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The Condor and the Cows
A South American Travel Diary
In September 1947, long before mass tourism and with no knowledge of Spanish, Christopher Isherwood and his lover Bill Caskey left for a six-month tour of Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, and Argentina. Isherwood's account of this journey, The Condor and the Cows, is one of very few classic travel books on South America and was among the books Isherwood considered his best.
In September 1947, long before mass tourism and with no knowledge of Spanish, Christopher Isherwood and his lover Bill Caskey left for a six-month tour of Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, and Argentina. Isherwood's account of this journey, The Condor and the Cows, is one of very few classic travel books on South America and was among the books Isherwood considered his best.
Based on his trip journal and loosely structured by the vagaries of his travels, these pages give us an Isherwood who dreams of voluntary exile in the tropical paradise of Curaçao and dines out on stories of Nazis in Berlin, missionaries in China, and movie stars in Hollywood. He describes the surprising and sometimes unnerving people and places he encounters through telling, cinematic details-of Inca drinking vessels, the Spanish colonial city of Cuzco (which he calls "one of the most beautiful monuments to bigotry and sheer brutal stupidity in the whole world"), a bullfight in Bogotá, the towering ruins of Machu Picchu.
Unsentimental, rich, and wonderfully rendered, this expanded edition includes additional photographs by Bill Caskey and a new foreword by Jeffrey Meyers.
256 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1949
9 people are currently reading
279 people want to read
About the author
Christopher Isherwood
160 books1,512 followersEnglish-born American writer Christopher William Bradshaw Isherwood portrayed Berlin in the early 1930s in his best known works, such as
Goodbye to Berlin
(1939), the basis for the musical
Cabaret
(1966). Isherwood was a novelist, playwright, screenwriter, autobiographer, and diarist.
With W.H. Auden he wrote three plays— The Dog Beneath the Skin (1932), The Ascent of F6 (1936), and On the Frontier (1938). Isherwood tells the story in his first autobiography, Lions and Shadows .
After Isherwood wrote joke answers on his second-year exams, Cambridge University in 1925 asked him to leave. He briefly attended medical school and progressed with his first two novels, All the Conspirators (1928) and The Memorial (1932). In 1930, he moved to Berlin, where he taught English, dabbled in Communism, and enthusiastically explored his homosexuality. His experiences provided the material for Mister Norris Changes Trains (1935) and Goodbye to Berlin (1938), still his most famous book.
In Berlin in 1932, he also began an important relationship with Heinz Neddermeyer, a young German with whom he fled the Nazis in 1933. England refused entry to Neddermeyer on his second visit in 1934, and the pair moved restlessly about Europe until the Gestapo arrested Neddermeyer in May 1937 and then finally separated them.
In 1938, Isherwood sailed with Auden to China to write Journey to a War (1939), about the Sino-Japanese conflict. They returned to England and Isherwood went on to Hollywood to look for movie-writing work. He also became a disciple of the Ramakrishna monk, Swami Prabhavananda, head of the Vedanta Society of Southern California. He decided not to take monastic vows, but he remained a Hindu for the rest of his life, serving, praying, and lecturing in the temple every week and writing a biography, Ramakrishna and His Disciples (1965).
In 1945, Isherwood published Prater Violet, fictionalizing his first movie writing job in London in 1933-1934. In Hollywood, he spent the start of the 1950s fighting his way free of a destructive five-year affair with an attractive and undisciplined American photographer, William Caskey. Caskey took the photographs for Isherwood’s travel book about South America, The Condor and The Cows (1947). Isherwood’s sixth novel, The World in the Evening (1954), written mostly during this period, was less successful than earlier ones.
In 1953, he fell in love with Don Bachardy, an eighteen-year-old college student born and raised in Los Angeles. They were to remain together until Isherwood’s death. In 1961, Isherwood and completed the final revisions to his new novel Down There on a Visit (1962). Their relationship nearly ended in 1963, and Isherwood moved out of their Santa Monica house. This dark period underpins Isherwood’s masterpiece A Single Man (1964).
Isherwood wrote another novel, A Meeting by the River (1967), about two brothers, but he gave up writing fiction and turned entirely to autobiography. In Kathleen and Frank (1971), he drew on the letters and diaries of his parents. In Christopher and His Kind (1976), he returned to the 1930s to tell, as a publicly avowed homosexual, the real story of his life in Berlin and his wanderings with Heinz Neddermeyer. The book made him a hero of gay liberation and a national celebrity all over again but now in his true, political and personal identity.
With W.H. Auden he wrote three plays— The Dog Beneath the Skin (1932), The Ascent of F6 (1936), and On the Frontier (1938). Isherwood tells the story in his first autobiography, Lions and Shadows .
After Isherwood wrote joke answers on his second-year exams, Cambridge University in 1925 asked him to leave. He briefly attended medical school and progressed with his first two novels, All the Conspirators (1928) and The Memorial (1932). In 1930, he moved to Berlin, where he taught English, dabbled in Communism, and enthusiastically explored his homosexuality. His experiences provided the material for Mister Norris Changes Trains (1935) and Goodbye to Berlin (1938), still his most famous book.
In Berlin in 1932, he also began an important relationship with Heinz Neddermeyer, a young German with whom he fled the Nazis in 1933. England refused entry to Neddermeyer on his second visit in 1934, and the pair moved restlessly about Europe until the Gestapo arrested Neddermeyer in May 1937 and then finally separated them.
In 1938, Isherwood sailed with Auden to China to write Journey to a War (1939), about the Sino-Japanese conflict. They returned to England and Isherwood went on to Hollywood to look for movie-writing work. He also became a disciple of the Ramakrishna monk, Swami Prabhavananda, head of the Vedanta Society of Southern California. He decided not to take monastic vows, but he remained a Hindu for the rest of his life, serving, praying, and lecturing in the temple every week and writing a biography, Ramakrishna and His Disciples (1965).
In 1945, Isherwood published Prater Violet, fictionalizing his first movie writing job in London in 1933-1934. In Hollywood, he spent the start of the 1950s fighting his way free of a destructive five-year affair with an attractive and undisciplined American photographer, William Caskey. Caskey took the photographs for Isherwood’s travel book about South America, The Condor and The Cows (1947). Isherwood’s sixth novel, The World in the Evening (1954), written mostly during this period, was less successful than earlier ones.
In 1953, he fell in love with Don Bachardy, an eighteen-year-old college student born and raised in Los Angeles. They were to remain together until Isherwood’s death. In 1961, Isherwood and completed the final revisions to his new novel Down There on a Visit (1962). Their relationship nearly ended in 1963, and Isherwood moved out of their Santa Monica house. This dark period underpins Isherwood’s masterpiece A Single Man (1964).
