WE in the West are still chasing blue horizons鈥攚hatever spells the
remote and the exotic. But Shangri-la often turns out to be an ecodisaster and,
with 23 million refugees worldwide, the locals may not even be at home. It鈥檚 a
volatile, guilt-inducing world, and Western nomads have to be up to it. Luckily,
some are, and their books take us to frontiers on the maps and of the mind.
It鈥檚 a tragic irony that true nomads are settling down just as millions of
amateurs take to the roads. In 1978 Robyn Davidson, famous for trekking with
camels across Australia, encountered camel-driving pastoralists in northern
India and burned to travel with them. Fourteen years later, her wish was
granted.
Desert Places (Penguin, 拢7.99, ISBN 014015762X), Davidson鈥檚 portrait of
the Rabari of Kutch, is a study of an inimitable culture in decline. Irrigated
farms turned salt wastelands, the shift from camels to sheep, which need richer
pasturage鈥攁ll conspire to rob India and us of these singular people,
living antidotes to creeping global homogeneity.
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Davidson鈥檚 observant eye sees fractals in the Rabari鈥檚 migratory patterns and
hope for us all in their enlightened sense of community. But she romanticises
nothing. The trek鈥檚 horrors compel her to face her own desert places鈥攁
loathing of India, even all humanity.
Horrors and declining cultures on the grand scale figure in Sven Lindqvist鈥檚
brilliant `Exterminate All the Brutes鈥� (Granta, 拢8.99, ISBN
1862070172). Like Davidson, Lindqvist is on a dual journey, travelling through
the Sahara with a laptop while he trawls through a chapter of appalling
depravity鈥擡urope鈥檚 colonisation of Africa.
Conrad鈥檚 Heart of Darkness, based on the atrocities of the Belgian
Congo, sets Lindqvist off on a nightmare tour of whip-wielding bullyboys, racist
鈥渟cience鈥� from the likes of Georges Cuvier鈥攆ounder of comparative
palaeontology鈥攁nd the hijacking of Darwin鈥檚 Descent of Man as the
鈥渟urvival of the fittest鈥�. Add Europe鈥檚 economic imperative, and you have
genocide as policy, and the birth of Nazism.
Lindqvist鈥檚 insight into the psychology of violence stems, he says, from
childhood beatings. Jenny Diski deals with her mangled childhood by casting a
cold eye on it in Skating to Antarctica (Granta, 拢14.99, ISBN
1862070164). In a multilayered trip through time and space, Diski sets a
travelogue of her Antarctic cruise against memories of her young self at the
mercy of suicidal parents.
But soggy confessional isn鈥檛 her style. Early on she tells us she was a
precision skater from toddlerhood, a genuine ice queen. Hence the fascination
with Antarctica鈥攖he world鈥檚 biggest ice rink鈥攁nd smooth getaways.
Diski avoided her mother, in fact, for 30 years, explaining her state of mind
with a Schr枚dingeresque metaphor she calls the 鈥渕other box鈥�. Moving, crisp
and wildly funny, this is a fine book by someone who has, in any case, already
been to hell and back.
Light years away from the minimalist Diski sprawls One River (Simon
& Schuster, 拢20, ISBN 0684817004), Wade Davis鈥檚 swashbuckling epic of
ethnobotany in Amazonia. Its star is the legendary botanist Richard Schultes,
the tale of whose pioneering forays into remotest Colombia complements Davis鈥檚
more recent search for wild coca.
Concerned, like Davidson, with disappearing cultures, Davis pays homage to
formidable Indian naturalists and healers. But Schultes towers over all, his
discoveries ranging from blight-resistant rubber trees to magic mushrooms.
Honorary father of psychedelia? No: 鈥渞ecreational use鈥� didn鈥檛 produce the
visions recounted in this book. It鈥檚 serious stuff鈥攕cience at the
borderlands of consciousness.
A forward-looking lot, these travellers, yet the great European explorers
haunt them. Diski can hardly avoid Shackleton, for instance, while the great
botanist Richard Spruce was sure to crop up in One River.