Travels with My Aunt in Around the World in 80 Books

Sep 28, 2023 Nina ( picturetalk321 ) rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: europe-uk, z-read-gelesen-2023, author-man, author-white, genre-fiction, a-reviewed, publdate-1960s, theme-ace, theme-olderwoman-man

I have a mixed response. On the one hand: this was a delight to read. Greene has a flowing, lovely prose that skips along, endearingly old-fashioned, self-consciously formal, ironic, with an occasional lyrical turn of phrase, such as: 'holding his umbrella by the ferrule and pointing the crook up like a crozier' (p.100); 'Never presume yours is a better morality.' (p.106, a flash of humaneness); 'There was a scurf of correspondence on the floor among the broken glass, but it consisted mainly of I have a mixed response. On the one hand: this was a delight to read. Greene has a flowing, lovely prose that skips along, endearingly old-fashioned, self-consciously formal, ironic, with an occasional lyrical turn of phrase, such as: 'holding his umbrella by the ferrule and pointing the crook up like a crozier' (p.100); 'Never presume yours is a better morality.' (p.106, a flash of humaneness); 'There was a scurf of correspondence on the floor among the broken glass, but it consisted mainly of circulars.' (p.174); 'Any Catholic knows that a legend which is believed has the same value and effect as the truth." (p.258, this happens to coincide with my own belief system.) The wry humour reminded me a bit of Bernice Rubens.

I very much liked the asexual protagonist ('I have never been greatly interested in women', p.21) with his love of dahlias and Omo, and appreciate the enterprising and energetic and wild aunt who is well into her seventies (always like an older woman or man protagonist) although she does end up rather dependent on a man. The trajectory is a tad predictable: staid and unassuming man learns to live a life of passion and adventure -- and such stories nearly always privilege the adventure and belittle the domestic 'small' lives of the stay-at-homes. The descriptions of 1960s Britain were cringeworthily evocative, and I have yet to find an internet reference to or an older person's memory of what apparently was a London meal delivery service called 'Chicken' (Deliveroo avant la lettre). Also hilarious, little cultural shock details: one tea drinker 'raising a little bag, like a drowned animal, from his cup at the end of a cord. At that distressing sight I felt very far away from England.' (p.69) Hahaha: as a German, I had to get used to the British habit of plonking cord-less teabags into mugs and fishing them out with a teaspoon to dump them into the sink, where they then sit 'like a drowned animal.'

On the other hand: this book has casual racism, fat-shaming, casual Down's syndrome shaming, casual asexuality shaming ('cured many a frigidity', p.64), and ends with the prognosticated marriage of a man in his fifties to a young woman of sixteen (she is fourteen at the time of the book's ending).

Casual racism: there is one Black man in this novel (and kudos for having even one, I guess) who is a disposable lover, behaves like a servant for some of the time and is called not by his own name (reminiscent of enslavers giving names willy-nilly to enslaved people) so this stuck in my craw. Also, the Black man speaks in what I held to be a demeaning non-grammatical English (which was maybe meant to mimic some sort of colonial English argot? but came across as 'dumbed down'.) The titular aunt has 'Black girls in scarlet dresses [that] held green candle sconces' -- and having just seen such objects deconstructed in the excellent 'Black Atlantic' exhibition at the Fitzwilliam Museum (northern-hemisphere autumn 2023) this was an awful detail. On p.77: 'What a pity that the days of slavery are passed, for then I could have pretended that he served some utilitarian purpose.' Oh dear, oh dear. Yes, I can see the aim of irony, humour, wryness, whatever, but it did not sit well with me.

What makes it mixed: there is a sense of self-awareness of what the author calls 'racialism', and it is at least addressed head-on at a few points. The Black man always carries a passport to prove he is not an illegal immigrant so plus ça change.

One could theoretically 'excuse' these attitudes as 'being of their time' but a) I am not a reader of that time so it bothers me (and so, so relieved that I have a wider choice of books available to me now), b) racism and fat-shaming is never great, no matter what the 'time' (and at any rate, I'm sure authors like James Baldwin, Frantz Fanon, Zora Neale Hurston, Malcolm X and countless other anti-racist, anti-colonial activists would not at all agree that the 1960s was an 'okay' time for racism) and c) truly great literature is (and this is my principle and personal belief) in its core large-hearted and humanely-minded (Ursula LeGuin never fell prey to such 'outmoded' attitudes, not in her novels of the 1960s and not later so it is by no means an excuse to say 'oh well, it was acceptable in the sixties').

So yes: worth reading, not boring, but gird your loins for the above.

Additional content warning and spoiler: (view spoiler)
...more

Like · see review

May 08, 2009 Joy rated it liked it · review of another edition

A few chuckles, a few strange unexpected turns, a few very expected turns, a healthy helping of 60s culture, a pleasant little read. As long as you don't mind "getting it" before the main character does, you'll be fine. The theme is living life fully without regrets. Lighthearted and silly as far as Graham Greene goes. ...more

1 like · Like · see review