Isherwood wrote another novel, A Meeting by the River (1967), about two brothers, but he gave up writing fiction and turned entirely to autobiography. In Kathleen and Frank (1971), he drew on the letters and diaries of his parents. In Christopher and His Kind (1976), he returned to the 1930s to tell, as a publicly avowed homosexual, the real story of his life in Berlin and his wanderings with Heinz Neddermeyer. The book made him a hero of gay liberation and a national celebrity all over again but now in his true, political and personal identity.
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Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews
April 12, 2014
I was most of the way through The Condor And The Cows: A South American Travel Diary by Christopher Isherwood when the though suddenly hit me that Paul Theroux was to make almost exactly the same trip thirty years later, when he wrote The Old Patagonian Express. Except, that Isherwood did not see himself as a traveler. Witness his musings as he left Ecuador:
And yet I liked The Condor and the Cows just as much as I admire Theroux. Both authors were stuck in a social whirl in the South American cities they visited, because they were both relatively well-known authors. South Americans, especially way back before their own rich literature was discovered, felt isolated from the world. I, as an unknown, feel more comfortable in Latin America, because no one is particularly focusing their attentions on me.
I also felt that Isherwood captured the Continent in a way that Theroux never did:
That is the irony of travel. You spend your boyhood dreaming of a magic, impossibly distant day when you will cross the Equator, when your eyes will behold Quito. And then, in the slow prosaic process of life, that day undramatically dawns -- and finds you sleepy, hungry, and dull. The Equator is just another valley; you aren't sure which and you don't much care. Quito is just another railroad station, with fuss about baggage and taxis and tips.Of course, Theroux was just as snarky on the face of it, but he was to write a whole passel of travel books and became famous for it. As for Isherwood, he was just slumming.
And yet I liked The Condor and the Cows just as much as I admire Theroux. Both authors were stuck in a social whirl in the South American cities they visited, because they were both relatively well-known authors. South Americans, especially way back before their own rich literature was discovered, felt isolated from the world. I, as an unknown, feel more comfortable in Latin America, because no one is particularly focusing their attentions on me.
I also felt that Isherwood captured the Continent in a way that Theroux never did:
How should I describe [South America]?And he goes on to say that the future of South America lies in "a new race and a new culture, certainly" that will emerge in the years to come. It's still not there, but something is definitely happening under the Southern Cross.
Best, perhaps, by contrasts -- the strongest I can find. For this is a land of opposites, startling opposed. Show-mountains towering sheer up out of jungle and tropical plain. Glaciers overhanging banana plantations. Condors circling over cows. Airline passengers looking down on pack-trains of llamas. Brand new Cadillacs honking at mules. Coca-Cola cuties on mud-huts.... A blond Negro talking Spanish to a red-headed Chinese.
April 6, 2015
I had mixed feelings about this book. In parts it is brilliant. Isherwood writes with ease, elegance and a deceptively simple style. When he write about people or about his own feelings whilst travelling the book is very good. As a travel guide it is poorer. This would not matter if he never tried to be a travel guide, but there are odd sections here and there which try to give you facts about the countries. Given the book was written over 70 years ago, these are obviously irrelevant except as historical curiosities - but, for me, they spoilt the other parts. Its not a bad book, but variable. Read this book if you are a fan of Isherwood and want to read everything by him, or if you have an interest in old travellers tales. If you are looking for a sustained piece of literature that shows Isherwood at his best, try elsewhere.
December 27, 2012
The format is of a travel diary but still Isherwood makes comments and observations about political, social, and economical status of the countries he visits. I notice similarities in each country all these years later and some of his predictions have come true. Interesting and reflective view of early tourism in South America.
March 8, 2017
I would give it a higher rating if only there where more intimate details on his bonds (if any), with people culture and places that he visited. I feel like he only travelled around staying at the best hotels, never speaks about the food(with everything that it means to understand a culture) never trully speaks with locals since his trip guides where mostly european or north american. I feel that this book doesn't cover or fully describes what south america is. I can only agree to the final page where he says that only through contrast is he able to describe what he saw in his trip. The chronicle is mostly boring, everything for him was too much! Mountains too high, prairies too widespread... some comments are quite rude specially when describing indigenous tribes.
July 2, 2018
So I knew about this from a reference in Paul Theroux’s ‘The Old Patagonian Express’, which in some ways put me off, it seemed almost a bitchy comment about Isherwood being bitchy in his book when travelling through the same place. Now, admittedly it is absurd to base an opinion on a whole book by an author you have never read on a comment made by another author, but you know, what can I say. I’m an idiot.
To be fair, Paul Theroux was my travel writing tsar, and for a good long time he embodied everything I thought travel writing was and should be, although that has since changed. But throwing all that aside, the lack of travel books about South America that I haven’t read, and want to read, meant that I thought I’d give this a go.
Firstly, for no reason whatsoever, I always thought it was the Condor and the Crows. Hilariously this actually continued after I started reading, until Isherwood explains in his introduction why he called it the Condor and the Cows. Cows? Have I picked up the wrong book? What happened to the Crows?
Leaving my stupidity behind, and ignoring the question that if I can’t even properly read the title should I be reading at all, I ploughed in.
Straight away I loved Isherwood’s style. Slightly patronising, condescending, but off hand, not deliberately mean but sharp and acerbic, poking fun at the locals, other travellers and the reader. It is exactly my humour.
An exquisite flamingo-pink oil tank is recommended to connoisseurs of industrial architecture.
I found it interesting that compared to other travel books I’ve read, where the author was heading into the unknown because of some childhood obsession or chance encounter, or where the author was recreating steps trodden in history, Isherwood travelled because he was commissioned to. I loved that there was no agenda, just a man travelling through various countries giving his opinion on them. I loved the bits at the end of each country where he feels he has to present an opinion on the people and lists out what other people have said that he’s met and throws in his own thoughts. It’s almost like a fake travel book, there is no reason for it, or for Isherwood in particular to be doing it. As Pico Iyer mentions in his introduction, Isherwood’s Spanish was awful and he did pretty much zero research. But it still feels fresh for all that, he is not on a journey of discovery, he is not recreating or retreading history, he has no narrative to squeeze his journey and experience into and so relates what he sees and experiences as it is.
What did throw me every now and again is that Isherwood travelled in 1947. It was before so many things had happened that I am aware of, that the odd mention of something completely threw me and I had to reset the timeline in my head, which far from creating distance, actually gave the book an extra level of interest for me.
