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COPYRIGHT 2003 Modern Humanities Research Association
One October afternoon in 1979, Jose Saramago crossed from Spain into Portugal at Miranda do Douro and began a six-month car journey that was to take him to all regions and districts of his homeland. The account of this journey appeared in March 1981, but was available only to members of a book-club. (1) Viagem a Portugal is, at some 170,000 words, a lengthy travel narrative which, with its 23 X 30 cm format, triple columns, and 250 colour plates, has the appearance of a coffee-table book. (2) This 1981 edition is 239 pages in length and includes an 'Indice Toponimico' which also contains eight stylized maps showing the author's route. The work is preceded by the following dedication:
A quem me abriu portas e mostrou caminhos, a companheira constante que tantas vezes disse: 'Repara.' --e tambem em lembranca de Almeida Garrett, mestre de viajantes.
The terms 'travel book', 'travel narrative', or 'travel literature' usually conjure up images of foreign travel. However, a good number of travel works, although a clear minority, recount what might be termed domestic journeys. Such narratives normally involve areas or places already familiar to the reader (but which are now subjected to a fresh or more detailed examination), places within the home country that are relatively unknown, or aspects of national society that may surprise or disturb the reader. Michael Kowalewski sees 'journeys within one's own country' as being of two very different kinds: 'Celebrating the local and unfamiliar or--in a long tradition of social exploration--exposing and investigating conditions at home that most would prefer to ignore'. (3)
Records of journeying in one's homeland have a long tradition, to which many writers of novels, drama, or poetry have contributed. In the eighteenth century, for example, Daniel Defoe produced his three-volume Tour through the Whole Island of Great Britain (1724-26), while in the following century Almeida Garrett published Viagens na Minha Terra (1846). From the travel point of view, Garrett's narrative is very restricted in geographical and descriptive scope. It covers the relatively short journey he made (in company) from Lisbon to Santarem and then describes his exploration of the historic town. Around half of the work is taken up with the interpolated tale of Joaninha and Carlos, and there are also frequent digressions on subjects such as Camoes, Dante, Shakespeare, Romantic writers, friars, and cafes. In fact, well into his account, Garrett denies that the task of his narrative is to follow highways or describe buildings and give their dates, and he comments: 'Muito me pesa, leitor amigo, se outra coisa esperavas das minhas Viagens; se te falto, sem o querer, a promessas que julgaste ver nesse titulo, mas que eu nao fiz decerto.' (4) A little later, the author describes his book as 'inclassificavel' (p. 217).
In the twentieth century, two notable, and rather more orthodox, accounts of travels in 'home' countries by leading literary figures have been J. B. Priestley's English Journey (1934) and John Steinbeck's Travels with Charley (1962). Priestley set out to travel around much of England, a good deal of the time by car, in the autumn of 1933, during a period of severe economic depression. Well into his account, the author states the purpose of his journey: 'I am here, in a time of stress, to look at the face of England, however blank or bleak that face may chance to appear, and to report truthfully what I see there. I know there is deep distress in the country.' (5) Priestley's travels took him to many industrial areas and to other places of unemployment and poverty, and at one point he describes his role as that of 'a novelist desperately turned social historian' (p. 198).
A little over a quarter of a century later, on the other side of the Atlantic, the novelist John Steinbeck, winner of the 1962 Nobel Prize for Literature, made his tour of his home country in a small truck on the back of which he had living-quarters built and which, with a nod to Cervantes, he named Rocinante. Steinbeck left Long Island in September 1960 on a journey that would last several months and see him and his travelling companion, a poodle called Charley, visit thirty-four states and cover 10,000 miles of America. In the opening pages of his account, Steinbeck explains his journey by stating that he had travelled much of the world but had lost touch with the United States, something that he regarded as professionally unacceptable:
I discovered that I did not know my own country. I, an American writer, writing about America, was working from memory, and the memory is at best a faulty, warpy reservoir. I had not heard the speech of America, smelled the grass and trees and sewage, seen its hills and water, its color and quality of light. I knew the changes only from books and newspapers. But more than this, I had not felt the country for twenty-five years. In short, I was writing of something I did not know about. (6)
His journey, then, sought 'to rediscover this monster land' (p. 5) and he later calls it an attempt 'to try to learn something of America' (p. 125). In the closing stages of his travels, having already made many observations on modern living, social changes, lifestyles, and the attitudes, strengths, and prejudices of his fellows, the novelist suggests that his aims 'could all be lumped into the single question: "What are Americans like today?"' (p. 215).
Almost two decades after John Steinbeck's journey of 'rediscovery' of his country and its people, Jose Saramago embarked on his trip around Portugal. In the Apresentacao to Viagem a Portugal, Saramago warns the reader that the work should not be regarded as a guidebook, itinerary, or catalogue. Rather it is the story of a traveller and his journey: 'Historia de um viajante no interior da viagem que fez'. He then goes on to suggest the personal and cultural implications of this relationship, and particularly the role of the traveller as mediator and purveyor of the socio-cultural experiences that constituted the journey:
O viajante viajou no seu pais. Isto significa que viajou por dentro de si mesmo, pela cultura que o formou e est[sz] formando, significa que foi, durante muitas semanas, um espelho reflector das imagens exteriores, uma vidraca transparente que luzes e sombras atravessaram, uma placa sensivel que registou, em trensito e processo, as impresses, as vozes, o murmorio infind[sz]vel de um povo. (p. 5)
Subsequently, as he moves through his journey and through his account of the trip, Saramago sheds some additional light on what he set out...
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