With the lifting of many of the COVID-necessitated travel restrictions in 2022, I’ve been fortunate to resume some of the travel experiences that I’d put on hold. I had quite a concentration of them in the spring, some of which I wrote about earlier.
March–over the spring equinox–was a grand time to visit Belgium. My older daughter and I stayed in Brussels during the same week that emergency high level meetings of NATO and the EU were occurring, but aside from a slightly more visible police presence, you wouldn’t have been aware of any emergency.
As we wandered about the city, we came upon the mural featuring Tintin outside of Moule á Gaufres (Mussels & Waffles), a bookstore with a vast collection of graphic novels and accessories inspired by some favorite characters–the Little Prince, Tintin, Asterix among them. I had never read any of the Tintin stories, so I picked up a couple of English translations that included historical references that led Tintin on his adventures.
To prepare for our trip, we both read A Tall Man in a Low Land: Some Time among the Belgians by Harry Pearson, which is hilarious storytelling about a stranger in a strange land. I prefer reading anecdotes about travel experiences, like this one, or almost anything by Aminatta Forna or Bill Bryson. For a multitude of suggestions and excellent writing, you can’t beat the NY Times Book Review columns, Literary Destinations.
April was a very busy month. I traveled to Newquay, Cornwall, England with travel buddy, Susan, and we walked several kilometers along the Coastal Path. I subsequently listened to some very engaging novels by Martyn Waites as part of my prepping syllabus for Iceland Noir 2022 in November. Having been to Newquay and having seen the settings, the novels were more enlivened because I had experiences in the novels’ real-world settings.
A slightly more permanent travel experience in April was our part-time move to Vermont so that we could help our younger daughter and her husband as they became first-time parents. Over the last 15 years, we’ve visited Vermont several times for long weekends, but this move is more than flying visits as we work to familiarize ourselves more intimately with this place.
Chris Bohjalian presented his most recent novel, The Lioness, at the Fletcher Free Library in Burlington in May. Appearing with him was another Vermont writer, Stephen Kiernan, whose novel The Baker’s Secret was also added to my spring reading. The Lioness is a page-turning thriller set in the mid-60s in Africa with a cast of wealthy Americans seemingly caught in the midst of Cold War antagonism between the US and USSR. The Baker’s Secret is also historical fiction, set in a small village in Normandy in the closing days of WWII. The protagonist is the village baker who manages to bake the exact amount of bread required by the German occupiers, while surreptitiously managing to keep the villagers fed. The devastation of an occupied village is presented with candor and heartbreak, but hope echoes through the characters’ actions.
I wrote in November a bit about Iceland Noir 2022. Of the authors featured this year, I was most taken by Richard Osman whose three book series (a fourth is on its way) is set among elderly residents in a retirement village. The characters are all active, cognitively astute, collaborative; these are not characters who are waiting for God. The other writer I was captivated by is Bernardine Evaristo whose Girl, Woman, Other I could not put down; I was emotionally engaged with each of the characters and her/their struggles and triumphs. I read or listened to at least one of the novels by most of the authors slated to attend Iceland Noir. There are a few, however, whose work is not available in English, but that is a discourse for another day.
As 2022 has come to a close, I’m grateful that I have been able to visit places–physically and metaphorically–near and far in space and time. I look forward, with the other face of Janus, to more of the same in 2023–stacks of books and various opportunities to travel. Happy New Year!
Booked for Travel 