Travel Writing and Empire by Steve Clark (review)

Abstract

Caesar to have told me whetherI was rightor wrong, but he is much too evasive to give a clue on thismatterto the reviewer. UNIVERSITY OF HONG KONG JEREMY TAMBLING Travel Writing andEmpire.Ed. by STEVE CLARK. London and New York:Zed Books. I999. viii + 264 pp. $65 (paperbound $22.50; 1I4.95). This collection of fifteenessaysoffersfreshperspectiveson travelwritingin the light of a number of contemporarytheories.Collectivelythey argue conclusivelythat the very notion of an innocent travel narrativeis an impossibilityand that travellers' 'textspromote, confirmand lament the exercise of imperialpower' (p. 3). Drawing on the formativework of EdwardSaid, the contributorsexamine the politics of the gaze and, among other issues,how travelwritersnegotiate culturalboundariesand differences.The materialsdiscussedare as broad as the approaches, ranging from Hackluytupto thepresent.In one oftheliveliestessaysTed Motohashidemonstrates how the concept of cannibalismhad itsrootsin classicalworksbut was developed in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries through an expansion of the term cannibal well beyond any connection with the Caribs to signify the barbarous. In other words, by the time of Swift it had become a marginalizing term used to define Western cultural identity. Similarly, women travellers of the eighteenth century used other cultures' practice of infanticide to help shape new definitions of maternity.These essaysall show in theirdifferentways how travelwritingdescribes a series of encounters which shed as much light on the authors'presuppositionsas on the cultures they set out to describe. These encounters involve a certain ambivalence, a combination of attraction to perceived familiar elements and repulsion from the alien. In their various applications of postcolonial, Freudian, historicist,and other approachesthese contributorsraisethe question as to whether it is possible to produce anything other than a tortuouslyself-consciousaccount of travel now. IndeedJohn Phillips speculates that postcolonial criticismmight itself be unconsciously continuing a form of cultural imperialism. Despite this anxiety, the collection does demonstrate fresh possibilities. In one essay the Nigerian Englishman Gabriel Gdamosi turns an anthropological perspective on Brixton Marketto examine it as a place of exchange and in another David Taylor skilfully argues that Bruce Chatwin adopts a pose of connoisseurshipto avoid sinkinginto colonial moves in his own travelogues. Travel Writing andEmpire is overalla valuable and lively contributionto the continuingrevaluationof travelwriting. UNIVERSITY OF LIVERPOOL DAVID SEED TheFantasy Literature ofEngland.By COLIN MANLOVE. Basingstoke:Macmillan;New York: St Martin's Press. 1999. vi + 222 pp. C45. Alice'sAdventures intheOral-Literary Continuum. By BJORN SUNDMARK. (Lund Studies in English, 97): Lund: Lund University Press. I999. 22I pp. Colin Manlove'sand BjornSundmark'sbookscan be seen asbeing each an example of one of two problems that occur in fields which have only relatively recently become the subjectof academicinterestand thought:in both Fantasyand Children's Literaturecriticismwe find, on the one hand much work stillbeing publishednow that appears unaware of recent thinking and debates on critical issues (Manlove), while, on the other hand, we find critics who enthusiasticallyjoin a pursuit of Caesar to have told me whetherI was rightor wrong, but he is much too evasive to give a clue on thismatterto the reviewer. UNIVERSITY OF HONG KONG JEREMY TAMBLING Travel Writing andEmpire.Ed. by STEVE CLARK. London and New York:Zed Books. I999. viii + 264 pp. $65 (paperbound $22.50; 1I4.95). This collection of fifteenessaysoffersfreshperspectiveson travelwritingin the light of a number of contemporarytheories.Collectivelythey argue conclusivelythat the very notion of an innocent travel narrativeis an impossibilityand that travellers' 'textspromote, confirmand lament the exercise of imperialpower' (p. 3). Drawing on the formativework of EdwardSaid, the contributorsexamine the politics of the gaze and, among other issues,how travelwritersnegotiate culturalboundariesand differences.The materialsdiscussedare as broad as the approaches, ranging from Hackluytupto thepresent.In one oftheliveliestessaysTed Motohashidemonstrates how the concept of cannibalismhad itsrootsin classicalworksbut was developed in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries through an expansion of the term cannibal well beyond any connection with the Caribs to signify the barbarous. In other words, by the time of Swift it had become a marginalizing term used to define Western cultural identity. Similarly, women travellers of the eighteenth century used other cultures' practice of infanticide to help shape new definitions of maternity.These essaysall show in theirdifferentways how travelwritingdescribes a series of encounters which shed as much light on the authors'presuppositionsas on the cultures they set out to describe. These encounters involve a certain ambivalence...