The Way of the World »

Nicolas Bouvier (1929–1998) was born near Geneva. His father was a librarian, who encouraged his son both to read—among the books Bouvier devoured as a child were those of Stevenson, Jules Verne, Jack London, and Fenimore Cooper—and to travel. Bouvier studied for some years at the University of Geneva, but in 1953 he left without a degree to join his friend Thierry Vernet in the voyage to the Khyber Pass that is described in The Way of the World, published eight years later. Subsequent journeys took Bouvier to Sri Lanka (his experiences there inspired his one novel, The Scorpion Fish), Japan, and the Aran Islands (described in the books Japanese Chronicles and Journey to the Aran Islands and Other Places). Bouvier worked for many years as a photographer and as a picture researcher, spending much of his time hunting down obscure images in various libraries and archives. He was also a founding member, along with Max Frisch and Friedrich Dürrenmatt and others, of Gruppe Olten, an informal organization of Swiss writers on the political left, and the author a slim book of poems, Le Dehors et le dedans (1982).

Thierry Vernet (1927–1993) was born in Grand-Saconnex in the canton of Geneva. He studied painting and stage design with Jean Plojoux and Xavier Fiala, and worked as a stage designer for productions throughout Europe. He was married to the painter Floristella Stephanie.

Robyn Marsack has been director of the Scottish Poetry Library since 2000. She has degrees in English literature from Victoria University (New Zealand) and Oxford, and has worked as an editor for the Carcanet Press. She won the Scott Moncrieff Prize for her translation of Nicolas Bouvier’s Le Poisson-scorpion (The Scorpion Fish).

In 1953, twenty-four-year old Nicolas Bouvier and his artist friend Thierry Vernet set out to make their way overland from their native Geneva to the Khyber Pass. They had a rattletrap Fiat and a little money, but above all they were equipped with the certainty that by hook or by crook they would reach their destination, and that there would be unanticipated adventures, curious companionship, and sudden illumination along the way. The Way of the World, which Bouvier fashioned over the course of many years from his journals, is an entrancing story of adventure, an extraordinary work of art, and a voyage of self-discovery on the order of Robert M. Pirsig’s Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. As Bouvier writes, “You think you are making a trip, but soon it is making—or unmaking—you.”

The Barnes & Noble Review

In Francophone countries, Nicolas Bouvier (1929 98) has the reputation of Bruce Chatwin: stylist extraordinaire and philosopher of travel. In 1953, the 24-year-old Swiss left Geneva in a battered old Fiat Topolino, aiming to go across Asia with an artist friend. We had two years in front of us, and money for four months. The programme was vague; the main thing was just to get going. They made it 47,000 miles -- pushing the car rather than riding for some of them. The Way of the World (1961) is Bouvier s literary-meditative account of the journey. They must often pause -- in Belgrade, Istanbul, Tabriz, Kabul -- to raise funds by waiting tables, performing in bars, selling portraits and murals, giving cultural lectures. When trouble keeps them in Quetta, they fall into the employ of an ex–Welsh Guards colonel running a failing French-style café called the Saki Bar.

Terence, who was very sensitive to happiness, uncorked his last bottle of Orvieto. The cork leapt out, increasing the Saki s liabilities by twenty-three rupees. What did he care? He had passed the point of efficiency, passed the point of being had. On half-pay, trapped in this disintegrating bar, burdened with the whole town s secrets, and with debts and old Mozart records, he traveled further and more freely than we did. Asia attracts those who like to sacrifice their careers to their fate. Once the sacrifice is made, the heart beats more generously, and many things become clearer. While the wine grew warm in our glasses and Terence, still and watchful as a night owl, gazed up at the stars, a couplet by Hafiz came back to me:

"If the mystic still doesn t know the secret of the World, I wonder how the innkeeper came to learn it so well."

What a beautiful zeugma is that "burdened" "with debts and old Mozart records," and an exemplar of Bouvier s attractions. The Way of the World took 30 years to make it into English, and then without the woodcuts done by Bouvier s traveling companion. New York Review Books have not only restored this work to print, but the original illustrations, too. It should be enough. But Bouvier was a fine photographer, and after his death, an archive of pictures from the trip was discovered. The catalog from the 2002 exhibit in Paris is readily available through the Internet, and you ll want it after you read this wonderful book. --Robert Messenger