New Travel Book: ‘No-Man’s Lands’
Travel Blog • Frank Bures • 05.13.08 | 9:33 AM ET
Full title: “No-Man’s Lands: One Man’s Odyssey Through The Odyssey” (Hardcover)
Author: Scott Huler
Released: March 11, 2008
Travel genre: Travels with classics
Territory covered: Mediterranean
Promo copy: “When NPR contributor Scott Huler made one more attempt to get through James Joyce’s ‘Ulysses,’ he had no idea it would launch an obsession with the book’s inspiration: the ancient Greek epic ‘The Odyssey’ and the lonely homebound journey of its Everyman hero, Odysseus. ‘No-Man’s Lands’ is Huler’s funny and touching exploration of the life lessons embedded within ‘The Odyssey,’ a legendary tale of wandering and longing that could be read as a veritable guidebook for middle-aged men everywhere.”
Critical verdict: “[E]ach of the 18 stages of Huler’s largely improvised trip brings an illumination, often personal, which the author connects to Homer’s poetry and to the larger meaning of Ulysses’ mythic perambulations, translating an ancient odyssey into a modern quest that is by turns daunting, humorous and instructive. (Chicago Tribune) “Huler ... suffers from the most lethal disease of travel writers—the urge to render the unfamiliar familiar, to masticate the strange and spit it back as pablum.” (Los Angeles Times)