Isherwood puts no small amount of effort into the travelling and the subsequent writing of the book, and although Pico Iyer sketches Isherwood the man in the intro, it is the places that Isherwood visits that I’m interested in. That didn’t stop Isherwood forcing himself through into my consciousness, and there are some clever perceptions from him that cropped up now and again, and only became significant when you reset your brain to 1947.
(blog review here)
To be fair, Paul Theroux was my travel writing tsar, and for a good long time he embodied everything I thought travel writing was and should be, although that has since changed. But throwing all that aside, the lack of travel books about South America that I haven’t read, and want to read, meant that I thought I’d give this a go.
Firstly, for no reason whatsoever, I always thought it was the Condor and the Crows. Hilariously this actually continued after I started reading, until Isherwood explains in his introduction why he called it the Condor and the Cows. Cows? Have I picked up the wrong book? What happened to the Crows?
Leaving my stupidity behind, and ignoring the question that if I can’t even properly read the title should I be reading at all, I ploughed in.
Straight away I loved Isherwood’s style. Slightly patronising, condescending, but off hand, not deliberately mean but sharp and acerbic, poking fun at the locals, other travellers and the reader. It is exactly my humour.
An exquisite flamingo-pink oil tank is recommended to connoisseurs of industrial architecture.
I found it interesting that compared to other travel books I’ve read, where the author was heading into the unknown because of some childhood obsession or chance encounter, or where the author was recreating steps trodden in history, Isherwood travelled because he was commissioned to. I loved that there was no agenda, just a man travelling through various countries giving his opinion on them. I loved the bits at the end of each country where he feels he has to present an opinion on the people and lists out what other people have said that he’s met and throws in his own thoughts. It’s almost like a fake travel book, there is no reason for it, or for Isherwood in particular to be doing it. As Pico Iyer mentions in his introduction, Isherwood’s Spanish was awful and he did pretty much zero research. But it still feels fresh for all that, he is not on a journey of discovery, he is not recreating or retreading history, he has no narrative to squeeze his journey and experience into and so relates what he sees and experiences as it is.
What did throw me every now and again is that Isherwood travelled in 1947. It was before so many things had happened that I am aware of, that the odd mention of something completely threw me and I had to reset the timeline in my head, which far from creating distance, actually gave the book an extra level of interest for me.
Isherwood puts no small amount of effort into the travelling and the subsequent writing of the book, and although Pico Iyer sketches Isherwood the man in the intro, it is the places that Isherwood visits that I’m interested in. That didn’t stop Isherwood forcing himself through into my consciousness, and there are some clever perceptions from him that cropped up now and again, and only became significant when you reset your brain to 1947.
(blog review here)
March 22, 2023
A bit boring and monotonous, but the later parts about places I had actually been to/was going to resonated a lot more and therefore made it much more enjoyable.
Quotes:
“the symbol of the foreigner
who comes to Reuador and sees it as a beautiful riotous inke
Aquaint endearing land of irresponsible revolution, weenin
characters and pieturesque screwball customs, Every country
can be viewed from this angle, of course the United Suter
piot least, 'The point is that the United Staten, in it power und
it giory, needs to be laughed at. Leuador, in its poverty and
weakness, doesn't, It isn't chat Reuadoreans can't take a joker
they haye plenty of humor. Tut a joke wt what they wil
just now. They want intelligent understanding They wa
in be taken seriously, Indeed, it would be for more friendly
criticize them even brutally
than to treat them as loville,
ineffectual and absurd.”
“I pinned my faith on a large fat man who had firmly announced that he must get to Tumbes that night. He looked purposeful.”
“Sarita has introduced us to the
Pisco Sour, an alarmingly potent drink which is made by
mixing Pisco, the local brandy, with lime-juice, beaten egg-
white, sugar and Angostura bitters.”
“Standing there and looking out to sea, you feel the gentle overpowering sadness of the Pacific - that same sadness which invests Hong Kong, San Francisco and the islands of Japan”
“Nowadays, you can take comparatively cheap South
American round-trips by plane; down the eastern coast to
Argentina, over the Andes into Chile, then back up north to
the States. Of course you are quite free to stop over anywhere
along the route if you have the time, but many people haven't.
They try to cram the whole continent into an annual vacation
which would be barely long enough for a visit to a single
city. This kind of total travel is Tikely to become more and
more popular, until we have a generation which has seen all
the world's principal airports--and nothing else. At the Hotel
Maury I met a dazed American lady who was suffering so
severely from travel-indigestion that she seemed uncertain
where she was, where she'd been, or which way around she
was going.”
“Ihe
now-mountains were pink where they faced the sunrise, the
reat lake was icy black, the pure thin air was bitingly cold.
When vou breathe it in deeply, it seems to possess you to
he very tips of your toes and fingers. You feel transformed.
riumphant, almost demonic;
an inhuman creature riding
nigh above the world of cities and men. It wouldn't be difficult
o go mad in this country. It is the perfect setting for delusions
of grandeur.”
“_we felt almost indecently glad to be going. We had grown weary, weary to
humanly gigantic mountains, thar somber
y its Incaic ghosts, that weird
weird rarened
tmosphere. Our nerves and muscles and castra
open revolt at last against the tensions f
urney, unashamedly demandine a br of rule
ome cooking, and solid urban fatness. As thE
ut. Caskey danced a joyful little jig, singing
Hello . B. A.!' It was like starting for an exciting cocktail party”
“They are incredibly touchy-
especially where the United States is
concerned. You must always remember to say,
"I am a North American and not, I am an American,’ lest you should appear
to be laying claim to the entire Western Hemisphere.”
“Buenos Aires must be the most truly international city in the
world. Its population--at any rate in the business sections of
town--appears to be a three-part mixture of British, German
and Latin (Italian almost as much as Spanish.) Its banks and
offices have a definitely British atmosphere; they recall the solid
solvent grandeur of Victorian London. Many of its restaurants
are German; they have the well-stocked Gemutlichkeit of pre-
1914 Munich and Berlin. Its boulevards and private mansions
belong to the Paris of forty years ago.
But this does not mean that Buenos Aires and its inhabitants
have no national character, Quite the reverse. For these foreign
elements have been blended and transformed into something
indigenous, immediately recognizable, unique. Many cities
are big in actual acreage, but Buenos Aires, more than any
other I have seen, gives you the impression of space. Space
for the sake of space. Space easily, casually afforded. Space
squandered with a sort of imperial magnificence. You feel
here an infinite freedom of elbow-room which corresponds
naturally to the expanse of the nearby estuary and the ocean,
and to the vastness of the surrounding plains. The other basic
characteristic is weight. The public buildings are laden with
ponderous statuary; their arches, doorways and staircases
are wide and massive.”
