Vanishing Worlds

Some years ago I was given a copy of Pico Iyer's book of travel essays Video Night in Kathmandu. First published in 1988, the year of my arrival in this Far Place, it was quite a fashionable read at the time and I'd already read a couple of the essays when it was given to me. I vaguely recall dipping into the different pieces based on the level of interest I had at the time with regard to the various locations involved, but at this distance in time I don't recall reading the work cover to cover, in sequence.

So it occurred to me that I might as well rectify that omission and see what I make of Iyer's work now we're well into the twenty-first century. And having now read (or, rather, re-read) the first piece on Bali I find myself quite startled by just how dated the writing seems. What was in its small way quite cutting-edge just four decades ago strikes me now as being positively old-fashioned in an almost humorous way. I find it quite a stretch to try and remember just how deeply fashionable Johnny Rambo was in his day and it seems extraordinary that the slightly ridiculous Sly Stallone was seen as something of an idol in the real meaning of the word in these parts.

In fact I realise that the Bali I remember visiting, in the 1990s, was already considerably more developed than the island visited by Iyer in the middle 80s. He laments the loss of an enchantment he experienced in his initial encounters with the place; I think back to my own enchantment with a world that, according to the writer, had already lost its magic.

I suspect our sense of enchantment with special places comes from within and that any world can be magical and is always fallen.