places and things remained uncorrupted and unsullied from the processes of globalization and commercialisation. In Sun After Dark, Iyer seems much older and less angsty, as if he has understood and accepted what it means to be displaced, or what it means to seek peace and not find it in the way one expects.
April 30, 2008
I read this as part of an assignment for finishing up my MFA program, and overall, I felt the book was just alright. I think Iyer is an exemplary travel writer, and especially the essay in there about Grandmothers, and Nara park touched me, but that was only because I too have been to Nara, Japan.
Overall, the collection focused on places of poverty; places that generally are kind of forbidden to the average traveler. And while the insight on lands I'll never visit is interesting, I kept thinking, "If you have the money to do travel to these destitute locations, what are you doing to help improve them?" I didn't see a lot of improvement in the book; in fact, in some places Iyer seemed downright offended that there were beggers, and that the places he visited were run by despots. I think the great irony of the book is that Iyer spoke to the Dali Llama, who said pretty much the same thing, "What are you going to do about the plight of Tibet?" I don't think Iyer's book really answers to this at all, and ultimately, this is where I disconnected from it.
Overall, the collection focused on places of poverty; places that generally are kind of forbidden to the average traveler. And while the insight on lands I'll never visit is interesting, I kept thinking, "If you have the money to do travel to these destitute locations, what are you doing to help improve them?" I didn't see a lot of improvement in the book; in fact, in some places Iyer seemed downright offended that there were beggers, and that the places he visited were run by despots. I think the great irony of the book is that Iyer spoke to the Dali Llama, who said pretty much the same thing, "What are you going to do about the plight of Tibet?" I don't think Iyer's book really answers to this at all, and ultimately, this is where I disconnected from it.
March 12, 2012
A very interesting approach to travel writing-philosophical, with social and spiritual insights related to the many unusual places visited. Mr. Iyer is East Indian by blood but was born and brought up in England. He has traveled extensively to some unusual places including Tibet, Bolivia, Cambodia. His insights are wonderful and he reminds me of why I love to travel. Not just for the sights, the art or culture, but to gain understanding of the world from really seeing its various facets, both beautiful and ugly, good and bad. His chapter on jet lag is an interesting addition.
Highly recommended for anyone who travels, or would like to.
Highly recommended for anyone who travels, or would like to.
June 19, 2012
That Iyer is an essayist of finesse is a given, but what I like best about this collection is the keen eye that he casts over every place he visits, usually on New Year's Eve.
I particularly loved the essays on places like Bali, Tibet, Cambodia and Easter Island with none of the touristy afflictions that writers to such places tend to suffer from, nor the angry disbelief at the depths of human depravity.
Also loved the essays on Kazuo Ishiguro, on jetlag and on grandmothers, in a voice that I've come to recognize as uniquely Iyer.
I particularly loved the essays on places like Bali, Tibet, Cambodia and Easter Island with none of the touristy afflictions that writers to such places tend to suffer from, nor the angry disbelief at the depths of human depravity.
Also loved the essays on Kazuo Ishiguro, on jetlag and on grandmothers, in a voice that I've come to recognize as uniquely Iyer.
February 24, 2013
Pico Iyer is one of my favourite essayists. His travel writing combines poetic and uniquely layered observations with meditations on the nature and purpose of travel itself. He often writes about places he's visited again and again, giving his work a depth unusual in the genre. This book has a number of brilliant essays, including a portrait of Leonard Cohen at a California Buddhist monastery, a haunting essay on Bolivia and a profile of the Dalai Lama based on decades of intimate encounters.
July 11, 2013
I would like to start this review by saying Iyer is one of the best travel writers I have read, which would be true, but also needs the qualification that I haven't read many travel writers. Having said that, I will be finding and reading his oeuvre pronto. (Did I just use "oeuvre" in a review? Forgive me. It's 2 a.m. in Barcelona and I'm jet lagged!)
January 24, 2010
A new addition to my "favorite authors" list. Iyer's proesetry is mesmerizing. Perfect for the world globetrotter or the armchair traveler. Not "just" travel writing ... he explores the worlds inside our brains as well as the ones outside our doors.
