Author: Bernd Stiegler
File Type: epub
Armchair travel may seem like an oxymoron. Doesnt travel require us to leave the house? And yet, anyone who has lost herself for hours in the descriptive pages of a novel or the absorbing images of a film knows the very real feeling of having explored and experienced a different place or time without ever leaving her seat. No passport, no currency, no security screening requiredthe luxury of armchair travel is accessible to us all. In Traveling in Place, Bernd Stiegler celebrates this convenient, magical means of transport in all its many forms. Organized into twenty-one legsor short chaptersTraveling in Place begins with a consideration of Xavier de Maistres 1794 Voyage autour de ma chambre, an account of the forty-two-day journey around his room Maistre undertook as a way to entertain himself while under house arrest. Stiegler is fascinated by the notion of exploring the familiar as though it were completely new and strange. He engages writers as diverse as Roussel, Beckett, Perec, Robbe-Grillet, Cortazar, Kierkegaard, and Borges, all of whom show how the everyday can be brilliantly transformed. Like the best guidebooks, Traveling in Place is more interested in the idea of travel as a state of mind than as a physical activity, and Stiegler reflects on the different ways that traveling at home have manifested themselves in the modern era, from literature and film to the virtual possibilities of the Internet, blogs, and contemporary art. Reminiscent of the pictorial meditations of Sebald, but possessed of the intellectual playfulness of Calvino, Traveling in Place offers an entertaining and creative Baedeker to journeying at home. **From Booklist Starred Review Most thoughts of travel involve far-off and exotic destinations beyond the reach of the everyday, the mundane. Within the celebrated milieu of travel narratives falls a great number of classic accounts including those of the fourteenth-century Muslim traveler Ibn Battuta the peripatetic Venetian Marco Polo and the fictional variety such as Vernes Around the World in Eighty Days. In this esoteric but inspiring work, Stiegler forces us to consider the beauty and uniqueness of our common abodes. Taking Xavier de Maistres A Journey around My Room (1794) as his starting point, Stiegler explores more than 200 years of similar accounts of voyages to the near distance, revealing how, without budging an inch, we can explore the world around us and describe it anew. The locations of Stieglers brief chapters, or legs, range from monastic cells to the artists studio, with authors including Samuel Beckett and Walter Benjamin. Although the reasons for these travelogues range from sickness to boredom, they tell us more about their authors than any other genre. With unmatched uniqueness and stunning insightfulness, Stiegler gives readers of a philosophical bent noteworthy food for thought. --Brian Odom Review Bernd Stiegler introduces us to a history of travelogues, all written by trailblazers who measure the span of their adventures by the number of paces between the fireside armchair and the window casement. Stiegler shows the degree to which the room of the writer has become a microcosm, already stocked with enough exotic detail to place itself at the infinite disposal of our curiosity. The book suggests that no matter how far any wandering sightseer might travel, what really embarks on the trek is our imagination. (Christian Bok, author of Euonia) In this fascinating book, Bernd Stiegler turns modern travel inside out to offer us a history of armchair exploration. From chapter to chapter, he takes us through a rich series of modern travel narratives to convey how intricately the domestic interior and the global expanse have been interwoven. We learn a great deal about the microcosmic operations of travel as a narrative form, and about the odd delights and uncanny estrangementsfor the imaginativeof staying home. (Robin Kelsey, Harvard University) Bernd Stieglers rich snapshots of traveling in place are a long overdue addition to the history of modern travel. Here we see Robinson Crusoe in relief not the lost soul on a far-off tropical island but the intrepid explorers of the close at hand, recounting their arduous journeys through rooms, pockets, purses, desks, and drawers. Traveling in Place is a thought-provoking Wunderkammer of small distances. (Andrew Piper, author of Book Was There Reading in Electronic Times) In this esoteric but inspiring work, Stiegler forces us to consider the beauty and uniqueness of our common abodes. . . . The locations of Stieglers brief chapters or legs range from monastic cells to the artists studio, with authors including Samuel Beckett and Walter Benjamin. Although the reason for these travelogues ranges from sickness to boredom, they tell us more about their authors than any other genre. With unmatched uniqueness and stunning insightfulness, Stiegler gives readers of a philosophical bent noteworthy food for thought. (Booklist) An informative and entertaining volume that introduces the reader to a new genre of travel literature. Recommended. (Choice)