Divine Inspiration at The Oriental Hotel in Bangkok
Author: W. Somerset Maugham
The legendary Bangkok humidity sucks the moisture out of my skin and gnarls my hair into a halo of frizz. The heat is victorious. I am seeking refuge in The Oriental Hotel's romantic charm, aided by the past literary greats who have stayed here. The roster reads like a "who's who" of writers looking East for inspiration: W. Somerset Maugham, Robert Conrad, James Michener, Paul Theroux, Noel Coward, Tennessee Williams, Gore Vidal, Norman Mailer, Graham Greene, John le Carre, Barbara Cartland, Alexander Fleming, John Steinbeck, and Thai author Kukrit Pramoj.
Posted on Wed, Jun 17, 2009
Unearthing Heinrich Schliemann in Modern-Day Troy
Author: Heinrich Schliemann
On my thirteenth birthday my parents bequeathed unto me a leather-bound and richly illustrated book, The Collection of Greek Sagas. Since that time in my childhood, I have been fascinated by the story of Helen and the Trojan War, dreaming of escaping to the historical site of Troy, located in Turkey by the sea. Imagine, a woman with a face so beautiful, that 'she launched a thousand ships,' when she was abducted by Paris and taken to Troy.
Posted on Wed, Jun 03, 2009
The Bulgakov Museum in Moscow
Author: Mikhail Bulgakov
Yesterday I met with my best friend. It was her birthday but she didn't want to celebrate it. The only thing she wanted was to gather her close friends, to spend the whole evening together chattering and strolling down Moscow streets. So she did.
Posted on Wed, May 27, 2009
Gallipoli: The Holy War between the Greeks and the Turks
Author: Louis de Bernieres
I began reading Birds Without Wings merely as a follow up to Captain Corelli's Mandolin. Louis de Bernieres' prize winning novel, set on the Greek island of Cephallonia during World War II is still, to my mind, one of the best books of recent years. The way the opening chapters gradually come together and explode into a love story is brilliant, with the characters rather than the location being the focal point. I suppose I half expected Birds Without Wings to be along similar lines but, instead found it was Anatolia, the Gallipoli peninsula and the tragic last years of the Ottoman empire which took centre stage.
Posted on Thu, Apr 30, 2009
Hundertwasser's Earthly Paradise in Downtown Vienna
Author: Friedensreich Hundertwasser
Before me stands an apartment block like no other. Doused in a myriad of hues - purples, pinks, reds, yellows and periwinkle blues - it is like a sunset, caught within a concrete realm. This is Friedensreich Hundertwasser's Hundertwasser House, a low-income housing block in the centre of Vienna. With its undulating floors, rooftop garden and multicoloured walls it is both functional and beautiful; a practical piece of artwork for which the artist sought no payment. Hundertwasser wanted to prevent something 'ugly' from being erected in its place, so instead he designed a building that melded construction with nature, bringing the forest into the city.
Posted on Tue, Mar 24, 2009
Back Home to Duluth, MN: The Short-Lived Residence of Sinclair Lewis
Author: Sinclair Lewis
In 1970, a travel editor at the Los Angeles Times asked me to go to Sauk Centre, Minnesota, Sinclair Lewis's boyhood home and write an article about the town believed to be the model for Gopher Prairie in the novel Main Street. It was first published in 1920 and my piece would tie in with the 50th anniversary of the book's release.
Posted on Tue, Mar 17, 2009
Eudora Welty: A Woman of Southern Charm & Dark Solitude
Author: Eudora Welty
It is the South that Eudora Welty longs for in her writing. I am not a Southern, not accustomed to the effusive hospitality and slower pace of things. So this past summer, I marched into Eudora's house, hoping to gain a new perspective into her Jackson, Mississippi life. As an outsider, I didn't know what to expect, but I did know that I admired, from her simple story "A Worn Path" to her Pulitzer Prize winning novel The Optimist's Daughter.
Posted on Fri, Mar 13, 2009
My Friendship with John Cheever
Author: John Cheever
In a California bookstore recently, I saw a copy of The Short Stories of John Cheever, my all-time favorite collection of short fiction. On the table near it was a book that I wrote called James Dean Died Here. Light years apart in terms of impact and importance, still, seeing the two books near each other gave me a special feeling; a deep connection to a past chapter in my life.
Posted on Tue, Feb 24, 2009
Songs of Blue and Gold: Lawrence Durrell's Island of Corfu
Author: Lawrence Durrell
These lines are from a fictional travel memoir in my novel Songs of Blue and Gold, but this was a real journey I had wanted to make for a long time, and for the same reason as my narrator: I was looking for Lawrence Durrell. It was October, the perfect time to arrive clasping a much-read copy of his Prospero's Cell, a glimpse of Corfu as it once was, overlaid with all the poetic imagination of the writer-traveller as a young man.
Posted on Tue, Feb 17, 2009
Edith Wharton's Art History Lesson in San Vivaldo
Author: Edith Wharton
In a rather remote village in the southern hills of Tuscany is an ancient monastery. There is a church and eighteen separate free-standing chapels. We - four American tourists - drove to San Vivaldo, which is one of the most unique religious sites in Italy. I say, we drove there, but we did not get in. We went unknowingly on a day not open to visitors. It was closed to us. Over a century earlier, in 1894, Edith Wharton arrived at San Vivaldo and not only got in, she revised the artistic history of the place.
Posted on Tue, Feb 10, 2009
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