Travel to Asia

A Year in the World: Journeys of A Passionate Traveller

Format: Hardcover
Author: Frances Mayes
ReleaseDate: 14 March, 2006
Publisher: Broadway
Rating:

A Year in the World
As a person who loves to travel to other parts of the world, I thoroughly enjoyed this book.

Overdosed on food

I bought the book the day it came out. As with many of the other reviewers, I loved Under the Tuscan Sun and Bella Tuscany and was looking forward to a similar armchair journey with A Year in the World. I'm finished reading it now, months later. As with a few of the other reviewers, I found it very difficult to get through it. The first half was mostly food reviews and discourses. I was hoping for the wit and one sentence capturing of people and places that she used in her previous books. Not much of what she wrote made me want to visit Portugal, Spain, Naples, Fez and Burgundy. I too was a bit appalled by her lack of understanding for her fellow passengers on the Greek cruise. She had a free trip and basically denigrated the experience. Cruises aren't for everyone, but hey, most of us wouldn't turn down a free one and would try and find the best parts of the experience rather than wallowing in the worst.
It wasn't until she hit the British Isles that her obsession with food lessened and she became the writer I loved from Under the Tuscan Sun. I did question some of her reviews of British food. I have rarely eaten anything to rave about in England, Scotland and Ireland. It is good solid food and enjoyable, but not something to send one to lala land over the taste and texture and experience. She also managed to bring the beauty of the gardens that the UK is so famous for to me through her words. That redeemed the poorly presented first half of the book in my eyes!
In the preface she says that she and Ed quit their jobs to write and to explore new possibilities (which includes travel). I do hope future books are a little more rounded. I know that this is more of a memoir than a travelogue in many ways, but it would have been nice to have had a more cohesive picture of the country they were currently visiting rather than constant descriptions of hanging sheep heads and the way to cook them. For me at least, the lyrical beauty of food in her Tuscan books, was just not there for me in this one. Sometimes her descriptions of the places she and Ed were visiting seemed thrown in beside the wonders of their culinary adventures. She obviously feels that understanding the foods and wines/drinks of a place are important to understanding the culture. It just would have been nice if there had been more culture, more people, more descriptions of places than of vegetables and the quest for a perfect espresso.
And all this talk of food makes me wonder why she and Ed aren't at least 300 pounds! I've seen Ms. Mayes at a book fair and she is not overweight and not slender model size--just normal. In reading the first half of the book, I found myself wondering how much weight she must have gained! I truly hope that her future writings will return to prose less obsessed with food!.

A Year in the World
Many of the places I'll never see, but I know how they are thanks to Frances!!! Have bought the book as gifts for several people who love travel as much as I do. This was a vicarious year of trips for me.

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