November 22, 2016
Always love to journey with Pico Iyer. Especially topical" his essay on meeting with Leonard Cohen in his Zen monastery setting.
September 20, 2017
Where do I even start with Pico Iyer?
I always used to read travel writing literature as a destination-specific story, informing me about a place or the adventures had along or during the journey. While that still holds fort for me, off late it's the 'Why we travel?' question that I seek answers to. Iyer's work always gives nuanced responses to that question.
His work stands out amidst the travel writers in the sense that his writings are also about the inner journeys one undertakes during the external wanderings. 'Sun after Dark: Flights into the Foreign' is yet another fine example of that oeuvre. He weaves it into beautiful prose and gives a resonance to the thoughts you may have had on some trip to some place, planned or otherwise.
Unlike his other books such as 'Video Night in Kathmandu' or 'Falling Off the Map' or even 'The Lady and the Monk: Four Seasons in Kyoto', in this book, the place just happens to be incidental whereas it's the layered perspective he brings out from these destinations that make the story.
It is a collection of travel stories, philosophical essays and slice-of-life profiles of people encountered during the travels. And keeping in the vein of 'Falling off the map', Iyer ventures to some remote places on the planet. Easter Island, on a new year's eve, anyone?
What's more interesting though is the places or subjects he revisits: Japan (he has been living there), India, Tibet, personalities such as the Dalai Lama, Leonard Cohen. This revisiting gives interesting insights into a place and the personalities. The chapter on Leonard Cohen, the Canadian singer-song writer turned Buddhist monk's right hand man, wonderfully explores the reasons behind the transformation of the person. The Dalai Lama, on whom Iyer has written a separate book altogether (The Open Road), straddles the world of monastic duties, keeping the exiled Tibetan flock together, addressing huge crowds, being in celebrities' list of friends and more. Who's the person behind the personality? The chapter "Making kindness stand to reason" explores just that.
In the essay "Nightwalking", one of my favourite in the book, Iyer explores that state of limbo that is somewhere between a jet-lag and re-adjusting to your home or foreign settings. The virtues of being on the same time setting of your home country to the absolute failure of trying to fight jet lag as you age, Iyer wonderfully explains that feeling of being in that wierd frame of mind that follows a return from a long journey. "A Far off Affair" showcases India in an interesting light, through the typos in the sentences on notice boards or language in daily parlance, and not just stopping there but trying to dig in to the etymological histories. "Happy hour in the heart of Darkness" set in Cambodia, debates on the ethics of travel to places where you could be enriching an extremist government.
Each essay is full of insights which need to be read and pondered over.
Would like to end with one (of the many many lines) that stuck with me after I was done with the book: Says Iyer, "The physical aspect of travel is, for me, the least interesting; what really draws me is the prospect of stepping out of the daylight of everything I know, into the shadows of what I don't know, and may never know."
We have all come across these shadows, at some point in our travels.
Iyer does the hard work of putting them into words.
I always used to read travel writing literature as a destination-specific story, informing me about a place or the adventures had along or during the journey. While that still holds fort for me, off late it's the 'Why we travel?' question that I seek answers to. Iyer's work always gives nuanced responses to that question.
His work stands out amidst the travel writers in the sense that his writings are also about the inner journeys one undertakes during the external wanderings. 'Sun after Dark: Flights into the Foreign' is yet another fine example of that oeuvre. He weaves it into beautiful prose and gives a resonance to the thoughts you may have had on some trip to some place, planned or otherwise.
Unlike his other books such as 'Video Night in Kathmandu' or 'Falling Off the Map' or even 'The Lady and the Monk: Four Seasons in Kyoto', in this book, the place just happens to be incidental whereas it's the layered perspective he brings out from these destinations that make the story.
It is a collection of travel stories, philosophical essays and slice-of-life profiles of people encountered during the travels. And keeping in the vein of 'Falling off the map', Iyer ventures to some remote places on the planet. Easter Island, on a new year's eve, anyone?
