| Blog Entry - Monday, August 8th, 2005 | Add / Read (1) |
I've been reading Educating Alice for months, not because I'm not drawn into the story and enjoying it, but because I wanted to savor the book (something I do all to rarely, with my quick inhaling of books). The book is a memoir written by a Pulitzer-prize winning former columnist/journalist who quit her job at a newspaper to travel the world taking classes, meeting people, and discovering herself. Alice takes classes like the cooking class at the Ritz Escoffier in Paris, Japanese arts like dancing and the tea ceremony in Kyoto, Jane Austen in England, and border collie training in Scotland. Through the classes and small tours, Alice learns a lot of interesting things about some interesting topics, but she learns even more about herself and about the people she runs into.
One of the things that's so endearing about Alice and the travelouge is her manner of befriending people whereever she finds herself and listening to their stories. She finds ways to relate to people she meets in Havana, a train in Paris, the Scottish highlands, a geisha house in Japan, and a bookstore in Prague in ways that let you see their lives in a very sympathetic (which I mean not in feeling sorry for them, but feeling like you can feel their situations and lives in a very personal way) manner.
Of course, it made me not only want to follow in her footsteps, but also wonder whether I could travel alone so happily and easily as she has done (clearly her ability to talk to sympathetic interesting strangers is a very important skill) and what types of classes in what parts of the world I would take. She combined place and topic in a very engaging manner.
As for the classes.... I'm compiling a list. It might include poetry in Greece, yoga in Inda, or James Joyce in Dublin... What would be on your class list? I've been trying to think whether I'd choose classes first or places...
Author: Libby
Posted at: 08:09:05 AM
