And the Monkey Learned Nothing
Dispatches from a Life in Transit
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- ¥1,800
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- ¥1,800
発行者による作品情報
Tom Lutz is on a mission to visit every country on earth. And the Monkey Learned Nothing contains reports from fifty of them, most describing personal encounters in rarely visited spots, anecdotes from way off the beaten path. Traveling without an itinerary and without a goal, Lutz explores the Iranian love of poetry, the occupying Chinese army in Tibet, the amputee beggars in Cambodia, the hill tribes on Vietnam’s Chinese border, the sociopathic monkeys of Bali, the dangerous fishermen and conmen of southern India, the salt flats of Uyumi in Peru, and floating hotels in French Guiana, introduces you to an Uzbeki prodigy in the market of Samarkand, an Azeri rental car clerk in Baku, guestworkers in Dubai, a military contractor in Jordan, cucuruchos in Guatemala, a Pentecostal preacher in rural El Salvador, a playboy in Nicaragua, employment agents in Singapore specializing in Tamil workers, prostitutes in Colombia and the Dominican Republic, international bankers in Belarus, a teacher in Havana, border guards in Botswana, tango dancers in Argentina, a cook in Suriname, a juvenile thief in Uruguay, voters in Guyana, doctors in Tanzania and Lesotho, scary poker players in Moscow, reed dancers in Swaziland, young camel herders in Tunisia, Romanian missionaries in Macedonia, and musical groups in Mozambique. With an eye out for both the sublime and the ridiculous, Lutz falls, regularly, into the instant intimacy of the road with random strangers.
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Writing with the belief that "the anecdote is our ticket to the sublime," Lutz (Doing Nothing) shares anecdotes from his travels across the globe, focusing on his encounters with strangers. These brief narratives rarely exceed five pages in length and include a discussion of a pilgrim's method of prostration at the Jokhang Temple in Lhasa, Tibet; an exchange with a student tour guide in Kumbakonam, India; and a story involving church bells and a Belgian accountant in Quito, Ecuador. In the latter, Lutz flatly claims, "There is no story here." Readers might think this is true of many of the anecdotes. Lutz's style has a decidedly literary bent, prioritizing grand imagery and language over context and narrative arc. In his recollection of Botswana, he records a conversation about officially and unofficially entering the country, which closes with an image: "Elegant giraffes stood on one shore. On the other, upstream, elephants." Readers who do not share Lutz's zeal for travel, his embrace of being a total stranger, and his disregard for context may have a hard time following the author's train of thought.
