Journey Without Maps (1936)

Het boek is een verslag van de jonge dertiger Graham Greene, die met zijn nicht te voet ruim 3 weken door de wildernis van Liberia trekt. Met 12-20 dragers trekken ze door de tropische hitte van dorp naar dorp. Ze slapen tussen de ratten, kakkerlakken, muskieten en ander ongedierte. De dagtochten zijn zwaar. Voor het eten zijn ze afhankelijk wat ze in de dorpen aangeboden krijgen. Dat is geen luxe. Veel van de lokale bewoners hebben nog nooit een blanke gezien. Ze krijgen de maken met de lokale duivels, maar de meesten zijn hen goedgezind. Daarbij helpt de grote hoeveelheid whiskey die ze bij zich hebben. De dragers moeten dat meesjouwen; Graham loopt zelf mee, zijn nicht Barbara wordt gedragen in een soort hangmat. Het verhaal gaat vooral over de relatie die ze opbouwen met de dragers. Eerst vertrouwd hij de meesten niet. Ze liegen, en zijn te lui om te lopen. Gedurende de reis gaat hij ze steeds beter begrijpen, en wordt zijn leiderschap door de dragers ook steeds meer gewaardeerd. De meeste dragers zijn nog nooit verder dan een dagtocht van hun eigen dorp geweest. Voor beide partijen is het geven en nemen. Ze zijn tot elkaar veroordeeld. Op het eind, als Graham Greene zelf ziek en zwak is blijkt het team als vanzelf door te gaan. Tijdens zijn terugreis mijmert Graham Greene over het ‘onbedorven’ leven in de rimboe, met zijn geesten en angsten, maar ook zonder de list en het bedrog van de ‘geciviliseerde’ wereld.

Van zijn nicht Barbara, die nauwelijks in het verhaal voorkomt, is ook een boek over de tocht verschenen: eerst onder de titel "Land benighted", later als "Toto late to turn back". ( )

In 1935 Graham Greene decided to take what spare money he had and walk through the interior of Liberia and Sierra Leone, country as yet unmapped, and which the United States had provacatively labeled "cannibals". Along for the trip was his younger cousin Barbara*, who unfortunately has little presence in the narrative. Her own account, 'Land Benighted' (from the Liberian national anthem), was last republished in 1991 as 'Too Late to Turn Back' and is hard to find at a decent price.

After a brief trip from Liverpool to Freetown, Graham hires a cook and other servants, hammock carriers (most whites could only travel in the climate that way apparently), and porters, and sets off, his only aim to walk to Grand Bassa and avoid the route reccomended by the Liberian government. The book is engaging from the first, but it does take awhile to get truly drawn into the narrative.

Greene is not an imperialist, he denounces the corruption and degradation that Westerners have brought to the native people he sees, but he is guilty of the 'noble savage' conceit, and though he doesn't think Westerners should be there, he doesn't think Africans can govern themselves either, at least not in the way the rest of the world does. He's also a breast man. Really fixates on them. Still, one can tell he has a lot of respect for those "pure" aspects of Africa he encounters away from the corrupting influence of the coast and outside world. His scepticism and curiousity and disgust (few Africans were described without open sores) barely mask outright awe and fear at the world he glimpses.

The way the book is written, Greene's timeline gets a little fuzzy and he admits that his incessant drinking and bouts of illness prevented proper note-taking, so I am not surprised at all by the charges of inaccuracies. The book is still beautifully written and expressed, even if Greene makes the journey and Africa all about himself and his devils (or angels, if you will). I want more than ever to read Barbara's account, a young intelligent woman by herself (Graham almost always was hours ahead of her on the trails) with the men her cousin hired and presumably sober, would have a dramatically different (and possibly more interesting) experience. I'd also like to see the photographs.

*A very interesting piece about Barbara from The Telegraph (UK). ( )

Greene's description of a journey into the interior of Liberia. While there are a lot of assumptions about African culture and people, Greene is a more acute and honest observer of himself than many travelers. In my opinion, that makes this book worth reading as Greene interrogates the "travel adventure" impulse. ( )

Of course it's very dated, but I wanted to see why it's considered a classic of travel writing. Can be summed up as trying to explore his subconscious and childhood fears by going off road in Liberia with the assistance of numerous porters for his huge amount of baggage. His cousin was with him, only occasionally mentioned. Now I want to read her book, but it's out of print. ( )

What triggered Graham Greene and his cousin to march through a forsaken part of Africa? A truly masochistic undertaking of exploring misery and enduring uncomfortable moments just for the kick of writing a book (or two books as his cousin published her account too). Perhaps the lack of interaction may have been usual for the upper middle class then, but Greene and his cousin might nearly have been on separate trips as they rarely perform anything together or speak with one another. Greene actually pioneers a Thomas Friedmanesque approach of only speaking to either chieftains (CEOs) or servants.

The big take-away for me is that we in Europe are blessed with relatively benign crawly creatures whereas Africa is plagued by nasty, aggressive and invasive critters and an adverse climate. I prefer not to live in a country where books will rot away in no time. Greene learned this too and later stayed in beautiful decadent Capri where he was at liberty to enjoy his vices. ( )