The Greatest Book Title Ever...5 stars. Travel...2 stars.
And the single greatest title for a book ever is.....
I Make Envy On Your Disco by Eric Schnall 3.8 stars
Years ago, my wife told me that I was a born contrarian who disagreed with everything just because I like to argue. I think she’s wrong, of course, but I’ve never found a way to say that without proving her right.
She may have a point though, since I’m the only person I know who doesn’t think travel is broadening. Everyone I’ve ever met says travel makes you a better, more well-rounded human being. But I’ve gotten to do a fair amount of it, and I have to say, I don’t think its helped me with any of that at all.
I’ve gone both to lovely destinations and to places where people lived in a great deal less comfort than I do, but I don’t think physically being in any of those places has changed me. I knew there was beauty and poverty before I left home and seeing it in person didn’t add or subtract from that knowledge. And the Mona Lisa in person looks an awful lot like it does in a book.
That’s not to say that travel can’t be fun. And yes, it’s a privilege. But for the life of me, I can’t figure out what it is that other people find in travel that makes them bigger or better.
On the other hand, I really do like hotel breakfasts. Give me a waffle, a chocolate chip muffin and a croissant to start the day and I’m happy for a full 30 minutes before I pass out.
Obviously, hotel breakfasts aren’t the only thing I like about travel. I’m not a complete idiot. I also like wandering around in a daze and feeling disoriented. I’m not crazy about how jet lag leaves me wide awake at 2am, but I do like being mildly confused all afternoon, finding a cafe in a strange, new town where I can get myself good coffee and something to eat, and then instantly feeling like I’ve figured out an entire city, even if I only think that because I’m too dazed and confused to realize how dazed and confused I actually am.
It’s not broadening, but at my age, feeling spacey and disoriented is as close as I come to a wild night out.
Back when people still cared about who might give them Covid, my wife and I got pretty sick on a trip and had to spend a week quarantined in a hotel room in London. We ordered kid’s pasta and french fries from room service for every meal, and spent all day, every day, watching a British reality TV show about Londoners who wanted to be farmers. I don’t think any of that improved me all that much, but good God, it was glorious.
I Make Envy On Your Disco, which obviously is the greatest titles of any book ever, is mostly about hotel breakfasts and feeling disoriented and not going to the important places you ought to go to when you travel, but watching soap operas in languages you don’t understand at 3am in your room instead. It’s about eating weird food from mini-bars, and connecting to people you may never see again. In other words, it’s about travel the way I want to travel, irresponsibly, with no agenda or hope for self-improvement. And, because it’s set in Berlin, it’s about how we process the past, or at least how we sometimes chose to build over it, knowing it’s there but accepting that all the processing in the world won’t change it.
That last part isn’t something I learned by traveling by the way. I got it just by lying on my own couch at home, reading this book. Which is really the only way to fly.
You ain’t lived until you have done C0Ke while standing on a bathroom stall in Peru w your girlfriend and locals. You can see the movie or read the book but it ain’t the same (ps. I think you are being ironical …or contrarian). Either way tell Mary she should not work and just beat on the drums all day !!
There's no contest. That is, indeed, the best book title ever. That said, I once had a job that took me around the world. I've seen things. If you need me, I'll be Right Here.