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So it Goes: Travels in the Aran Isles, Xian and Places In Between
From the golden pen of Nicolas Bouvier, author of iconic travel book The Way of the World, comes a collection of travel writings translated here for the first time into English.
In these stories he experiences the Aran isles in mid-winter, glorying outside in the extremities of the wind while he listens, feverish, to local stories which hum like a kettle on the fire. In Xian, he is blown away by the civilised brilliance and understatement of his guide, while in Korea he experiences the unchanging beauty of the Buddhist temple at Haeinsa and is marked forever by his climb of volcanic Halla-San. And the roots of his restless curiosity, his interminable amusment, are traced back to his childhood reading, and to the bitter war he conducted at the age of eight to rid himself of his arch-nemesis, Bertha.
In these stories he experiences the Aran isles in mid-winter, glorying outside in the extremities of the wind while he listens, feverish, to local stories which hum like a kettle on the fire. In Xian, he is blown away by the civilised brilliance and understatement of his guide, while in Korea he experiences the unchanging beauty of the Buddhist temple at Haeinsa and is marked forever by his climb of volcanic Halla-San. And the roots of his restless curiosity, his interminable amusment, are traced back to his childhood reading, and to the bitter war he conducted at the age of eight to rid himself of his arch-nemesis, Bertha.
192 pages, Hardcover
Published October 10, 2019
3 people are currently reading
49 people want to read
About the author
Nicolas Bouvier
102 books110 followersNicolas Bouvier (1929-1998) was a Swiss writer and photographer.
His travels all over the world incited him to recount his experiences and adventures. His work is marked by a commitment to report what he sees and feels, shorn of any pretence of omniscience, leading often to an intimacy bordering on the mystical. His journey from Geneva to Japan was in many ways prescient of the great eastward wave of hippies that occurred in the sixties and seventies - slow, meandering progress in a small, iconic car, carefully guarded idiosyncrasy, a rite of passage. Yet, it differs in that the travelogues this journey inspired contain deep reflections on man's intimate nature, written in a style very much aware and appreciative of the traditions and possibilities of the language he uses. (He wrote mainly in French, though he does mention writing a series of travel articles in English for a local journal during his stay in Ceylon.)
His most famous books are The Way of the World, The Japanese Chronicles, and The Scorpion Fish.
His travels all over the world incited him to recount his experiences and adventures. His work is marked by a commitment to report what he sees and feels, shorn of any pretence of omniscience, leading often to an intimacy bordering on the mystical. His journey from Geneva to Japan was in many ways prescient of the great eastward wave of hippies that occurred in the sixties and seventies - slow, meandering progress in a small, iconic car, carefully guarded idiosyncrasy, a rite of passage. Yet, it differs in that the travelogues this journey inspired contain deep reflections on man's intimate nature, written in a style very much aware and appreciative of the traditions and possibilities of the language he uses. (He wrote mainly in French, though he does mention writing a series of travel articles in English for a local journal during his stay in Ceylon.)
His most famous books are The Way of the World, The Japanese Chronicles, and The Scorpion Fish.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
October 11, 2019
As a reader I started reading Bouvier at the wrong place, I've not read anything by him before and I think you'd enjoy this more having read his other work. This feels like an accompaniment to finish off a wonderful career of travel writing. I still thoroughly enjoyed his writing, that mixture of humour and seriousness is quite unique, I just wish I had done things in the right order. Never mind though as it is an excuse to find his other books, read them and then read this again.
This book contains a collection of journal type entries and essays. First one is about a couple of weeks he spent on the Isle of Aran, suffering from a illness and experiencing some adverse weather conditions. His writing captures the stormy landscape perfectly, how he did that whilst being so feverish is beyond me. Another section is a brief tour around the Scottish borders, my favourite place in the whole wide world, it was fantastic to read about somebody visiting places I know so well, he has also pointed out a few places unknown to me which I'll be visiting on my next trip up there. This has to be my favourite bit of a travel book ever.
There are a few more travel sections which were really interesting, these were the sections that made me wish I knew more of his work. The final piece though is a real gem, an honest insight of his childhood and the battles with the tyrannical nanny, Bertha, who ruled his childhood. Reading about how he fell in love with the world and gained the knowledge to go up against Bertha left a massive grin on my face.