“Buenos Aires seems both very modern and very old-
fashioned. Its stores sparkle with newness: clothes, furniture,
automobiles and advertisements are self-consciously up-to-
date-
-so much so that you wonder if every object over five
years old hasn't been deliherately destroyed to make room
for innovations. And yet, as L have said, the mood of. its
architecture belongs to a much earlier epoch, when luxury was
grave, assured and untroubled by anxiety or a bad conscience.”
“South--that recurring, highly emotive keynote in European
poetry, has quite another significance here in Argentina.
Instead of leading into the familiar harmonies of sunshine,
palms, wine, warmth, blue sea, blue sky and das Land, wo die
Zitronen bluehn, it introduces a sinister leitmotif of desolation,
wind, storm and ice, the mystery of the Antarctic. Or, ir
you don't want to get too dramatic, ir suggests, at any rate.
the peculiar aloneness of this southern end of the continent.
pointing into a vast cold sea where there is no other land at all
on this side of the world, except the polar regions.”
“I can accept no responsibility for
the dullness and boredom of Mar del Plata. It is clean, tidy,
respectable, unimaginative, municipal and colorless, without
any character whatsoever.”
“In this country, you must never forget to call the islands The Malvinas; to use the other name is a national insult”
“And now, looking back over this journey, Lask myself what are
the deepest impressions that remain? How shall I answer when
people ask me, 'What is South America like?”
“ How
should I describe it?
Best, perhaps, by contrasts--the strongest I can find,
For this is a land of opposites, startlingly opposed. Snow-
mountains towering sheer up out of jungle and tropical plain.
Glaciers overhanging bamama plantations, Condors circling
over cows. Airline passengers looking down on pack-trains
of llamas. Brand-new Cadillacs honking at mules. Coca-Cola
cuties on mud-huts, A girl in a Parisian hat buying eggs from
a market-woman in a blanket.”
“It is a land of violence.
Thandier and ralanches im che
mountains, huge foods and storms on the plains, Volcanoes
exploding. The earth shaking and splitting. The woods full of
savage beasts and poisonous insects and deadly snakes. Knives are whipped out at a word, Whole families are murdered
without any reason. Riots are sudden and bloody and often
meaningless. Cars and trucks 1ra driven into each other or
over cliffs with an indirerence which is half-suicidal. Such an
energy in destruction. Such an apathy when something has
to be mended or built, So much humor in despair, So much
weary fatalism toward poverty and disease. The shrug of the
boulders, and the faint smile of cynicim. No good. Too late.
It's gonc. Finished. Broken. They're all dead. Ignore it. Use
the other door. Sleep in another room. Throw it in the gutter.
Tie the ends together with string. Put up a memortat cross.”
Quotes:
“the symbol of the foreigner
who comes to Reuador and sees it as a beautiful riotous inke
Aquaint endearing land of irresponsible revolution, weenin
characters and pieturesque screwball customs, Every country
can be viewed from this angle, of course the United Suter
piot least, 'The point is that the United Staten, in it power und
it giory, needs to be laughed at. Leuador, in its poverty and
weakness, doesn't, It isn't chat Reuadoreans can't take a joker
they haye plenty of humor. Tut a joke wt what they wil
just now. They want intelligent understanding They wa
in be taken seriously, Indeed, it would be for more friendly
criticize them even brutally
than to treat them as loville,
ineffectual and absurd.”
“I pinned my faith on a large fat man who had firmly announced that he must get to Tumbes that night. He looked purposeful.”
“Sarita has introduced us to the
Pisco Sour, an alarmingly potent drink which is made by
mixing Pisco, the local brandy, with lime-juice, beaten egg-
white, sugar and Angostura bitters.”
“Standing there and looking out to sea, you feel the gentle overpowering sadness of the Pacific - that same sadness which invests Hong Kong, San Francisco and the islands of Japan”
“Nowadays, you can take comparatively cheap South
American round-trips by plane; down the eastern coast to
Argentina, over the Andes into Chile, then back up north to
the States. Of course you are quite free to stop over anywhere
along the route if you have the time, but many people haven't.
They try to cram the whole continent into an annual vacation
which would be barely long enough for a visit to a single
city. This kind of total travel is Tikely to become more and
more popular, until we have a generation which has seen all
the world's principal airports--and nothing else. At the Hotel
Maury I met a dazed American lady who was suffering so
severely from travel-indigestion that she seemed uncertain
where she was, where she'd been, or which way around she
was going.”
“Ihe
now-mountains were pink where they faced the sunrise, the
reat lake was icy black, the pure thin air was bitingly cold.
When vou breathe it in deeply, it seems to possess you to
he very tips of your toes and fingers. You feel transformed.
riumphant, almost demonic;
an inhuman creature riding
nigh above the world of cities and men. It wouldn't be difficult
o go mad in this country. It is the perfect setting for delusions
of grandeur.”
“_we felt almost indecently glad to be going. We had grown weary, weary to
humanly gigantic mountains, thar somber
y its Incaic ghosts, that weird
weird rarened
tmosphere. Our nerves and muscles and castra
open revolt at last against the tensions f
urney, unashamedly demandine a br of rule
ome cooking, and solid urban fatness. As thE
ut. Caskey danced a joyful little jig, singing
Hello . B. A.!' It was like starting for an exciting cocktail party”
“They are incredibly touchy-
especially where the United States is
concerned. You must always remember to say,
"I am a North American and not, I am an American,’ lest you should appear
to be laying claim to the entire Western Hemisphere.”
“Buenos Aires must be the most truly international city in the
world. Its population--at any rate in the business sections of
town--appears to be a three-part mixture of British, German
and Latin (Italian almost as much as Spanish.) Its banks and
offices have a definitely British atmosphere; they recall the solid
solvent grandeur of Victorian London. Many of its restaurants
are German; they have the well-stocked Gemutlichkeit of pre-
1914 Munich and Berlin. Its boulevards and private mansions
belong to the Paris of forty years ago.
But this does not mean that Buenos Aires and its inhabitants
have no national character, Quite the reverse. For these foreign
elements have been blended and transformed into something
indigenous, immediately recognizable, unique. Many cities
are big in actual acreage, but Buenos Aires, more than any
other I have seen, gives you the impression of space. Space
for the sake of space. Space easily, casually afforded. Space
squandered with a sort of imperial magnificence. You feel
here an infinite freedom of elbow-room which corresponds
naturally to the expanse of the nearby estuary and the ocean,
and to the vastness of the surrounding plains. The other basic
characteristic is weight. The public buildings are laden with
ponderous statuary; their arches, doorways and staircases
are wide and massive.”
