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Free Book Friday: Imagine - A Vagabond Story

Posted: 06 Nov 2009 03:13 PM PST

When Grant Lingel finds out in his fifth year of college that he wouldn’t be graduating that winter because of some non-transferable credits, he decides to avoid the prospect of finishing school alone by heading to Mexico instead. It’s with this impetus that the travelogue Imagine - A Vagabond Story begins, which unbeknownst to our 23 year old narrator, will be the driving force behind his travels. He flys to Mexico because his friend lives there. He later travels to Belize and Guatemala because some kids are going. He returns to Mexico City to visit his crush. He decides to skip across the Atlantic to Barcelona to tag along on someone else’s adventure. He seems unable to be alone, defining himself completely by the company he keeps. Without realizing it, Grant has written a story about the great nothing of one’s early 20s– the booze, the casual drug use, the hormone-driven sex, the waiting. If he had written this when he was 10 years older, there would be some humor in the retelling. Instead we get an unflinching view of the searcher– the boy before he finds his cause, the hero without courage, the kid trying everything because he’s too scared not too.

To be clear, this is not a well written book. In fact, there are writing and story telling errors that quickly become distracting to the reader. He overwrites (”it was a rather smooth flight”). He uses hyperbole to describe common images (”It was a turquoise so vivid and so clear, as if not a single toe had ever plunged into the water”.) He is consistently vague in his descriptions (”The scenery was picturesque”). He writes cliches on top of cliches (”The afternoon sun was beating down, and it was again hot as hell.”) There are no well defined characters in this book except Grant, and I don’t really get a sense of what makes him tick. There is no story arc, no opposing force, no character development. I could go on, but that’s not why I wrote this review. It’s an amateur book written by an extremely earnest young writer who obviously put a lot of effort into polishing his prose. Despite all it’s short-comings, this book does have an audience.

Full disclosure: I like to read travel non-fiction that I can relate to and that matches my stage of life. As a married 32-year old, full time traveler expecting my first child, I couldn’t be farther away from where Grant was in 2006. But that’s not to say this isn’t the perfect book for someone else. I have traveled in hostels, and specifically to all of the areas he mentions in his book. While he misses the opportunity to offer keen observations, he does accurately portray a style of travel. In fact, it’s probably the way many kids travel around Central America. Hanging out in hostels, partying every night, vaguely remembering where they’ve been and only exploring between hangovers and benders. It’s a real part of travel and if you want to know what it would be like to just hang out on the gringo trail, this book does a good job at describing it.

I also have to give Grant a lot of credit for his approach to travel. While most people his age would save up or borrow money from Mom and Dad, he did it literally with a one way ticket and $300 in pocket. He got a job working at the resorts. He learned a lot of Spanish. He traveled largely without a plan. And by the second half of the story the writing improves as he gets out of his own way and starts showing more than telling.

Ultimately, I’d recommend this book for the would-be backpacker of a younger mindset. It’s a little slice of voyeurism into the lifestyle without all that bothersome plot and character development.

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Saturday, November 7, 2009