Nicolas Bouvier is one of the great travel writers and this is a must read for any of his fans.
Blog review> https://felcherman.wordpress.com/2019...
This book contains a collection of journal type entries and essays. First one is about a couple of weeks he spent on the Isle of Aran, suffering from a illness and experiencing some adverse weather conditions. His writing captures the stormy landscape perfectly, how he did that whilst being so feverish is beyond me. Another section is a brief tour around the Scottish borders, my favourite place in the whole wide world, it was fantastic to read about somebody visiting places I know so well, he has also pointed out a few places unknown to me which I'll be visiting on my next trip up there. This has to be my favourite bit of a travel book ever.
There are a few more travel sections which were really interesting, these were the sections that made me wish I knew more of his work. The final piece though is a real gem, an honest insight of his childhood and the battles with the tyrannical nanny, Bertha, who ruled his childhood. Reading about how he fell in love with the world and gained the knowledge to go up against Bertha left a massive grin on my face.
Nicolas Bouvier is one of the great travel writers and this is a must read for any of his fans.
Blog review> https://felcherman.wordpress.com/2019...
October 22, 2019
Bouvier has been travelling for a long time, he left Geneva in 1953 to go to Yugoslavia. He had no intention of returning and the story of that journey became a book eight years later. He kept travelling, heading out via India and Sri Lanka to Japan, which in time became another book. This latest book is a collection of shorter pieces and essays of his time spent in other parts of the world. Beginning in the Aran Isles, he then heads to Scotland and Islay. We then join him heading to Xian in China and Korea, and finally to his childhood home in Switzerland.
He is in Aran in the depths of winter walking the headlands and being battered by the winds from the Atlantic, sitting in the pubs being warmed and gently smoked by the peat fires and meeting the locals. He notes the desolation of the landscape, feeling that it is missing a certain something that other places have, but it isn't something that he can quantify or identify.
Arriving in Scotland with sciatica he has no plan of what to do or see is not to be recommended, but it does give him the opportunity to discover things in Edinburgh by chance. Heading out of the capital, he heads east along the coast exploring the ports and to people watch in the pubs. Then onto Melrose via the Lammermuir Hills and finding how the Scots travelled the world taking their engineering skills with them. One rough sea journey later and Bouvier arrives in Port Ellen to discover the delights and drams of the island of Islay.
Leaving the windswept west coast of the British Isles the next essay takes us to the foggy heartland of China, Xian. Her were meet Monsieur X who will be his guide. This man had collected a small library of French books, but the Red Guard had destroyed all bar one of them, the last books, a Larousse was now buried in his garden. They have a good relationship in the brief time that he is in the province, Monsieur X revealing elements of the culture that he really should have been concealing.
The penultimate essay is on Korea. There were once seen as the poor relation compared to China and Japan and suffered at the hands of both countries, however, they were the source of writing, fire and Buddhism for Japan, amongst other things. He headed there in the early 1970s, and it was a place that wasn't on most peoples itineraries of places to visit. However, it never really got over the war that almost triggers another world war and he finds a country that is crumbling and tired. But in amongst the dust and decay, he discovers a culture that is as rich and magnificent as its neighbours. Finally, he is back home in Switzerland, reliving memories from when he was eight years old.
This is the first of Bouvier's books that I have read and I thought that it was really good. He has a gentle way of writing almost poetic at times, his keen eye selecting details, like the sparkle of ice on the sea of the coast of Arun, that turn the prose from a sketch of the moment to something with greater depth. He also lets the experiences of his travels come to him rather than seek them out. I do have a copy of The Way of the World that I must read very soon and must get hold of a copy of the Japanese Chronicles too.
He is in Aran in the depths of winter walking the headlands and being battered by the winds from the Atlantic, sitting in the pubs being warmed and gently smoked by the peat fires and meeting the locals. He notes the desolation of the landscape, feeling that it is missing a certain something that other places have, but it isn't something that he can quantify or identify.