“Buenos Aires seems both very modern and very old-
fashioned. Its stores sparkle with newness: clothes, furniture,
automobiles and advertisements are self-consciously up-to-
date-
-so much so that you wonder if every object over five
years old hasn't been deliherately destroyed to make room
for innovations. And yet, as L have said, the mood of. its
architecture belongs to a much earlier epoch, when luxury was
grave, assured and untroubled by anxiety or a bad conscience.”
“South--that recurring, highly emotive keynote in European
poetry, has quite another significance here in Argentina.
Instead of leading into the familiar harmonies of sunshine,
palms, wine, warmth, blue sea, blue sky and das Land, wo die
Zitronen bluehn, it introduces a sinister leitmotif of desolation,
wind, storm and ice, the mystery of the Antarctic. Or, ir
you don't want to get too dramatic, ir suggests, at any rate.
the peculiar aloneness of this southern end of the continent.
pointing into a vast cold sea where there is no other land at all
on this side of the world, except the polar regions.”
“I can accept no responsibility for
the dullness and boredom of Mar del Plata. It is clean, tidy,
respectable, unimaginative, municipal and colorless, without
any character whatsoever.”
“In this country, you must never forget to call the islands The Malvinas; to use the other name is a national insult”
“And now, looking back over this journey, Lask myself what are
the deepest impressions that remain? How shall I answer when
people ask me, 'What is South America like?”
“ How
should I describe it?
Best, perhaps, by contrasts--the strongest I can find,
For this is a land of opposites, startlingly opposed. Snow-
mountains towering sheer up out of jungle and tropical plain.
Glaciers overhanging bamama plantations, Condors circling
over cows. Airline passengers looking down on pack-trains
of llamas. Brand-new Cadillacs honking at mules. Coca-Cola
cuties on mud-huts, A girl in a Parisian hat buying eggs from
a market-woman in a blanket.”
“It is a land of violence.
Thandier and ralanches im che
mountains, huge foods and storms on the plains, Volcanoes
exploding. The earth shaking and splitting. The woods full of
savage beasts and poisonous insects and deadly snakes. Knives are whipped out at a word, Whole families are murdered
without any reason. Riots are sudden and bloody and often
meaningless. Cars and trucks 1ra driven into each other or
over cliffs with an indirerence which is half-suicidal. Such an
energy in destruction. Such an apathy when something has
to be mended or built, So much humor in despair, So much
weary fatalism toward poverty and disease. The shrug of the
boulders, and the faint smile of cynicim. No good. Too late.
It's gonc. Finished. Broken. They're all dead. Ignore it. Use
the other door. Sleep in another room. Throw it in the gutter.
Tie the ends together with string. Put up a memortat cross.”
Read
February 3, 2016Truly awful. This is the second (and last!!) travel book i will read of his. I was deeply disappointed because i had so enjoyed the Berlin Stories, but this was full of racism and judgment. I am not sure that he was really aware of it, since it was written in 1949, but for me it's no excuse. (here i am being judgmental)
There are some very interesting pictures of life at that time in the countries they visited, some of festivals and some portraits of local artists. There is even a photo of Borges. But i got sick when i saw a photo of someone receiving electric shock treatment--and you can see their eyes!!!
So while i did read this book, i did turn a lot of pages too. I couldn't read descriptions of people who were just not seen as equal human beings, only as something to be commented on along the way as a curiosity.
Here's a mild example: Upper-class Peruvian boys in this neighbourhood dress like U.S. high school students, but are too tidy to be quite authentic. There are also a lot of Chinese--as there are in all towns we passed through on our way down the coast. They usually own restaurants or small-provision stores. They are said to be well-liked because they often marry Peruvian girls. The Japanese aren't because they don't; they are much more clannish.
or this:
Today, the Indians, neither rulers now nor servants, form a large undigested mass in the stomach of the body p0litic.
how awful is that? how would anyone want to be described that way?
There are some very interesting pictures of life at that time in the countries they visited, some of festivals and some portraits of local artists. There is even a photo of Borges. But i got sick when i saw a photo of someone receiving electric shock treatment--and you can see their eyes!!!
So while i did read this book, i did turn a lot of pages too. I couldn't read descriptions of people who were just not seen as equal human beings, only as something to be commented on along the way as a curiosity.
Here's a mild example: Upper-class Peruvian boys in this neighbourhood dress like U.S. high school students, but are too tidy to be quite authentic. There are also a lot of Chinese--as there are in all towns we passed through on our way down the coast. They usually own restaurants or small-provision stores. They are said to be well-liked because they often marry Peruvian girls. The Japanese aren't because they don't; they are much more clannish.
or this:
Today, the Indians, neither rulers now nor servants, form a large undigested mass in the stomach of the body p0litic.
how awful is that? how would anyone want to be described that way?
June 22, 2021
I’m living through travel books these days, and can’t complain. Very much enjoyed this one, apart from the moments when it became drab and all too obvious that it was a commissioned piece. In those moments, Isherwood just goes through the motions and you can’t help notice that his heart is just not in it; he’s bored and not always curious. There’s not a lot of cultural immersion, but then again, few trips afford that.
Luckily, Isherwood’s talent still shines, and his prose, his penetrating observations on people and lands make this worth it. The trip up the Colombian Magdalena River, on a steamboat, holds special place in my heart as it has just the right amount of quaintness and nostalgia. The chapters on Argentina and Buenos Aires filled me with longing to revisit those places, and validated my own perception of BA as a city of so much space.
Luckily, Isherwood’s talent still shines, and his prose, his penetrating observations on people and lands make this worth it. The trip up the Colombian Magdalena River, on a steamboat, holds special place in my heart as it has just the right amount of quaintness and nostalgia. The chapters on Argentina and Buenos Aires filled me with longing to revisit those places, and validated my own perception of BA as a city of so much space.
February 6, 2022
Isherwood may not be the greatest of travel writers (as he admits himself in this book) and some parts could have been easily skipped. Still there is some irresistible charm to his writing (which I cannot quite define). In the end, as with all (longterm) travelling, the account gets a bit boring. In fact I doubt whether Isherwood really liked Andean South America, also given his sudden statement that Brazil - not on his itinerary - 'must be much the most interesting and exciting country in South America'.
April 29, 2016
Writers don’t do this much anymore: take long journeys to foreign countries like those found in South America and pen a single book about it, but that’s what Isherwood does in The Condor and the Cows. He writes about his trip taken with lover-at-the-time and photographer, William Caskey, one that spans six months in 1947-48.
It is an interesting concept, recording all your impressions from a trip: your conveyances, whether they be ships by which you travel five days from one continent to another, or whether they be the relatively new airplane, which can soar above mountains and shorten days-long trips to a few hours. You record the food you eat. The pillows upon which you lay your head. Trains traveling through a dust storm on the Argentine plain, yielding a gritty experience from one end of your sleeping car to the other. Chauffeurs driving ninety miles per hour across that plain because the road is smooth and there is relatively little traffic and because the matron in charge shows no reason to be concerned.
