A Trance After Breakfast

June 1, 2009
Novelist, essayist, editor and NPR mainstay Cheuse (To Catch the Lightning, Listening to the Page) compiles a highly literate travelogue from material previously published in Gourmet, the Antioch Review and elsewhere. In "Reading the Archipelago," Cheuse's survey of Indonesia-centric literature is so compelling it will make readers want to pick up some Conrad and Melville. The clever "Thirty-five Passages Over Water" covers notable journeys, the parts that come before or after the destination, moving backward in time. "CODA: Two Oceans" evokes the Jersey native's Atlantic/Pacific memories. The title piece recounts Bali's atmosphere of spirituality, but isn't as strong as his reporting from the U.S.-Mexico border at San Ysidro: "the great crossing point, nexus of cultures, nexus of countries, nexus of vision, nexus of borderlands between first world and third"; he's just as piercing regarding the psychology of those who make the trip across. Though it starts slow, three Mexico narratives prove splendid enough to forgive; Cheuse's eclectic journeys shine a spotlight on one of the greatest rewards of travel, "to know... something quite valuable that had never occurred to us before."