Arriving in Scotland with sciatica he has no plan of what to do or see is not to be recommended, but it does give him the opportunity to discover things in Edinburgh by chance. Heading out of the capital, he heads east along the coast exploring the ports and to people watch in the pubs. Then onto Melrose via the Lammermuir Hills and finding how the Scots travelled the world taking their engineering skills with them. One rough sea journey later and Bouvier arrives in Port Ellen to discover the delights and drams of the island of Islay.
Leaving the windswept west coast of the British Isles the next essay takes us to the foggy heartland of China, Xian. Her were meet Monsieur X who will be his guide. This man had collected a small library of French books, but the Red Guard had destroyed all bar one of them, the last books, a Larousse was now buried in his garden. They have a good relationship in the brief time that he is in the province, Monsieur X revealing elements of the culture that he really should have been concealing.
The penultimate essay is on Korea. There were once seen as the poor relation compared to China and Japan and suffered at the hands of both countries, however, they were the source of writing, fire and Buddhism for Japan, amongst other things. He headed there in the early 1970s, and it was a place that wasn't on most peoples itineraries of places to visit. However, it never really got over the war that almost triggers another world war and he finds a country that is crumbling and tired. But in amongst the dust and decay, he discovers a culture that is as rich and magnificent as its neighbours. Finally, he is back home in Switzerland, reliving memories from when he was eight years old.
This is the first of Bouvier's books that I have read and I thought that it was really good. He has a gentle way of writing almost poetic at times, his keen eye selecting details, like the sparkle of ice on the sea of the coast of Arun, that turn the prose from a sketch of the moment to something with greater depth. He also lets the experiences of his travels come to him rather than seek them out. I do have a copy of The Way of the World that I must read very soon and must get hold of a copy of the Japanese Chronicles too.
September 26, 2019
As a short review. A marvel of a book and a perfect accompaniment to Bouvier's other works.
I'll be writing a full review in Issue 3 of The Pilgrim magazine, out in October 2019.
I'll be writing a full review in Issue 3 of The Pilgrim magazine, out in October 2019.
October 29, 2019
“So it goes” recurs like a refrain throughout this collection of essays, and I found myself wishing it would go on and on.
Nicolas Bouvier is one of those legendary writers whose name circulates among travelers, but few of my North American road friends had ever heard of him. It was European friends who told me about his classic road trip book, The Way of the World.
The twenty-four year old Swiss and his friend, the painter Thierry Vernet, fired up and aging Fiat and set out from Geneva in 1953, bound for the Khyber Pass. The journey was impressive — through Yugoslavia and Turkey, across Iran and Afghanistan, and into Pakistan — but the prose was unforgettable.
Here was a writer of rare curiosity, with a gift for capturing landscapes and people. As Patrick Leigh Fermor wrote in the introduction to that book, Bouvier “catches scenes and atmospheres with a painter’s eye and a poet’s ear.” His tale is told with curiosity, patience, and an impeccable comic sense.
When I think of the broad scope of travel literature, I think The Way of the World is to Europe what On The Road was to America. Each book captured the road trip possibilities of its respective continent, but the two books and the two writers couldn’t be more different. Kerouac captured the mad, rushing, jazz-infused energy of America, while Bouvier brought a gentle but rugged optimism, a subtle eye, and a prose as richly layered as the historical landscape he emerged from. His work should be more widely read among English readers.
Which brings me to this book: So It Goes. I went off on a long digression about Bouvier’s first book because you should really start there. You will be so thoroughly enchanted that you’ll track down all of his works which were translated into English. They are very few.
This new volume from Eland is the first work by Bouvier to be translated and published in English in over twenty-five years. And it is likely to be the last.
The book brings together shorter travel writings from journeys that Bouvier undertook in the 1970’s, 80’s and 90’s: a mid-winter visit to the Aran Isles; a wander around the Lowlands of Scotland, and rugged Islay. Xian, China and South Korea make appearances, too. And the closing essay tells a tale from the author’s childhood in Switzerland.
It’s a wonderful collection, filled with imagery of great subtlety and originality, the sort that had me turning down the corners of pages over and over to mark a passage, or stopping to read a section aloud.
“This morning I left the city like a bed in which I hadn’t really slept,” he writes, as he abandons Edinburgh for Scotland’s misty lowlands.
