Destinations by Jan Morris

I picked up this book with mixed expectations. I have enjoyed several of Morris’s other books, especially her writings about Trieste. When I saw that it was a collection of essays she had written for Rolling Stone I became doubtful.

In fact, it is an excellent book. The essays about various cities were written in the 1970s but the language is fresh and a pleasure to read. Some of them are amazingly prescient – she meets Colonel Noriega in Panama, and notes that he seemed to be very ambitious. She comments on how Cairo seemed to be on the edge of some great outburst of feeling.

Very good.

 

Conundrum by Jan Morris

This is a really marvellous and interesting book. It is an autobiographical account of the author’s change from being male to female. She wrote formerly under the name ‘james Morris’ and became a woman as an already established writer and journalist.

She is an immensely civilized writer, as her books about Venice and Trieste attest. But what is so enjoyable about this one is her humanity and the practical, sensible way she addresses questions, whether of the heart, the body or the soul.

It is not a  long book but gives insights only available to someone who has lived, generously and well, as a man and as a woman. When there is a lot of hysterical nonsense talked about transgender people, this is an amusing and thoughtful counterpoint.

There are people everywhere who form a Fourth World, or a diaspora of their own. They are the lordly ones! They come in call colours. They can be Christians or Hindus or Muslims or Jews or pagans or athiests. They can be young or old, men or women, soldiers or pacifists, rich or poor. They may be patriots, but they are never chauvinists. They share with each other, across all nations, common values of humour and understanding. When you are among them you know you will not be mocked or resented, because they will not care about your race, your faith, your sex or your nationality, and they suffer fools if not gladly, at least sympathetically. They laugh easily. They are easily grateful. They are never mean. They are not inhibited by fashion, public opinion or political correctness. They are exiles in their own communities, because they are always in a minority, but they form a mighty nation, if they only knew it.

from Trieste and the Meaning of Nowhere by Jan Morris

Trieste and the Meaning of Nowhere by Jan Morris

This lovely book is the author’s last, and declared as such. It is about Trieste but also about the passing of time, identity and what truly matters. Here is a short excerpt, apposite to our times of rising nationalism:

“There are people everywhere who form a Fourth World, or a diaspora of their own. They are the lordly ones! They come in call colours. They can be Christians or Hindus or Muslims or Jews or pagans or athiests. They can be young or old, men or women, soldiers or pacifists, rich or poor. They may be patriots, but they are never chauvinists. They share with each other, across all nations, common values of humour and understanding. When you are among them you know you will not be mocked or resented, because they will not care about your race, your faith, your sex or your nationality, and they suffer fools if not gladly, at least sympathetically. They laugh easily. They are easily grateful. They are never mean. They are not inhibited by fashion, public opinion or political correctness. They are exiles in their own communities, because they are always in a minority, but they form a mighty nation, if they only knew it. It is the nation of nowhere, and I have come to think that its natural capital is Trieste.”

It is a very elegaic book, calm and thoughtful, and lovely to read.

Venice by Jan Morris

I had been wanting to read this ever since I visited Venice for the first and only time, earlier this year. We went in February and were lucky with the weather, which was sunny and warm (by our standards – we are from Scotland).

It is a richly detailed book but I found it a bit repetitive, reading it as I did like a novel, in one continuous flow. The writing is lovely but stylistically a bit monotone. I don’t mean to sound harsh – I am about to buy two more of Jan Morris’s books – but perhaps it is a book to dip into, rather than one to plough through.

Venice, of course, is just about as full and lively a topic as you can find and Morris does capture the sheer vivacity of the place very well, without becoming too hagiographic. She sees the flaws.

I would have liked to have heard more about Baron Corvo, who sounded like a bit of a card. But he is just one of many historical characters mentioned, reflecting Venice’s unusual history.

Oddly, I bought this book over the internet and received an old-looking volume by James Morris. I didn’t realise, out of pure ignorance, that James Morris was, in fact, Jan Morris before he became a woman. I threw it out, thinking it was some long-forgotten guide book by some nobody. But I was stupid and I wish I had kept it.