Tropical Classical: Essays from Several Directions - Hardcover

Iyer, Pico

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0679454322 ISBN 13: 9780679454328

Publisher: Knopf, 1997

Synopsis

In Tropical Classical the author of Video Nights in Katmandu and The Lady and the Monk visits a holy city in Ethiopia, where hooded worshippers practice a Christianity that has remained unchanged since the Middle Ages. He follows the bewilderingly complex route of Bombay's dabbawallahs, who each day ferry 100,000 different lunches to 100,000 different workers.

Iyer chats with the Dalai Lama and assesses the books of Salman Rushdie and Cormac McCarthy. And he brings his perceptive eye and unflappable wit to bear on the postmodern vogues for literary puffery, sexual gamesmanship, and frequent-flier miles. Glittering with aphorisms, overflowing with insight, and often hilarious, Tropical Classical represents some of Iyer's finest work.
From the Trade Paperback edition.

About this title

Review:

As a respected and beloved journalist and travel writer, Pico Iyer has earned a reputation and a loyal following, and Tropical Classical is a good indication why. This "best of " collection of essays, book reviews, and articles is segmented into chapters entitled "Places," "People," "Books," "Themes," and "Squibs," covering topics as varied as Paddington Bear, the numeral 9, Tibet, and the accumulation of frequent-flyer miles. Iyer is particularly gifted in conveying incongruous and anachronistic events, cleverly sharing his fascination with the bizarre--and often hilarious--cultural hybrids born when worlds collide. By capturing the essence of such oddities, he gently pulls the reader closer to obscure locales, and in the process alters the way we look at familiar surroundings. Similarly, his coverage of other writers brings an appreciation of the subject as much as the art of writing itself.

About the Author:

Pico Iyer has written nonfiction books on globalism, Japan, the Fourteenth Dalai Lama, and forgotten places, and novels on Revolutionary Cuba and Islamic mysticism. He regularly writes about literature for The New York Review of Books; about travel for the Financial Times; and about global culture and the news for Time, The New York Times, and magazines around the world.

About this edition

• Publisher: Knopf
• Publication date: 1997
• ISBN 10: 0679454322
• ISBN 13: 9780679454328
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 314