May 08, 2004

Miserable writers

Africa is a bleak continent with crazy drivers, miserable roads, ugly cities, bug-infested hotel beds, and this bleakness is the endless source of content for travel writing about Africa. Is there not something else to write about?

Guardian writer Jeevan Vasagar, in this guardian article, thinks, "perhaps the miserable writer should just stay in a five-star hotel now and then, take an air-conditioned bus and give the continent a break."

I grew up in Kenya and never spent much time 'paining' over the faults of the place, but now that I live in London, I find myself looking with much the same eye as these miserable writers - either that or I spend my time over justifying the place.

Posted by Philip at May 8, 2004 12:57 PM
Comments

It's like family, in a way, isn't it?... You love them, but the further you live from them and the more distant you are from their lifestyle, the more annoying or even just plain weird you find them. That said, should anybody else outside the family criticise them, you rush passionately to their defense. "You just don't understand!" "You're taking it out of context!"

Crazy world. Thanks for sharing your view of it.

Posted by: anne at May 10, 2004 06:31 AM

Yes, exactly...well said anne.

Posted by: Philip at May 10, 2004 08:13 AM

Too true, too true.

As an expat Australian I find that ustralians can really annoy me, until someone says something derogatory about them and then I'm the first to jump to their defense.

I think this is called human nature

Posted by: kimbofo at May 11, 2004 09:09 PM