Taking a year off and take 3 kids to travel around the world. This sounds fascinating. However, only those who did know knows how much drama would arise. As a frequent family traveler with three kids, I can related to many of the descriptions in the book: how the kids fight on the trip, how they love theme parks more than nature, how they learn about locals quickly, how they could get lost...
The author used quite humorous tone, sometimes by applying adjective that describes “human” to “stuff”:
“There, in a space the size of a modern sports arena, we were encompassed by an improbable admixture of stained glass, somber-faced Byzantine mosaics and thirty-foot golden shields inscribed with assertive Islamic calligraphy.”
Another example, “breathtaking” is a fun word to use here:
“Since Tokyo was the most expensive city we’d ever been to, we naturally began to fret. Our fears were well founded, because the prices in Zürich were simply breathtaking. “
Sometimes using irony:
This isn’t to say that Istanbul is perfect. The food, while generally cheap, is also generally awful, and every tourist attraction in the city is plagued by aggressive touts who pester you incessantly with little toys and other assorted crap. I also noted, with some irony, that this is conceivably the worst place on earth to buy a Turkish rug or any other fakable item of value. Plus, it’s impossible to wander the streets of this city without that damned song, “Istanbul (not) Constantinople,” rattling around in your head all day.
==========
This story of expensive but not-usable Zurich food is hilarious:
Happy to have some free food in Zurich, I downed the ravioli and said, “Danke. That was very good.” “Now you buy zome,” she replied. It was more a command than an invitation, and I found her German accent intimidating.
==========
How he uses Lenin to illustrate how expensive Zurich is is funny...
==========
Zurich is a lovely, prosperous city of stately buildings and meticulous streets set on a picturesque Alpine lake. It is surrounded by tidy farms, emerald-green meadows, and snow-capped mountain peaks. The trains run on time. The museums are impressive, and everything else generally seems to function perfectly. If you happen to have excess funds, I’m sure you would enjoy shopping for Fabergé eggs, Montblanc pens, and other fabulously expensive gewgaws in the posh Bahnhofstrasse shops. And you can certainly get a superb meal here for the price of a used car. Still, it’s easy to see why Lenin, while living in Zurich, dedicated his life to toppling the capitalist system. And I have to say that this is the only city in the world where we were cheered to see graffiti. If your family is on any kind of budget whatsoever—or if you prefer vacationing some place that isn’t defined by money and decorum—you might want to give Zurich a pass. Believe me, no one here will miss you.
==========
This seems to be a great place to be:
==========
Devi and I climbed onto the Galata Bridge to get a better view of the old district. We turned in time to see a crescent moon rise above the sixteenth-century Mosque of Süleyman the Magnificent. For one perfect instant, we stood under the stars at the crossroads of Asia and Europe, Islam and Christendom—a place of great deeds, deep intrigues, and grand illusions. If there is a more fascinating, more romantic spot on earth, we’ve yet to find it.
==========
In the end, the author mentioned the “occupational hazard of memoir writing”:
“That was, of course, awkward, and it points out an occupational hazard of memoir writing. Editors and publishers want you to tell all—as humorously or as dramatically as possible.38 But the subjects of your “true story,” are sometimes hurt in the process. As I reread One Year Off in preparation for this ebook edition, I regret some of my “humorous characterizations”—particularly one or two where the subject has since passed away. Fortunately, my children—the likeliest candidates for this sort of mortification at the hands of their father—don’t really mind how they were characterized. They all read One Year Off as teenagers, and they seemed to enjoy the book immensely.”
This is also why I felt it is hard to write non-fiction.
The end of his marriage was sad:
The very last words I wrote in One Year Off, twelve years ago, were: “Of course if you do manage to spend twenty-four hours a day with your spouse for a year and live to tell the tale, then I think you can assume that your marriage is on very solid ground.” I regret to report that I was wrong about that. In 2003—six years after we returned from the journey and almost exactly seventeen years to the day after we married—Devi and I divorced.
I’m glad he’s living happily now and have inspired many families:
Over the last twelve years, more than three hundred families have emailed me (davidelliotcohen@gmail.com), saying that they took—or would soon take—a One Year Off–type trip. And that’s just the folks who bothered to write.
No comments:
Post a Comment