What's more interesting though is the places or subjects he revisits: Japan (he has been living there), India, Tibet, personalities such as the Dalai Lama, Leonard Cohen. This revisiting gives interesting insights into a place and the personalities. The chapter on Leonard Cohen, the Canadian singer-song writer turned Buddhist monk's right hand man, wonderfully explores the reasons behind the transformation of the person. The Dalai Lama, on whom Iyer has written a separate book altogether (The Open Road), straddles the world of monastic duties, keeping the exiled Tibetan flock together, addressing huge crowds, being in celebrities' list of friends and more. Who's the person behind the personality? The chapter "Making kindness stand to reason" explores just that.
In the essay "Nightwalking", one of my favourite in the book, Iyer explores that state of limbo that is somewhere between a jet-lag and re-adjusting to your home or foreign settings. The virtues of being on the same time setting of your home country to the absolute failure of trying to fight jet lag as you age, Iyer wonderfully explains that feeling of being in that wierd frame of mind that follows a return from a long journey. "A Far off Affair" showcases India in an interesting light, through the typos in the sentences on notice boards or language in daily parlance, and not just stopping there but trying to dig in to the etymological histories. "Happy hour in the heart of Darkness" set in Cambodia, debates on the ethics of travel to places where you could be enriching an extremist government.
Each essay is full of insights which need to be read and pondered over.
Would like to end with one (of the many many lines) that stuck with me after I was done with the book: Says Iyer, "The physical aspect of travel is, for me, the least interesting; what really draws me is the prospect of stepping out of the daylight of everything I know, into the shadows of what I don't know, and may never know."
We have all come across these shadows, at some point in our travels.
Iyer does the hard work of putting them into words.
November 22, 2012
I have mixed feelings about travel writing. The best kind of travel writing, to me, is the sort that is so evocative, so vivid, that it makes you want to pack your bags and see the place for yourself. Not necessarily because that place has charming cobblestoned streets or breathtaking vistas, although those always help. But because the writing, in bringing the foreign so tantalizingly close to you, makes you want to take off to explore that Foreign Other. Yet, travel writing is about impressions grounded in a particular time and context. Reading Iyer's Sun After Dark, a series of essays from the late 1990s to the early 00s, I'm not sure the writing always holds up well some 20 years after they were first written. Yes, Iyer has those moments of lyricism and poetry, of insight:
"The physical aspect of travel is, for me, the least interesting; what really draws me is the prospect of stepping out of the daylight of everything I know, into the shadows of what I don't know, and may never know. Confronted by the foreign, we grow newly attentive to the details of the world, even as we make out, sometimes, the larger outline that lies behind them.....We travel, some of us, to slip through the curtain of the ordinary, and into the presence of whatever lies just outside our apprehension"
But I'm not sure whether his portraits of enigmatic Bali, magical Tibet, cacophonous India, etc. have stood the test of time and can continue to resonate across time and space. It is Iyer's portraits of individuals - Leonard Cohen, the Dalai Lama, WG Sebald - that I think hold up better. (I'm not sure what the difference is between unpacking the personality of a person, versus the personality of a place.) Still, Iyer is, at worst, a decent read and those odd beautiful sentences and thoughtful observations keep you committed.
"The physical aspect of travel is, for me, the least interesting; what really draws me is the prospect of stepping out of the daylight of everything I know, into the shadows of what I don't know, and may never know. Confronted by the foreign, we grow newly attentive to the details of the world, even as we make out, sometimes, the larger outline that lies behind them.....We travel, some of us, to slip through the curtain of the ordinary, and into the presence of whatever lies just outside our apprehension"
But I'm not sure whether his portraits of enigmatic Bali, magical Tibet, cacophonous India, etc. have stood the test of time and can continue to resonate across time and space. It is Iyer's portraits of individuals - Leonard Cohen, the Dalai Lama, WG Sebald - that I think hold up better. (I'm not sure what the difference is between unpacking the personality of a person, versus the personality of a place.) Still, Iyer is, at worst, a decent read and those odd beautiful sentences and thoughtful observations keep you committed.