North American schools seem to teach little about geography anymore, the different types of maps that one can study in advance of a trip, during, and after: climate maps, economic, physical, political, road, or topographical maps. Isherwood’s partner provides the frontispiece map for The Condor and the Cows: an inkling of their half-year journey beginning in Curaçao, to Cartagena, to Medellin, to Bogotá, to Quito and Guayaquil, to Trujillo and Lima, to Machu Picchu and Cuzco, to Lake Titicaca, to Arequipa, and finally Buenos Aires (not on the map). Isherwood details every morsel of food they eat, every visit they make with friends who live in various cities, the new friends he and Caskey make along the way, every drop of liquor, details of minor illnesses borne on such a long expedition, clothing natives wear, commentary on local and national and continental politics. Little is out of his focus, and he and the publisher include twenty-four pages of Caskey’s photographs. I admire the author's due diligence in writing down enough of the bones of his trip to amount to 217 pages of interesting, sometimes titillating, reading that, year by year, may become more so because it also has become a bit of history.
A few nuggets derived from Isherwood and Caskey’s voyage:
“The meaning of the title should be evident, but perhaps I had better explain that the Condor is the emblem of the Andes and their mountain republics, while the Cows represent the great cattle-bearing plains, and, more specifically, Argentina—no offense intended” (3).
It is an interesting concept, recording all your impressions from a trip: your conveyances, whether they be ships by which you travel five days from one continent to another, or whether they be the relatively new airplane, which can soar above mountains and shorten days-long trips to a few hours. You record the food you eat. The pillows upon which you lay your head. Trains traveling through a dust storm on the Argentine plain, yielding a gritty experience from one end of your sleeping car to the other. Chauffeurs driving ninety miles per hour across that plain because the road is smooth and there is relatively little traffic and because the matron in charge shows no reason to be concerned.
North American schools seem to teach little about geography anymore, the different types of maps that one can study in advance of a trip, during, and after: climate maps, economic, physical, political, road, or topographical maps. Isherwood’s partner provides the frontispiece map for The Condor and the Cows: an inkling of their half-year journey beginning in Curaçao, to Cartagena, to Medellin, to Bogotá, to Quito and Guayaquil, to Trujillo and Lima, to Machu Picchu and Cuzco, to Lake Titicaca, to Arequipa, and finally Buenos Aires (not on the map). Isherwood details every morsel of food they eat, every visit they make with friends who live in various cities, the new friends he and Caskey make along the way, every drop of liquor, details of minor illnesses borne on such a long expedition, clothing natives wear, commentary on local and national and continental politics. Little is out of his focus, and he and the publisher include twenty-four pages of Caskey’s photographs. I admire the author's due diligence in writing down enough of the bones of his trip to amount to 217 pages of interesting, sometimes titillating, reading that, year by year, may become more so because it also has become a bit of history.
A few nuggets derived from Isherwood and Caskey’s voyage:
“We stopped at El Banco just after dark . . . [o]n the narrow gangplank the two streams of human beings collided, surged and mingled; a yelling mob of white-cotton clothes and dark bodies—yellow, red, velvet black and plum purple, with an occasional, strangely arresting blond head. Above the confusion the ship’s band played its lively clattering music, and through the open doors of the church on the hill there was a glimpse of a priest at the altar, a remote quiet candle-lit figure, saying vespers” (34-5). A lovely description despite Isherwood’s slightly racist point of view.
We witness that POV here again as he describes Guambian Indians: “The men have short glossy black hair, shocked up into an untidy tuft, and lively impudent black eyes. Some look strikingly Mongolian. Their mouths are a bit apelike. They smile readily and don’t in the least mind if you examine their ornaments or their clothes” (67). Isherwood’s descriptions are not as insulting as perhaps his patronizing and paternalistic tone. Perhaps we can forgive him if, for no other reason, we remember he is a product of the imperialistic British Empire, born in 1904.
When caught in a certain badlands between Ecuador and Columbia, a town called Pasto, the author remarks: “We were put down at the Hotel Granada, a shabby wooden building with inside balconies around a central dining room. The bedrooms are like stables. Windowless, with great barn-doors closed by padlocks. The combined shower and toilet—the only one on the ground floor—is unfit for pigs. While we were eating a tepid greasy supper, in strolled the mail-car driver with his girl. On seeing us, he smiled without surprise but didn’t offer a word of explanation or excuse [earlier they’ve had an altercation]. We neither washed nor shaved, brushed our teeth in bottled mineral water, and went sadly and shiveringly to bed at eight-thirty” (75).
Here the author compensates for his grumpy-tourist temperament with the following account:
“And at this very moment, like a miracle, the rail-bus appeared. We waved our arms frantically, hardly daring to hope that it would stop. It did stop. We scrambled thankfully on board.
That is the irony of travel. You spend your boyhood dreaming of a magic, impossibly distant day when you will cross the Equator, when your eyes will behold Quito. And then, in the slow prosaic process of life, that day undramatically dawns—and finds you sleepy, hungry and dull. The Equator is just another valley; you aren’t sure which and you don’t much care. Quito is just another railroad station, with fuss about baggage and taxis and tips. And the only comforting reality, amidst all this picturesque noisy strangeness, is to find a clean pension run by Czech refugees and sit down in a cozy Central European parlor to a lunch of well-cooked Wiener Schnitzel” (80).
Isherwood now echoes his title with this anecdote: “Mr. Cooper used also to keep a boa-constrictor and two condors. But the boa had to be gotten rid of; it was always trying to get at the other animals, or escaping and terrifying the neighbors. The condors flew away, which is a great pity; perched on the roof, they must have given the house the air of a Charles Addams drawing in the New Yorker.
“He describes how a party of his friends were riding along a narrow trail in the high mountains when they saw three condors and fired at them. The condors disappeared—to get help, apparently—for they returned a few minutes later with twenty-five others, and all of them swooped down upon the pack-train. In the confusion, two horses fell over the precipice; their riders jumped clear just in time. Condors will peck the eyes out of cows and then drive them with their wings off the edge of a cliff; the cows get killed and the condors eat them” (125).
Very subtly Isherwood tells what he believes has happened to the indigenous Indians when attacked by the Conquistadors long ago. “These people, like the Chinese peasants [referring to another trip, made in 1938 with W. H. Auden, detailed in Journey to a War], have an uncanny air of belonging to their landscape—of being, in the profoundest sense, its inhabitants. It would hardly surprise you to see them emerging from or disappearing into the bowels of the earth” (143).
