Travelling Through Literature (But Not to South Africa)

Nearly every book that I read leaves me itching to visit the country in which it's set: Steinbeck makes me want to move to America, Murakami has me desperate to seek out the surreal Tokyo of his mind, and The Tin Drum left me contemplating a weekend break to Gdansk. I find literature to be one of the very best ways (other than actually going somewhere) to get a sense of what a place is like: even if a book isn't fully focused on the place in which it is set, something of the energy of the environment seems to seep into the fabric of the tale, into the actions and thoughts of the characters, in a way that even films often don't achieve. It's brilliant to sit and read and be transported around the globe, getting a native perspective on weird and wonderful locations, and living with characters as their habitats weigh upon their personalities.

However, after reading J.M. Coetzee's Disgrace, South Africa is one place that I could certainly spend the rest of my life avoiding. Disgrace's South Africa sounds like a difficult and troubled place, and certainly not a welcoming one. The people painfully split and unable to live in harmony under the crushing spectre of recent history, the police corrupt or just plain lazy, crime rife and surely ruthlessly targetting somebody like me who likes to wander around without much of a plan, up hills and down dark alleys; I don't think Disgrace is going to be used in South African tourism advertising any time soon. It is an excellent book though, as its Booker Prize and numerous accolades atest, and a very interesting study in character, forcing you to sympathise with a man who seems like nothing more than a prick for the first fifty pages, but then quickly opens up into a complex and convincing character. I just won't be daydreaming about a holiday in the Eastern Cape anytime soon.