A victim of false marketing: many goodreads reviewers complain that there's no plot here. They are correct. But since Bail isn't interested in a standard plot, that's not his fault. Nor is it the readers' fault. Anyway.

The introduction in this 'Text Classics' edition describes Bail as a cross between Patrick White and Don Delillo, which is pretty much accurate, except that he's far funnier than Delillo. His strength is set pieces, and he plays to it here: a group travels the world; we see them in hotels and in museums, and that's about it.

I found this wonderful to begin with--the first museum, in an unnamed African country, is essentially dedicated to the detritus of colonialism, and our naive Australian travelers aren't very comfortable with this. Later, in England, we get a museum of corrugated iron. Possibly only Australians will actually understand the humor and pathos here, but trust me, corrugated iron is next to Vegemite in the Australian national identity. So after failing to understand the deep history of colonialism, the travelers get to confront the far gentler version of the Australian colony. In South American they see the museum of the leg, specifically designed to tire and bore attendees, so they become aware of their own legs.

And at this point it becomes clear that Bail is also up to metanarrative tricks: this 'boring' museum comes along just at the point when his readers will be bored with the constantly recurring museum set scenes. Homesickness, from this perspective, demands more of its readers than you might expect. You have to fight through the boredom of the unexpected, and the rewards are great.

After the leg museum the relationships between the characters take on a new strength, which reinforces the book's more intellectualized points. In the U.S. we see a museum of marriage, the strongest section of the book. It brings together the more or less dysfunctional relationships between the characters, or in their history, and the way that 'romance' is used in fiction to the detriment of more interesting or relevant material. Just in case you didn't get it, the chapter ends with our travelers being led to a treehouse, from which they are invited to observe black men raping a white woman--and, quite possibly, encouraged to shoot the men.

Towards the end the book veers into Kafka territory, which isn't particularly interesting, but does point to the ambition and seriousness of the book; an ambition which Bail matches, in a very Australian way, with slapstick (one of the travelers is a blind photographer; he often falls over).

If you've read any of Michel Houllebecq's books about tourism and been even remotely intrigued, Bail's is far better, and brings far more to the table than the Frenchman. If you like Delillo's set scenes, Bail gives you a different take on them. If you like Patrick White's prose, Bail gives it to you with much more good humor. Highly recommended. ( )

I'm interested in people, their relationships, and what makes them work at an emotional level. Unfortunately there's none of that in this bizarre, pretentious and now somewhat dated work. Here's a sample: " ...'Colleague of mine in Sydney,' North was telling them, 'collected railway stations. He claimed to have the finest collection, I think it was, in the Southern Hemisphere." (p.86) What do we make of this? Collected railway stations??? The characters just treat this statement as an ordinary fact. Sorry Mr Bail, I can't do that. I live in the real world. This is clearly meant to be almost absurdist literature, but masquerading as kind-of-believable story. This might be a good book for an Australian Literature 101 course, or for intellectual Glebe book club discussions among trendy book snobs, but for me the time I spent reading the first 100 pages was completely wasted. Why didn't I follow the Nancy Pearl rule and quit much earlier? "Regrets, I've had a few..." This is one of those. ( )

A/S library. Found this book a bit tiresome. Mainly about framing of experience.

send up of an i'll concieved museum in Africa one of the funniest things I've ever read. "Under glass three English toothpaste tubes were at different stages of use: full, half full (thumb-dented tube, white worm protruding), and a fine example of a completely empty one, squeezed dry, corrugated, curled and scratched. Alongside lay a pair of false teeth and arrows pointing back to the toothpaste. The teeth alone were a source of wonder." ( )

13 Australian travellers embark on a tour together. The book covers how they get to know each other as well as the places they visit. A good concept but got so boring at times. Second last chapter written in first person was an interesting, but random change. ( )