Books

I may be exaggerating in stating that my desire to travel was born because of my love of books. This notion had never actually crossed my mind until I got involved in Charlie’s project of analysing the effect of narrative on travel. By the age of fourteen I had read nearly every book J.R.R Tolkien had written. I wanted to explore Middle Earth. And eventually I did, four years later I spent over a month in New Zealand exploring everywhere from Hobbiton to the peak of Mt Ngaruhoe (commonly known as Mordor)! But what does one normally do before travelling to a destination? Why of course read a travel guide. The Lonely Planet, Rough Guides or any other guide. And I too have done so multiple times. Yet this time I am heading to Concarneau and all I have read is a novel; The Yellow Dog by Georges Simenon. And this is where the beauty of books is revealed. You conceive in your mind an idea, a picture of what you read. From reading the novel I have my own idea of what Concarneau looks like. There are specific areas described in the book which I hope to recognise when out there. Yet there is of course the time displacement to take into consideration, The Yellow Dog was written nearly one hundred years ago. Of course Concarneau will have changed by now, developed. But this is what makes me even more curious. In a way I want to go out there and become inspector Maigret. Look for clues to compare the small coastal town Simenon lived in and wrote about in the 1920’s to the Concarneau of today.