Misty France

Book: Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert

This book may get you all hot and bothered. But not because of the over-sexed heroine. Even T.V. commercials get more blatant today. No. Flaubert will seduce you with scenery. When I go to France,  Madame Emma Bovary will take me by the hand and lead me through both the stifling middle-class towns and her big city escape to Rouen.

I know that regular readers are familiar with my definition of books that inspire travel.  Sometimes they are biographies, histories, or novels.  So today I am going to propose that Madame Bovary makes a terrific traveler’s book if you long to go to–or just know more about–Normandy.

We covered some of this territory when Jessie Voigts talked about the excellent travel book, A Journey Into Flaubert’s Normandy. If you read that book, you will have a stop-by-stop guide to the places that scholars have deduced must have been used by Flaubert in writing his novel.

As for me, I can only say that my recent re-reading of Madame Bovary left me with a great yearning (something Madame Bovary specialized in–yearning) to see the lovely region that Flaubert describes.

On approaching the city in a coach:

Then on a sudden the town appeared.  Sloping down like an amphitheatre, and drowned in the fog, it widened out beyond the bridges confusedly.  Then the open country spread away with a monotonous movement till it touched in the distance the vague line of the pale sky.  Seen thus from above, the whole landscape looked immovable as a picture; the anchored ships were massed in one corner, the river curved round the foot of the green hills, and the isles, oblique in shape lay on the water like large, motionless, black fishes…The leafless trees on the boulevards made violet thickets in the midst of the houses, and the roofs, all shining with the rain, threw back unequal reflections…

I want TO SEE THAT!! NOW!!

Flaubert, like all writers, agonized over finding the right words. One of his characters, trying to say the right words to the passionate Emma,  speaks the writer’s woe

...no one can every give the exact measure of his needs, nor of his conceptions, nor of his sorrows; and since human speech is like a cracked tin kettle, on which we hammer out tunes to make bears dance when we long to move the stars.

It is a book well worth reading, if you love language and the writer’s art, or if you love traveling and would like to meet Flaubert’s Normandy. At the time he published it, critics were shocked at his portrayal of s-e-x. They missed the descriptions of the land and people–an aphrodisiac to the traveler.

Okay, tell the truth–have you ever been turned on by a travel book?

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Great Big Literary  Giveaway Prize for This Weekend: Decoding the Lost Symbol by Simon Cox, which goes through The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown puzzle by puzzle and solves them all.  See my interview with Simon Cox here. Mention the book in the comments on any post or tweet the proper message (see rules here) to win this weekend drawing, which will close at midnight on Sunday, Jan. 17.

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©2012 A Traveler's Library. All Rights Reserved.

And the winners are...

I am stealing borrowing this idea from Kathryn and Daniel at Two Go Rtw. (See how honest I am). Just made a couple of small changes, but I want to express my gratitude to all the people who are helping this blog grow.

I want to  share with you the Best of November at A Traveler’s Library.  That includes the five posts that drew the most traffic, the readers who left more than five comments during the month, and the sites that referred readers most frequently.

Most Popular Posts

1. Not surprisingly, people are looking for gift suggestions and I tried to oblige with: 10 Perfect Gifts for Travelers Who Read

Great-Grandfather's resting place

2. I thought I was going to write about books, but also wrote about family in : Veteran’s Day

3. A guest post by the owner of a B & B who promotes literature and indie booksellers wrote: Travel to A Cape Cod Town in This Novel

4. I had fun interviewing the author of the book that unravels :The Lost Symbol

5. And one of my favorites–a guest author finds a surprise in Boston for my France on Friday series: Travel Book Author Finds France in Boston

Readers Who Comment (lots)

Letter Writing

Six lovely and astute readers who come back often and contributed to our conversations 5 or more times:

Kerry Dexter. Don’t know how she does it, but she commented eleven times, and if I created an award for most helpful comments, Kerry would win that, too.

Jessie Voigts. Month in and month out, this busy lady drops by and says “Hi” and comments on a post. Ten times in November!

Brett, Jennifer , Stephanie, and Alexandra also came by at least five times each and contributed greatly to the conversation.

Thanks to all who leave comments, and bloggers, don’t forget that Comment Luv puts a little teaser from your latest blog after your comment, to draw traffic back to you. Want to see Your name in lights next month? Never too late to start commenting.

Those Who Sent Traffic Our Way

In case you have ever wondered about the usefulness of blog rolls, read on…

The Whole World

Where I’ve Been, the Blog that goes with the traveler participation web site, Where I’ve Been. You are invited to make a map of your travels and share your stories.

Passports With Purpose, the exciting project that is building a school in Cambodia. (not to late to win fabulous prizes–click on their link).

My Itchy Travel Feet, the travel blog with gorgeous photos aimed at boomers with soft adventure in mind.

Lonely Planet, as a member of the Blog Sherpa program, my blog appears on the Lonely Planet web site.

Wasabimon, the charming cooking blog that stresses gluten-free recipes without losing any of the taste and allure.

So there you have it. The people who make this blog keep on going-and going-and going. In November, the month of Thanksgiving, I find I have a lot to be thankful for.

This content is a post from: A Traveler's Library To comment on this post or search for related information, click on the link to A Traveler's Library. We'll leave a light on for you.

