What books are improved by being read in the country in which they are set?
Posted by dolly on 10 July 2008 - 7:53am.
In Shirley Valentine Pauline Collins ambition is to "drink a glass of wine in the country where the grapes are grown". A fine ambition, I think.
I read "The Magus" by John Fowles whilst on a sailing holiday around the Greek Islands. I'd be deeply involved in the magical Greek world of the book and then pull my nose out of it and look around and find we'd arrived in some small secret bay that was just like the book!! I was not one of the best sailors...
It really added to my enjoyment of the book. I could actually feel, see and smell the things described in the book. Likewise the fantstic story added to my experience of the country itself. It was a great combination.
What other books should be read in situ in the country where they are set?
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Lord of the Rings?
The very brilliant McCarthy's Bar by the sadly departed Pete McCarthy. A highly reccommended companion to any visits to Ireland.
Pete
Pete McCarthy a witty , intelligent bloke and sadly missed .
Black Lagoon
I took one of Michael dibdin's Aurelio Zen detective novels set in Venice to the city. Starting the book late the first night in my quite hotel room I read the first chapter to find a bit where Aurelio arrives at the Venice's train station and sets off down a side street which could have only been the street I was staying in! A lone set of footsteps outside made it come even more alive.
It's not a bad book either.
Music in Space
Similarly, recently I was driving around Northumberland with Rachel Unthank and the Wintersets The Bairns on the CD player. Many of the songs are from the area, the Unthanks are Hexham lasses and are steeped in it's history - it fits so perfectly into the landscape. Lovely.
While staying in New York
in the early nineties, I started and finished Tom Wolfe's "The Bonfire of the Vanities". Tragically I was staying in a cheap hostel rather than the wealthier parts of Manhattan, but it was still a nice feeling.