Turister utsätter sig ständigt för Ödets nycker: inställda kommunikationer, oberäkneligt väder och övervärderade sevärdheter. Enklare då att sitta hemma i fåtöljen och fantisera med hjälp av reseböcker och kartor. Humoristiskt och tänkvärt berättar Jenny Diski om varför hon trots allt ger sig iväg utomlands i egenskap av författare och resereporter. Färderna går till en författarkonferens på Nya Zeeland och efterföljande turistresa, till ett par månaders skrivande på engelska landsbygden och en exotisk reportageresa till svenska Lappland. Starkast upplevelse ger vistelsen bland samerna med nattliga snöskoterfärder under en stjärngnistrande himmel och gastronomiska upplevelser av renköttsmåltider. En mardrömslik natt i en vinterkall kåta och en vild färd med en skenande ren hör till de obligatoriska minusposterna. Resminnena åtföljs av författarens skildringar av en svår uppväxt med avskyvärda föräldrar och vistelser i fosterhem. Jenny Diski har varit intagen för mentalvård under långa perioder. Tack vare sitt skrivande och en befriande engelsk självironi lyckas denna motvilliga resenär hålla modet uppe och ge oss andra inspiration i vår livsvandring. ( )

This really is a book about trying to keep still. Jenny Diski wants to spend time thinking, as opposed to talking or doing, and she seeks out opportunities to do this - by travelling to somewhere as far away from home as possible ("On Distance", the first section, is about a two-week trip to New Zealand), by spending time on her own with nothing to do ("On Stillness", about two months in a cottage in Somerset), and finally by going somewhere which she imagines as darkness and silence ("On Darkness", about a trip to Lapland). And yet, her thoughts are dissatisfying - she thinks about how she is experiencing her experiences, or she finds her brain rotating through trivia without ever coming up with anything serious. Or at least, that's the way she tells it.

I was expecting this book to be more like Strangers On A Train, Diski's wonderful un-travel book about taking the train around the USA. But, despite the different settings in this book, most of the travel is around the inside of Diski's head. (That said, she left me with the conflicting feelings that all the best travel books give me - simultaeneously wanting to go to the places they describe, but aware that I have seen them through the author's eyes with much more insight than I would have if I was there on my own).

The first and last sections show us the spiky, cynical Diski that I expected from her other work - albeit with some unexpected mellowing caused by the beauty of her surroundings. The second section is more intriguing. Diski has nothing to do and so her brain spirals through neuroses and memories before reaching more profound territory in the later chapters, with standout musings on the strangeness of suddenly being seen as an old woman ("On Anatomy") and on what she calls "Being Shallow" - a quote from which is here and which I could have carried on typing out for pages, although, like Depressaholic, I'm worried that it would be horribly revealing of me as a person.

I guess that accounts for some of my enjoyment of Jenny Diski - some of her personality traits (only some) are scarily like me, although she describes them much more articulately and less apologetically than I ever could - from her love of staying in on the sofa while other people go out for walks, her inability to cope with cold ("no comfort without a direct source of warmth"), and the pleasure she takes on a holiday in being in transit - "a limbo of movement to get to another place to be still in". But more than that, I've always admired people who are intelligent, outspoken, and not afraid to be abrasive - and she's certainly all those things. This book contains some beautiful writing, about places and about personalities, but it also gives you a chance to spend some good time in her company. ( )

This book's a tough one to categorize - "travel" seems the most comprehensive for me as it's three parts are set in New Zealand, the U. K. (away from Diski's home itself) and Sweden; however, there's plenty of memoir and philosophy-of-life musing, too. The further I got into the Arctic section, the faster I skimmed towards the book's conclusion - then again, Diski admits upfront that she had second thoughts about the trip after it was too late to cancel; the (fixed) pre-arranged itenerary didn't turn out to be what she had in mind, so she did the best she could. ( )