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July 11, 2018I have loved Pico Iyer's insights into the farthest corners of the world ever since I read "Video Nights in Kathmandu." I somehow missed this collection of essays published in 2000 and titled "Sun After Dark: Flights into the Foreign." Pico Iyer,who has maintained a multi continental global identity is particularly skilled at observations of all places "in between." Each essay in this collection is a jewel. In "Nightwalking" he portrays the psychological displacement of the feel of jetlag. "A Far-Off Affair" is a wonderful exploration of how Indians have always used the English language in creative ways absorbing its vocabulary but bending meanings to their own cultural realities. He also remarks on how the boundaries of this relationship between the cultures during colonial times was semi-permeable and how many words have come into English from Indian languages. Also intersting are profiles of the Dalai Lama (about whom Iyer wrote a full length biography) and insider time spent with Leonard Cohen at a Buddhist retreat. Another of his finds is an essay about less known German travel writer Sebald whose genre is a travel writing about being forced out of one world and never quite arriving in another. Sebald's insights about being a perpetual immigrant forever separated from any true home is a poignant capture of the experience of millions of people in our times. Iyer has written for Time magazine but lives with his Japanese wife in Kyoto. He is equally familiar with London, Japan, New York and Santa Barbara where he once had a house before fires destroyed it.
August 10, 2011
Iyer shared some great stories in this book. I really enjoyed his piece on the Dalai Lama. Just one example of where Iyer mixed his own experience with an entertaining history lesson. His writings on Cambodia had a profound impact on me. I'm dying to learn more about the horrors of the past. At the same time, I want jump on the next flight to Angkor Wat. "Making Kindness Stand to Reason", "Happy Hour in the Heart of Darkness", "A Journey into Light", "In the Dark", and "A Haunted House of Treasures" were all excellent.
Other chapters left a lot to be desired. I struggled through his sections of literary analysis. For example, "Dead Man Walking" and "A Foreigner at Home" came across as dull book reports. Iyer didn't integrate enough of his own experiences into these rehashes to make them his own stories. As a result, they were dry, inconsistent with the rest of the book, and a chore to get through.
Other chapters left a lot to be desired. I struggled through his sections of literary analysis. For example, "Dead Man Walking" and "A Foreigner at Home" came across as dull book reports. Iyer didn't integrate enough of his own experiences into these rehashes to make them his own stories. As a result, they were dry, inconsistent with the rest of the book, and a chore to get through.
January 18, 2014
It was a tough travelogue for me to follow as there are too many stories which don't seem to be connected very well. I was intrigued by some if the places Pico visited but was short of contextual details. For me a good travelogue is one where historical context is juxtaposed with current predicament of the focus country. Pico should have detailed the historical summary of the obscure countries covered as he would have done a great service to their little known prominence in the world. The only chapters Pico covered well were on Tibet and the Dalai Llama. The rest of the travelogues left me wanting more, as if the details were missing.
March 28, 2014
Pico Iyer has earned a name for himself as a travel writer, and this book is a collection of mostly travel articles he wrote for various magazines. It also contains a scattering of articles that are book reviews, short biographical pieces on famous people, an analysis of a writer, some reflections about well-off travelers encountering poverty, and so on.
This collection is impressionistic, as is Pico's writing. He daubs his work with touches of things he's seen and heard. It's a unique literary style and one that sometimes escapes me. I generally prefer a more straightforward method of telling a story, so I am rating this lower than someone who likes this style would.
This collection is impressionistic, as is Pico's writing. He daubs his work with touches of things he's seen and heard. It's a unique literary style and one that sometimes escapes me. I generally prefer a more straightforward method of telling a story, so I am rating this lower than someone who likes this style would.
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August 27, 2016I've been reading Iyer with pleasure for a number of years and this is a favorite. His writing is reflctive and poetic, relying on astute observation of the world and creative synthesis of those observations. This book includes both stories of physical travel and journies through realms of inner space and the contemplation of space and identity. The collection includes fascinating profiles of Leonard Cohen and the Dalai Lama, voyages to Bolivia and Cambodia as well as a brilliant meditation on jet lag.
