“Undress Me in the Temple of Heaven:” The Mindful Tourist Book Review
We have a beef with Amazon.com. After our fun read of Eat, Pray, Love, we were itching to get ahold of another good travel memoir. We did a little browsing on Amazon which recommended we check out Susan Jane Gilman’s “Undress Me in the Temple of Heaven,” their “Amazon Best of the Month for March 2009.”
(Spoiler Alert after the jump.)
It sounded quite different from Eat, Pray, Love which was a good thing because although we liked Gilbert’s book, we also like a variety. Gilman’s book is described as “a hilarious and harrowing journey, a modern heart of darkness filled with Communist operatives, backpackers, and pancakes.” If only.
The Amazon reader reviews were quite good, many noting that the book starts off slow but ends with a lot of action and adventure. Hmm.
Our first clue that the book wasn’t going to be a favorite was the author’s alert at the beginning that most names had been changed and that many other distinguishing features about Claire, her travel partner, had been modified so that no one, absolutely no one, would be able to discern her friend’s real identity. Red flag – right? Why go to such lengths?
The book is the true story of two recently-graduated-from-college young women in 1986 who go to China with the intent of taking a year to travel around the world. One big problem with the book is that the narrator is an immature, idiotic, self-absorbed git. (Yes, we all are to some extent at age 22 but she goes to new lengths.)
The other major problem with this “travel memoir” is that it turns out not to be much about travel, but instead about unrecognized mental illness.
While in China, Claire becomes more and more psychotic, something that seems fairly obvious to to the reader, but not to her travel companion. The whole story ends up being Susie’s cluelessness and nonaction in respect to her friend’s illness.
Finally, a major crisis occurs and Susie is finally shocked into action. The resultant scrambling to leave China only makes the author look worse and worse. There are a few fleeting sympathetic characters: Sandy, the Canadian nurse who takes charge of the situation, finally; Lisa, the restaurant owner who reconnects with the author 20 years later; and Eckehardt, Susie’s friend who prods her to finally take the illness seriously. Their Chinese guide who they betray and Claire’s boyfriend also turn out to be better than the narrator, admittedly not a difficult feat.
The memoir is not all bad. There are, in fact, a few “socially conscious” moments. At one point, Claire and Susie go to the small but typical apartment of a Chinese family, sharing a meal and talking with their hosts. Through the conversation they share ideas and opinions about their respective countries, doing a fair job of learning and educating at the same time.
Another interesting piece is when Susie talks about all the Westerners they encounter who are traveling around the world, staying in shady places, and acting like they’re having the adventure of their lives:
“We thought that by wearing burlap pajamas, contracting intestinal parasites, and opting to ride in third class with “the people,” we were somehow being less Western and more Asian. It never seemed to occur to us that only privileged Westerners travel to developing countries in the first place, then use them as playgrounds and laboratories for our own enrichment. Only privileged Westerners would consider it a badge of honor to forsake modern amenities for a two-dollar-a-night roach-infested guesthouse. Only privileged Westerners sit around drinking beers at prices the natives can’t afford while sentimentalizing the nation’s lower standard of living and adopting it as a lifestyle… Granted, it was good, even admirable, that we young backpackers at least attempted to break through the barriers of culture and class to experience firsthand how people in Southeast Asia really lived. But we were kidding ourselves in thinking that we were somehow transcending our Western privileges by doing this.”
The worst part about this memoir, in our opinion, is that this is not Susan Gilman’s story to tell. This is a story about a friend’s mental illness and Gilman’s own embarrassing inaction over a period of 6 weeks or more. She even seems to admit as much at the end when she writes about her somewhat lame attempts to find “Claire” and her family:
“Of course I’ve done the requisite Googling. I’ve scanned our alumni directories and newsletters. I’ve looked up phone numbers. But to no avail. And I can’t say I’ve pushed it either. Because I suspect that clearly, Claire would rather not be found.”
Wow – way to go, using Google to search for this person who you shared an experience so scary, amazing, life-changing that you had to write a whole book about it. I suppose Gilman and her editors have never heard of a private detective?
Clearly, we don’t recommend this book. If you feel you must read it yourself, at least pick it up at the library; don’t buy it like we did. Damn you, Amazon!
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