It is not beneath Isherwood’s dignity to criticize others: “Cuzco is right on the trans-Andean tourist trail. This hotel is full of tourists. The majority are North American—middle-aged women schoolteachers, mostly. Grimly devout, complaining but undaunted, they make their way over the mountains from Lima to Buenos Aires—gasping in the high altitudes, vomiting and terrified in planes, rattled like dice in buses, dragged out of bed before dawn to race along precipice roads, poisoned with strange foods, tricked by shopkeepers, appalled by toilets” (145). This is an interesting comment, especially in light of the fact that he seems to echoing some of his own prissy complaints listed above.
In Buenos Aires, Isherwood makes arrangements to stay with an acquaintance from his Berlin days of the 1930s: Berthold. The author tells a long story, which I will not cite in full, in which Berthold tells of visiting New York City and running into someone he had known previously, someone whom he’d buried in Africa, thinking the man was dead! What a second-hand tale this makes. (186-8).
“Argentina, like the United States, has practically liquidated its Indian problem. And much the same manner” (193). In the same breath that he is criticizing the US for wholesale liquidation, Isherwood is betraying his own racist bent with the words “Indian problem,” as if the subjects are unwanted vermin that must be disposed of. It is perhaps a warning to all of us in this era: our words of judgment could, in future years, wind up similarly betraying us.
Nonetheless, even sixty-eight years after its publication, Isherwood’s prose seems fresh, if only because he is able to write down crisp first impressions of lands he has wanted to visit since he was a child, and yet temper his prose with the studied hand of a professional author.
August 31, 2020
Había leído fragmentos de su versión del Bhagavad Gita. Había escuchado en su voz algunos Upanisad. Pero nunca había leído nada de Christopher Isherwood.
“El cóndor y las vacas” es el resultado del viaje que este escritor (1904-1986; autor también de “Adiós a Berlín”) hizo por varios países de Suramérica en un viaje de seis meses que comenzó en septiembre de 1947.
Este mes de agosto del confinamiento viajé por Suramérica a través de las 286 páginas de “El cóndor y las vacas”.
Al final del viaje, Isherwood responde a la pregunta ¿Cómo describir América del Sur?: “Tal vez la mejor manera de hacerlo sea mediante contrastes...con los contrastes más fuertes que pueda encontrar...”
Isherwood se convirtió al hinduismo. No sé cuando. En 1948 en Argentina visitó la Misión de Ramakrishna y escribió “Para mi fue como volver a casa... Cuando terminó la meditación y nos sentamos a comer mi actitud persistió a pesar de estar rodeado de personas que hablaban en español. No había necesidad de ninguna amabilidad fingida, ni de sonrisas corteses. Todos nos sentíamos en casa y nos alegraba estar juntos”.
“El cóndor y las vacas” es el resultado del viaje que este escritor (1904-1986; autor también de “Adiós a Berlín”) hizo por varios países de Suramérica en un viaje de seis meses que comenzó en septiembre de 1947.
Este mes de agosto del confinamiento viajé por Suramérica a través de las 286 páginas de “El cóndor y las vacas”.
Al final del viaje, Isherwood responde a la pregunta ¿Cómo describir América del Sur?: “Tal vez la mejor manera de hacerlo sea mediante contrastes...con los contrastes más fuertes que pueda encontrar...”
Isherwood se convirtió al hinduismo. No sé cuando. En 1948 en Argentina visitó la Misión de Ramakrishna y escribió “Para mi fue como volver a casa... Cuando terminó la meditación y nos sentamos a comer mi actitud persistió a pesar de estar rodeado de personas que hablaban en español. No había necesidad de ninguna amabilidad fingida, ni de sonrisas corteses. Todos nos sentíamos en casa y nos alegraba estar juntos”.
December 26, 2020
This is essentially a travelogue diary written by Christopher Isherwood of his travels through some parts of South America in 1947 together with a photographer Bill Caskey. It's the first non-fiction book of Isherwood I have read. I knew nothing about the book when I started reading it, having bought it from a second hand bookshop, after reading and loving Isherwood's novels. I assumed it was another novel. However, I was not disappointed. Not at all. It has that same gentle, subtle style that I love about Isherwood's writing. What amazed me most, was the resonances with Africa - the impact of colonialism on South America which was just recovering when Isherwood was there, with what has transpired in Africa. I found it fascinating and disturbingly similar to the story of Africa, and South Africa.
May 27, 2018
It took me a while to get through this, but I'm not sure if it was the book's fault or mine. Anyway, this is a rather fascinating travelogue about a lot of South America in the 1940s. Isherwood's observations range through interested, bitchy, awed, exhausted, afraid, admiring. Occasionally there are interesting little glimpses into his own life, but, as ever, he remains fairly detached from the really personal; maybe that's why it took me a while to get through. It's said that the photographer with whom he was travelling, Caskey, was also his lover. There's no real hint of that; in fact, at times their relationship seems disinterested at best. But this is an interesting slice of a time and places that he was privileged to witness, and which most of us never will.
February 3, 2022
La primera parte del libro, debo reconocerlo, no fue mucho de mi agrado, pero seguí adelante porque sabía que más adelante Isherwood hablaría de sitios que yo visité, y sabía que eso despertaría mi interés. Lo mejor fue que Isherwood realizó casi el mismo viaje que yo, aunque en sentido contrario; mientras él viajaba hacia el sur hace setenta años, yo, hace seis, hice el mismo viaje hacia el norte. Encontrar, entonces, nombres como Tumbes, Ipiales, Trujillo, Guayaquil, y muchos otros y comparar, de algún modo las dos historias, hizo que el libro fuese particularmente interesante para mí.
February 22, 2023
While much of this is dated, Isherwood's excellent writing provides his observations of his travels around South America. He captures the dullness, the monotony and annoyingness of traveling, but also, the brilliant delightful moments.
May 29, 2025
Isherwood’s travels through post war South America. He paints an unvarnished picture. Achieving the almost unique honour of writing a travelogue where you end up not wanting to visit the countries he describes.
April 18, 2020
Il libro del quale lascerò qualche mia impressione è “Il Condor” di Christopher Isherwood.
È un Isherwood che si presenta in una veste che in parte richiama quella assunta a Berlino negli anni ’30, quella cioè di acuto osservatore, ma con una novità: qui l’autore di “Addio a Berlino” è un viaggiatore, e il suo libro assume le fattezze di un vero e proprio diario di viaggio.
