Writing the North in the Twenty-First Century: Gavin Francis and Sara Wheeler Through Arctic Europe and Beyond
Authors:
Ludmilla
Kostova
St. Cyril and St. Methodius University of Veliko Tarnovo, Bulgaria
Pages:
55-
66
Abstract:
The article focuses on two books of travel writing, Gavin Francis’s True North. Travels in Arctic Europe (2008,
2010) and Sara Wheeler’s The Magnetic North. Notes from the Arctic Circle (2009, 2011), which represent
journeys around the Arctic and self-consciously reflect upon received perceptions of the “old” continent’s
polar regions and some northern territories beyond the physical-geographical confines of Europe. The narratives
that the two authors present differ in significant ways: while Wheeler adopts a markedly gendered narratorial
stance by representing herself, in her book’s opening chapter, as a parent travelling with her baby son, Francis
assumes the stance of a “bookish wanderer,” following a precedent established by the noted writer, traveller,
polyglot and war hero Patrick Leigh Fermor. Both texts shed light on important aspects of the travel genre in
the present. They problematize colonialist patterns of portraying the places that their narrators visit and the
“characters” whom they encounter in the process, and favour a perspective on travel which is sensitive to
social, political, cultural and ecological issues. Wheeler, in particular, is very much concerned with the plight
of indigenous populations and their struggle for survival and recognition in a changing world. While the
problem of whether a total break with the ideological legacy of travel writing is possible remains unresolved
in the two travel texts under consideration, they nevertheless enhance our knowledge and sense responsibility
for the planet which we all inhabit, thus demonstrating the continued relevance of the travel genre to some of
the key concerns of the present.
Keywords:
Arctic, Europe, America, Asia, travel, travel writing, gender, politics, ethics, ecology.
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