on course: spring 2009

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on COURSE

WORDS

Nina Scott, instructor in English

Creating the vicarious pleasure of travel

On the WINGS of WORDSA traveler can journey overseas, across the

country, through rural towns and citystreets, or deep into the cobwebbed delightsof a jam-packed attic. To the skilled and ob-servant travel writer, each of these journeys isa true adventure, a stimulus for the senses,and fodder for related—and often rambling—ruminations.

“Travel writing [not to be confused with thecontent of Fodor’s or Frommer’s!] is a beautiful,enthralling, frequently educational, and oftenpoignant form of literature,” says English in-structor Nina Scott, with emphasis on each ad-jective. In her class, The Literature of TravelWriting, Scott leads her 16 students on a spiritedexploration of the evolution of the genre, fromthe painstaking journal entries of ChristopherColumbus on his 15th-century voyages toDavid Foster Wallace’s hilarious off-the-cufftake on a 20th-century celebrity cruise.

Columbus to Kerouac—and beyond“Students read travel literature across time,beginning with the ancients and explorers,”explains Scott. “We then move into the 18thcentury and the Grand Tour, followed by the19th and early 20th centuries—the great heyday of travel—when trains made lengthyexcursions relatively accessible and safe, andso many great writers included travel essaysamong their works.”

Scott enlivens the Bulfinch Hall classroomwith impassioned quotations and gesticulationsand prods her students to think more deeplyabout their readings, to constantly search forsymbolism, metaphors, and multiple levels ofmeaning.

Near the end of the term the class tackles the“post tourists,” modern writers who, seekinga warts-and-all experience, returned to once-splendid places for a sobering view of the af-fects of traffic and commercialism. Theauthors sampled throughout the course aremany, and their writings vary greatly in style,intellect, and social consciousness.

Finally, students take what Scott calls a “fab-ulous journey across time,” perusing CharlesDarwin’s prescient ruminations about his19th-century Galapagos Islands explo-rations—and the writings of author and poetAnnie Dillard, a visitor to the archipelagomore than 150 years later.

An escape from the familiar“What is the lure of travel?” Scott asks in anearly class. “An escape from the familiar,” “aquest for knowledge,” “a chance to get closer tonature,” and “a search for the exotic” are someof her students’ responses. “Our job as writers,”she summarizes, “is to satisfy those desires.”

In their nightly journal entries, the young PAwriters analyze or mimic the styles of some famous travel writers, such as Marco Polo,Lady Mary Wortley Montague, AlexanderKinglake, Freya Stark, Paul Theroux, V.S.Naipaul, and poets Alfred Lord Tennyson and Walt Whitman. By the end of the coursethey hone what Scott calls their own “honest” travel writing style in a lengthy essayabout the destination of their choice.

It’s not about youThe most common mistake of an aspiringtravel writer, claims Scott, is overuse of theword “I.”

“It’s not about you,” she admonishes. “It’sabout the place. The passion of your descrip-tions, the complexity of your ruminations,and the selection of your anecdotes will di-vulge your character, intellect, background,opinions, and values.”

“Travel writers are superb observers,” Scott re-minds her students. “They not only describewhat an object, scene, or interaction looks like,they reveal how it makes them think and feel.They make the place come alive for the reader.”

Laistrygonians and Cyclops beware“When we are struggling with writer’s block,Mrs. Scott often says, ‘Do not fear the Laistry-gonians and the Cyclops!’ a reference to C.P.Cavafy’s poem, Ithaka, to encourage us tokeep exploring and not worry about failure,”says Curie Kim ’09. “As writers—and in life,I suppose—we are the ones most responsiblefor creating our own obstacles.” Kim, notesScott, is one of her most confident, percep-tive, and fearless student writers.

Excerpts from selected writings by seniors are presented on the following pages. For thefull text of each, please visit the extendedcontent page at www.andover.edu/bulletin.

—Jill Clerkin