September 25, 2009
The best collection of travel stories I have read. Iyer llustrates the locale but also is able to give you a deep understanding of the emotion of the location like no other writer I've read in a long time. You can see it but you can also feel it. He tackles some of the unpleasant parts of travel - his part on child beggars captures the frustration travelers face when dealing with the constant begging and the dilemma of to give or not to give. I loved his piece on jet-lag. I will reread the entire collection and will go out and buy more of his writing.
October 23, 2008
This is a collection of travel stories that share an interest in exploring foreign-ness. Iyer examines his own concern for and guilt about people in need in several areas of the world. At the same time, he looks inward to fully experience if not understand his own disjointed feelings in unfamiliar territory. Most of the stories are about physically traveling to different parts of the world, but Iyer also discusses other transporting experiences such as reading books.
March 7, 2010
The stories in this collection have one theme in common: foreigness or being a foreigner. They were written between 1993 and 2002. Geographically, they span the globe. Some are highly personal, others focus on famous people Iyer meets (Dalai Lama, Leonard Cohen), a couple are basically literary criticism, one or two vaguely exciting, even humorous. All in all, the collection finds Iyer in a pensive mood. Many of the stories are rather inward looking, slow reading, melancholy.
June 3, 2011
One or two of the tales as well as a snippet here and there were liked but overall it was kind of a let down. It seemed as if there should be more to to the experiences. Iyer chose to write about hard things and he did a pretty good job. Maybe it was the overuse of metaphors or the top heavy premonitions in the first couple chapters. Although it did create a neat deja vu feeling through out the book. Even though this book was not really for me, I can easily see how people would love it.
September 22, 2012
I hated this book. I loved this book. The essays were not light nor were they frivolous as Pico Iyer visits places that no one else would visit, or perhaps should visit. Because it is a rare traveler that looks with the depth of understanding that Iyer brings to the world and yet can see and describe it with new eyes. His essays were challenging but intriguing. THis is a book that i will read again after i've thought about it for awhile.
July 10, 2014
This 2004 travel book of essays range far and wide. It is very enjoyable
to vicariously travel with Iyer to places all over the globe. The first two
essays are about Leonard Cohen and the Dalai Lama, while the rest of them
are about Bali, La Paz, Easter Islands, Lhasa, Cambodia and Angkor Wat,
and many others. It is a great and thoughtful book that lets you in on
all the careful details and insight that Iyer offers here.
to vicariously travel with Iyer to places all over the globe. The first two
essays are about Leonard Cohen and the Dalai Lama, while the rest of them
are about Bali, La Paz, Easter Islands, Lhasa, Cambodia and Angkor Wat,
and many others. It is a great and thoughtful book that lets you in on
all the careful details and insight that Iyer offers here.
February 21, 2017
In my mind, Pico Iyer is a genius. I find his writing captivating and he manages to capture many of the things that I have seen and experienced in my own travels in a way that is both honest and magical. He is the author I wish I could be...
This is a collection of essays/ articles about travels around the world and his stories and impressions about the places he visited in the late 1990s, early 2000s.
This is a collection of essays/ articles about travels around the world and his stories and impressions about the places he visited in the late 1990s, early 2000s.
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July 30, 2011"The beauty of any flight, after all, is that, as soon as we leave the ground, we leave a sense of who we are behind." As always, Pico Iyer delves into the possibilities of discovery. I lingered over the chapter on Leonard Cohen. Was it coincidence that a student played "Hallelujah" on the piano in the school foyer as I was reading?
August 3, 2020
The man who gives jet lag an inferiority complex has in this collection of thought provoking travelogues succeeded in no small detail in engaging the reader in a bout of spiritual and sublime thinking. Whether it be describing the Buddhist fervour of Leonard Cohen or the ruins of Angkor Vat, Iyer brings a sense of the surreal to his narration.
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