In another story, he finds himself surrounded by trees, “in a constant state of dendrological intoxication”.
In another, he takes a room in a hotel, where, “the bed was as damp as a layer of mushrooms”.
And in Korea, hikes up a dormant volcano while reflecting on “these little volcanic lakes nestling in a landscape like a felt hat dented by a fist”.
So It Goes is everything you could hope for in a collection by Bouvier — except more Bouvier.
I can only hope that someone will translate his biography, as well as any remaining fragments that dripped from his pen.
As I closed the page on that last story — a tale of the eight-year-old writer’s campaign to overcome his tyrannical arch-nemesis, the Prussian housekeeper, Bertha — I was yanked from the tale with a sense of disappointment, wishing it would go on and on. It felt like he was just getting started.
Nicolas Bouvier is one of those legendary writers whose name circulates among travelers, but few of my North American road friends had ever heard of him. It was European friends who told me about his classic road trip book, The Way of the World.
The twenty-four year old Swiss and his friend, the painter Thierry Vernet, fired up and aging Fiat and set out from Geneva in 1953, bound for the Khyber Pass. The journey was impressive — through Yugoslavia and Turkey, across Iran and Afghanistan, and into Pakistan — but the prose was unforgettable.
Here was a writer of rare curiosity, with a gift for capturing landscapes and people. As Patrick Leigh Fermor wrote in the introduction to that book, Bouvier “catches scenes and atmospheres with a painter’s eye and a poet’s ear.” His tale is told with curiosity, patience, and an impeccable comic sense.
When I think of the broad scope of travel literature, I think The Way of the World is to Europe what On The Road was to America. Each book captured the road trip possibilities of its respective continent, but the two books and the two writers couldn’t be more different. Kerouac captured the mad, rushing, jazz-infused energy of America, while Bouvier brought a gentle but rugged optimism, a subtle eye, and a prose as richly layered as the historical landscape he emerged from. His work should be more widely read among English readers.
Which brings me to this book: So It Goes. I went off on a long digression about Bouvier’s first book because you should really start there. You will be so thoroughly enchanted that you’ll track down all of his works which were translated into English. They are very few.
This new volume from Eland is the first work by Bouvier to be translated and published in English in over twenty-five years. And it is likely to be the last.
The book brings together shorter travel writings from journeys that Bouvier undertook in the 1970’s, 80’s and 90’s: a mid-winter visit to the Aran Isles; a wander around the Lowlands of Scotland, and rugged Islay. Xian, China and South Korea make appearances, too. And the closing essay tells a tale from the author’s childhood in Switzerland.
It’s a wonderful collection, filled with imagery of great subtlety and originality, the sort that had me turning down the corners of pages over and over to mark a passage, or stopping to read a section aloud.
“This morning I left the city like a bed in which I hadn’t really slept,” he writes, as he abandons Edinburgh for Scotland’s misty lowlands.
In another story, he finds himself surrounded by trees, “in a constant state of dendrological intoxication”.
In another, he takes a room in a hotel, where, “the bed was as damp as a layer of mushrooms”.
And in Korea, hikes up a dormant volcano while reflecting on “these little volcanic lakes nestling in a landscape like a felt hat dented by a fist”.
So It Goes is everything you could hope for in a collection by Bouvier — except more Bouvier.
I can only hope that someone will translate his biography, as well as any remaining fragments that dripped from his pen.
As I closed the page on that last story — a tale of the eight-year-old writer’s campaign to overcome his tyrannical arch-nemesis, the Prussian housekeeper, Bertha — I was yanked from the tale with a sense of disappointment, wishing it would go on and on. It felt like he was just getting started.
April 28, 2023
I had read The Scorpion-Fish a while ago (fictionalized account of his time in Sri Lanka), so thought I'd try this travel narrative. Excellent writing for both the European and Asian chapters. Wasn't sure about the placement of the final section on his family background, which I suppose was intended to give an idea of where he came from? I might've put it first. Shout out to the translator as the book read as though it had been written in English!
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October 23, 2020A lovely read, but I think I should have read the longer, earlier works first
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews