Without Reservations_ The Travels of an Independent Woman - Alice Steinbach [112]
When in Venice, Steinbach imagines herself, if only for a brief moment, to be Katharine Hepburn in the film Summertime. Observing a lounge singer in a Paris café, she asks, “Who did she imagine herself to be? Marlene Dietrich? Edith Piaf? Was that the image that sustained her when she examined the realities of her life?” At what other moments in her travels does Steinbach seem to slip into the safe world of fantasy, and at what moments does she seem to awaken herself to reality? At what times in your own life does fantasy play an important role for you?
Steinbach often views the people and places she visits through the lens of literature. For instance, at the prospect of reuniting with Naohiro in Venice, she compares herself to Penelope awaiting Ulysses’ return from Troy, and often she draws parallels between her own experiences and those of a young Jane Eyre. What other literary figures does Steinbach evoke? Have you ever used the world of literature to better understand your own feelings? How do you think our interactions with literature help to shape our responses to the world around us?
In a postcard to herself referring to her frightening experience in Rome, Steinbach notes that Albert Camus once wrote, “What gives value to travel is fear.” Do you agree with this statement? Why or why not? Steinbach writes, “A little dash of fear gives value to more than just travel. For one thing, it can teach us to be brave.” Do you think traveling alone would instill in you a sense of bravery you might otherwise not have possessed? Some might argue that it is not brave but rather foolish to travel alone. Have you ever subscribed to this line of reasoning? If so, did Steinbach’s book convince you otherwise?
Without Reservations is rich with one woman’s observations, reflections, and personal philosophy. By the end of her travels, Steinbach discovers in herself a woman she thought had been lost in time or worn down by age. Her time alone, time spent encountering both old memories and new ideas, helps her reignite her independent spirit and reawaken her sense of fierce individuality. Did reading Steinbach’s story inspire you in the way that Freya Stark’s memoir inspired her? If you were to take such a journey, where would you go? What would you want to do? What aspects of such a journey appeal to you the most?
SUGGESTED READING
In reading Without Reservations, one constantly feels the presence of an underlying body of literature that serves as a background for Steinbach’s writing. Taking Steinbach’s ever-present curiosity as a cue, one might be interested in seeking out those authors who proved inspirational for her along her journey to self-discovery.
In London, a friend presents Steinbach with The Journey’s Echo, by Freya Stark, the intrepid British wanderer who left her comfortable life in Italy to traverse the Middle East, alone, from Persia to Yemen. Stark’s own chronicles of her travels can be found in her landmark travelogues, The Valleys of the Assassins and The Southern Gates of Arabia: A Journey in the Hadhramaut. Jane Fletcher Geniesse’s critical yet sensitive biography of the remarkable and revolutionary traveler, Passionate Nomad: The Life of Freya Stark, is one of the most recent and insightful biographies of Steinbach’s muse to date.
Steinbach also seems to acknowledge a debt of gratitude and admiration to E. B. White, an author known best for his children’s books, Charlotte’s Web and Stuart Little, and one to whom she owes some element of her craft. In more than fifty years of writing for The New Yorker, White honed his style to one described