©2012 A Traveler's Library. All Rights Reserved.

Book: Decoding the Lost Symbol by Simon Cox

Simon Cox, a native of Britain who lives in California, took time away from his research of alternate history and organizing his vast collection of CDs to talk to us about his new book,Decoding the Lost Symbol which demystifies Dan Brown’s The Lost Symbol.

As everyone in the universe probably knows by now, Brown specializes in complex puzzles and codes based on real life organizations, rituals, works of art and architecture. Brown’s work has been seen by some as  travel literature as well as thriller. That leads to criticism for inaccuracy by as many people as those who follow his hero, Robert Langdon’s travels around Rome, Florence, and now Washington D.C.

In a sense, Simon Cox stalks Dan Brown. Since Angels & Demons, Cox has quickly followed each Dan Brown book with a book that explains the facts behind the thriller. Here are excerpts from our conversation.

Me: I was expecting more debunking. You are actually rather easy on Brown.

Simon Cox: I actually admire the way Brown has brought some subjects into the public eye. He got so much hammering for The DaVinci Code. We have to remember they are novels.

Me: And since they are fiction, why do we need factual explanations?

SC: I think so many things in the Lost Symbol people are going to wonder about, they are going to be confused, they are not going to know what it’s all about, they are not going to understand what the deeper elements are, that’s why I thought there was room there for a guidebook if you like.

Me: In Decoding the Lost Symbol, you explain that it would be impossible to immediately get from Freedom Square to the Metro Stop that Robert Langdon takes and that there is quite a distance from the stop nearest the National Cathedral to the Cathedral itself. (Both actions are key to the action of The Lost Symbol.) Any other general cautions for tourists who take the book as travel literature?

SC: You shouldn’t use this book as a guide for Washington D.C. Because if you do, you are going to have a very strange trip. (He gives the example that although the amazing piece of art, Melancholia, by Albecht Durer is in the National Gallery of Art, and seems to contain an important clue for his work, Langdon looks it up on the computer. Cox says, following the book is always caveat emptor.)

Me: Because you has researched alternate history all over the world, do you personally travel a great deal?

SC: Research for me has always been an excuse for travel.  I did a book on Atlantis because it gave me an excuse to travel to the Mediterranean and other places.

Me: Do you have time for reading other than the voluminous research you do?

SC: As far as fiction, Dan Brown is about it. When it comes to travel, I have a huge collection of travel journals, especially the older ones. I have a wonderful Baedecker from 1896, of Egypt. I still use it as a guide to see some of the places that are off the beaten track.

I find modern guide books a bit stale. There is not much personal comment in those books. I am a huge fan of Wilfred Thesiger, and especially his books about travels in the Middle East. The Arabian Sands… Southern gulf of Oman and Yemen, which I visited. ..I enjoy visiting that region because it is almost like a blank canvas, because there has been so little research and archaeology in some of these places.

Me: I have to ask, have you ever met Dan Brown?

SC: I have not met Dan Brown, or his wife, who does the major research for his books. (Other than before he came famous, when they corresponded because Cox was doing a magazine feature in a magazine he edited) And I don’t have any idea what he thinks about my books. But I’ll tell you what, I like to meet him and buy him a pint at my local pub and thank him very very much for paying my mortgage.

Besides his web site and somewhat neglected blog, you can keep up with Simon Cox at Twitter (@FindSimonCox)

My thanks to Simon &  Schuster imprint Touchstone for a review copy of this book. Washington Monument photo by Zach Stern. It is well worth clicking on the photograph to explore more of his pictures at flickr. And look at his names. He calls this one mournument.

See more about Dan Brown’s books : The Lost Symbol, Angels and Demons

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©2012 A Traveler's Library. All Rights Reserved.

Book: The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown

This note is a perfect example of why I prefer to call my articles here “discussions” rather than “reviews.”  I have not read Dan Brown‘s newest book, yet.  However, when I heard that the Smithsonian site was listing free museum day around the country tomorrow, here, September 26, I just had to point you toward Dan Brown’s, The Lost Symbol .

So tomorrow go to a museum near you for free, and then when you can, go to Washington D.C. to see the sites there.

You see, Dan Brown  hung out a lot in Washington D.C. museums in the writing of this book. And Washington D.C. tourism office wants to help you tour the sites in the book.  Just go to the D.C. tourism website. You’ll get a tour to find all the Lost Symbol(s) , including those hidden at the Capitol Building, Washington Monument, Mt. Vernon, Botanic Garden, and OF COURSE–The Spy Museum, and other sites.

Related Posts: Many people used Dan Brown’s previous books as guides to sites in Rome and I talked about the movie Angels and Demons here. For another thriller guide to Washington D.C., I recommended a series by David Baldacci. Doesn’t anybody set romances in D.C. ? I’m sure there are plenty of historic novels, not to mention comedies.

If you like this post, please pass it on by clicking on the buttons below or giving it a Tweet, but remember, the Free Museum Day is one day only, September 26, 2009. But the Washington D.C. sites will be waiting for you any time.

This content is a post from: A Traveler's Library To comment on this post or search for related information, click on the link to A Traveler's Library. We'll leave a light on for you.

©2012 A Traveler's Library. All Rights Reserved.