other writers, part 1.

I haven't just been sitting like a bum all summer, eating Tim Tams and not writing about Papua New Guinea. I have been reading, quite a bit actually. Mostly light things: Harry Potter, Bridget Jones's Diary, a complete history of Sesame Street. But when I'm not reading candy, I'm reading travel essays, as per my Richters.

It's daunting, to be sure. One of the books titled The Best American Travel Writing (a big claim, no?) is a hodgepodge of different essays from all over the world: Africa, China, Bankok; even my dear friend Papua New Guinea plays a surprise appearance. I'm not sure what I should be learning from reading these essays. They're all so very different. Their common denominator is that they're well-written and well-researched. Each has those two vital components of story and facts, being informative about a culture while hiding it within plot. Some are better are hiding than others; the first essay, about chocolate, I find too dry, too journalistic, and too long, less creative nonfiction than just pure nonfiction. On the other extreme, you have David Sedaris's essay about traveling through the air with a sobbing seatmate; little research there, but a whole lot of personal experience. Most fall somewhere in between.

There's also the Thomas Swick essay disparaging other types of writers and elevating travel writers. He makes some good points, but I bristle a bit at his stereotypes, especially concerning memoirists. According to him, I'm probably a memoirist who has "appropriated place as nothing more than a scenic backdrop to the more important story of [myself]." But I haven't written anything yet; how would he know?

I wasn't expecting PNG to show up in the book. I opened the book randomly, as I tend to do, and read a sentence: "Two others chew betel nut, their mouths a bright, frothy red." Papua New Guinea! Of course, James Campbell's essay was about hiking across the island, following the trail of some WWII American troops. Most PNG essays concern some sort of wilderness expedition. No thanks, I say. Though it may be an interesting frame for my lack-of-hiking-through-PNG-wilderness essay...

Speaking of wilderness expedition, I found another book about PNG during my Powell's search. Titled Beyond Fear, it's about two guys who kayaked all the way down through PNG. I've only read the first chapter, and it is not well-written. I'll try, but it'll be hard to stand 200 pages of overabundant exclamation marks, poor dialogue, and unnecessary repetition. Self-published, too, which should have bene an indicator. It's times like this I hope I'm a better writer, that I'm not cluttering up the bookshelves of this world with meaningless dribble.