Henry Russell - Around the World in 80 Novels: A global journey inspired by writers from every continent

AROUND THE WORLD IN

NOVELS

AROUND THE WORLD IN

NOVELS

A global journey inspired by writers from every continent

HENRY RUSSELL

Published in 2019 by CICO Books

An imprint of Ryland Peters & Small Ltd

2021 Jockeys Fields 341 E 116th St

London WC1R 4BW New York, NY 10029

www.rylandpeters.com

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Text CICO Books 2019

Design CICO Books 2019

For picture credits, see .

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.

A CIP catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress and the British Library.

ISBN: 978 1 78249 663 2

E-ISBN: 978-1-78879-329-2

Printed in China

Editor: Alison Wormleighton

Designer: Geoff Borin

Art director: Sally Powell

Production controller: Mai-Ling Collyer

Publishing manager: Penny Craig

Publisher: Cindy Richards

CONTENTS

A first-rate page-turner... Powerfully resonant... Breathtaking... Impossible to recommend too highly... An immense achievement... Absolutely brilliant... Sensuous and thought-provoking... Sensitive, daring, deeply moving... Vivid, moving, and absorbing... Stunning...

These are just some of the puffs on the covers of the novels featured in this book. They were extracted by their publishers from newspaper and magazine reviews in the hope of increasing sales. But what do they tell potential buyers about the actual content? Nothing. So how can people decide what to read?

If you are contemplating a trip, but not yet sure where you want to go, novels may help you make up your mind but which ones? Or if you already know where you want to go, which works of prose fiction will increase your understanding and enjoyment of the intended destination? Around the World in 80 Novels suggests some possible answers to these questions.

The choices have been carefully considered, but author and publisher are under no illusion that the list will meet universal approval. Theres no accounting for taste, and arguments about whats good in the artsperhaps including a certain amount of controversyare no bad things.

At the planning stage we considered doing one book per country, but soon found that unsatisfactory. Therefore some countries have several entries, while many have only a single representative. The United States has nine while Canada and Russia, though much larger, have only two each. Perhaps that seems a bit arbitrary, but we reasoned that the sparsely populated belt that goes most of the way around the Earth between the 49th and 75th parallels has less varietyand indeed is the setting for fewer novelsthan the contiguous 48.

Although deciding what countries to include was a problem, agreeing on which books to omit was an even bigger headache. Many great novels with a strong sense of placeDon Quixote; The Sorrows of Young Werther; War and Peace; Adventures of Huckleberry Finndidnt make the cut, either because theyre too well known already or because any edition with larger than microscopic print will take up too much room in the carry-on baggage. That said, we admit theres some inconsistency hereseveral of the chosen works are bigbut decisions had to be made. We can only hope that you approve.

Some of the featured works describe their settings in minute detail. Patrick Modianos Paris is laid out with satnav-like precision. Daphne du Maurier and Zora Neale Hurston wrote guidebooks to the locations that inspired them (Cornwall and Florida, respectively), and that expertise informs their fiction.

Other choices are short on topography but capture the spirit of their nation. In placing An Artist of the Floating World in a generic setting that might be anywhere in Japan, Kazuo Ishiguro deftly evokes the whole of the country. The French village in Chocolat is a product of Joanne Harriss imagination, but plenty of her readers think that theyve been to itindeed, that theyve stayed there; her novel is in some ways plus franais que la France. Isabel Allende is coy about the setting for The House of the Spiritsshe claims it could be any country in South Americabut its hard to imagine that anyone whod read about or visited Chile would not recognize it in her masterpiece.

Some of the books are set in times gone by, but that doesnt reduce their relevance to the modern visitor. The past is in the present whenever we think about it, and in many places its impossible to prevent it from springing to mind: all over Flanders and northern France, World War 1 is memorialized more than a century after the conflict ended, and the sense of history that pervades the region is captured in Sebastian Faulkss Birdsong. For any visitor to Vietnam seeking historical context, Bao Ninhs The Sorrow of War should be considered essential reading.

Several books in the following pages make the places they describe seem idyllic: for example, Croatia in Ann Bridges Illyrian Spring, and Botswana in Alexander McCall Smiths The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency. More often, however, there is danger abroad, especially in the thrillers, yet fictional evil does nothing to deter bookish visitorsif anything, it attracts them to the place. In making Ystad the setting for his murder mysteries, Henning Mankell turned a small Swedish port into a noted tourist center. Similarly, the critical acclaim accorded Harper Lees To Kill a Mockingbird transformed its setting, a rural Southern US backwater, into the Literary Capital of Alabama.

CITY OF GOD

It is hoped that every book featured here will crank up the readers wanderlust.

Inspired, of course, by Around the World in 80 Days, we take in the countries visited by Phileas FoggFrance, Italy, Egypt, India, China, Japan, the United States, and Irelandas well as England, Foggs start and end point, and dozens of other nations, some of which didnt exist when Jules Vernes novel was published in 1873.

Henry Russell

London, 2019

The author thanks Meredith Jones Russell for her help with Russian matters.

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