Is travel-writing dead? That's the sort of question that is only marginally less sleep-inducing than: "Is the novel dead?" Of course it isn't, but the old-fashioned travel narrative may well be so, and the sorts of travel book that work these days seem to be the ones that mix it – history, philosophising, autobiography, fiction etc etc. Off to Istanbul shortly (volcanic ash permitting) I have just read the Dutch writer Geert Mak's splendid little book,
The Bridge (2007) based on the daily life of the Galata Bridge over the Golden Horn in Istanbul. It's about far more than the bridge itself which links the old part of Istanbul where I always stay, scruffy as it is, with the newer, westernised Pera ("outside") district. The tussle in contemporary Turkey between modernisation and tradition which has been a feature of the country since at least the era of its modern founder Ataturk, is symbolised to some extent by the bridge.
What makes Mak's book so good is that he has talked to the shabby, poor, sometimes desperate street vendors and fishermen on the bridge as well as providing a brilliant pocket history of modern Turkey in general and Istanbul in particular. These voices are what makes the book and he lets them speak in ways that some of the classic travel writers don't always manage to pull off. It's a short book but an excellent one and makes me want to read his longer book about Europe,
In Europe. Everyone travels now, it is said, and so travel writing doesn't work any more, because we have all been there. It might be true that the old 'traveller's tales' are harder to get away with but there will always be a role for the writer who travels with eyes and ears open and some real historical knowledge. Geert Mak is one of them.
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