Nel 1947 Isherwood parte, insieme a Bill Caskey, un suo amico fotografo, dalla costa del New Jersey per intraprendere un lungo viaggio dalla durata altrettanto lunga verso il Sud America, toccando il Venezuela, la Colombia, l’Ecuador, il Perù, la Bolivia e l’Argentina. Questo viaggio, che Christopher ci ha permesso di percorrere insieme a lui in “differita”, se così si può dire, in un tempo diverso e stando comodamente seduti sul proprio divano, è stato davvero emozionante, e, finalmente, per nulla “buono”, cioè raccontato con i modi sempre positivi, entusiastici, ovattati, immacolati verso cui può tendere un resoconto di viaggio troppo buono, appunto.
La seconda di copertina chiarisce meglio di quanto possa fare io ciò che è questo libro e ciò che, in ultima analisi, ho esperito leggendolo: “Di giorno in giorno, nelle pagine del suo diario, Christopher Isherwood ci dice con immediatezza molte cose: paesaggi, uomini, costumi, stranezze e la vita dei ricchi o quella misera degli indios…
“Tutto è raccontato col tono della confidenza amichevole, senza una nota più alta del necessario, senza nessun compiacimento. A poco a poco il viaggio di Isherwood, per merito della sua prosa, diventa un «nostro» viaggio.”
Il volume è corredato da alcune fotografie, molto piacevoli.
L’edizione che ho io, ha un’unica pecca: giacché la pubblicazione dell’edizione che possiedo è del 1961, la traduzione risente di un italiano un po’ “vecchio”; a mio avviso, se non fosse stato già fatto, sarebbe opportuno svecchiarla.
In definitiva, lo consiglio: trovo sempre molto avvincente leggere libri di questo tipo, e, sebbene sia datato, trovo altrettanto interessante, se le occasioni lo permettono, osservare quali cose sono diverse da quanto vengono descritte nel libro e quali no.
È un Isherwood che si presenta in una veste che in parte richiama quella assunta a Berlino negli anni ’30, quella cioè di acuto osservatore, ma con una novità: qui l’autore di “Addio a Berlino” è un viaggiatore, e il suo libro assume le fattezze di un vero e proprio diario di viaggio.
Nel 1947 Isherwood parte, insieme a Bill Caskey, un suo amico fotografo, dalla costa del New Jersey per intraprendere un lungo viaggio dalla durata altrettanto lunga verso il Sud America, toccando il Venezuela, la Colombia, l’Ecuador, il Perù, la Bolivia e l’Argentina. Questo viaggio, che Christopher ci ha permesso di percorrere insieme a lui in “differita”, se così si può dire, in un tempo diverso e stando comodamente seduti sul proprio divano, è stato davvero emozionante, e, finalmente, per nulla “buono”, cioè raccontato con i modi sempre positivi, entusiastici, ovattati, immacolati verso cui può tendere un resoconto di viaggio troppo buono, appunto.
La seconda di copertina chiarisce meglio di quanto possa fare io ciò che è questo libro e ciò che, in ultima analisi, ho esperito leggendolo: “Di giorno in giorno, nelle pagine del suo diario, Christopher Isherwood ci dice con immediatezza molte cose: paesaggi, uomini, costumi, stranezze e la vita dei ricchi o quella misera degli indios…
“Tutto è raccontato col tono della confidenza amichevole, senza una nota più alta del necessario, senza nessun compiacimento. A poco a poco il viaggio di Isherwood, per merito della sua prosa, diventa un «nostro» viaggio.”
Il volume è corredato da alcune fotografie, molto piacevoli.
L’edizione che ho io, ha un’unica pecca: giacché la pubblicazione dell’edizione che possiedo è del 1961, la traduzione risente di un italiano un po’ “vecchio”; a mio avviso, se non fosse stato già fatto, sarebbe opportuno svecchiarla.
In definitiva, lo consiglio: trovo sempre molto avvincente leggere libri di questo tipo, e, sebbene sia datato, trovo altrettanto interessante, se le occasioni lo permettono, osservare quali cose sono diverse da quanto vengono descritte nel libro e quali no.
January 4, 2015
Ow, I am overcome now with nostalgia for places and times I have never been, with an intensity that I have not felt for many years. Isherwood has a knack for conveying emotional atmosphere, and in this modified travel diary gives vivid pictures of the places and people he encounters on a journey north to south through South America in 1947-1948.
I am afraid to look up any of the places on his journey on Google to see what they are like nowadays. The South America he travels through is so empty, and filled with such audacious people. There were giants in the earth in those days.
Isherwood doesn't get to La Oroya, where my mother was learning to crawl about the time of his journey, but he is invariably thrown into the company of lots of expatriate Norteamericanos working for resource companies and manages to convey better than any pictures or family stories a sense of what it must have been like for my grandparents to live in Peru.
And there is one story told to the author by Berthold Szczesny, one of his friends from Berlin who has relocated to Buenos Aires, that is well worth the price of the book.
I am afraid to look up any of the places on his journey on Google to see what they are like nowadays. The South America he travels through is so empty, and filled with such audacious people. There were giants in the earth in those days.
Isherwood doesn't get to La Oroya, where my mother was learning to crawl about the time of his journey, but he is invariably thrown into the company of lots of expatriate Norteamericanos working for resource companies and manages to convey better than any pictures or family stories a sense of what it must have been like for my grandparents to live in Peru.
And there is one story told to the author by Berthold Szczesny, one of his friends from Berlin who has relocated to Buenos Aires, that is well worth the price of the book.
April 19, 2017
I found this fascinating - firstly, he visited some places I've been to in Bolivia and Peru (I'm sorry he stayed in La Paz and let his lover / photographer Caskey go to Oruro without him though - would have liked his views. FREEZING was mine). Secondly, he went in the late 1940s, so he visited Peron-era Argentina and his views on the Perons are very interesting.
He meets a lot of central Europeans - it seems a lot fled to South America before / during / just after WW2, some fleeing the Nazis and some fleeing (presumably) because they WERE Nazis. As far as he makes the reader aware, he seems to mix mostly with the former!
Clearly, Caskey took a lot more photos and it's a shame there weren't a few more.
He meets a lot of central Europeans - it seems a lot fled to South America before / during / just after WW2, some fleeing the Nazis and some fleeing (presumably) because they WERE Nazis. As far as he makes the reader aware, he seems to mix mostly with the former!
Clearly, Caskey took a lot more photos and it's a shame there weren't a few more.
September 12, 2014
Great read, if slightly bogged down in places with local politics and literary scenes, though not as dated as I feared it might be. Sherwood's actually pretty funny - too bad he didn't do more travel writing.
August 8, 2015
A forgotten classic.. and one of the best on the region..
August 4, 2016
Cast o' characters:
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Want to read
February 15, 2019[Michael Jacobs's rec on books on Andes]
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