"A journey does not need reasons. Before long, it proves to be reason enough in itself. One thinks that one is going to make a journey, yet soon it is the journey that makes or unmakes you " - Nicolas Bouvier
I normally read books in the original language they have been written in (Spanish, French, English and German) and thus rarely read in Portuguese, unless the author happens to obviously be either Portuguese and/or have written in my native Language, but as I came across Nicolas Bouvier's translated version of "L'usage du monde" with sketches by Thierry Vernet, I had no other choice because no bookshop had it written in the original Language - French ( though I can't praise the Portuguese translator José Mário Silva enough because in my humble opinion he did a great job at translating it).
Through Asia Minor travelling eastward and ending up in Afgahnistan this book is a journey in various ways because it goes beyond the simple travel description - it is written in a rather unique and captivating style and it "contains reflections on man's intimate nature". It is certainly one of the best travel books I have ever read.
"Nature renews itself with such vigour ... that man, by comparison, seems to have been born old. Faces harden and alter suddenly, like coins flattened on a railroad track: tanned, scarred, worked on by stubble, smallpox, weariness or anxiety. The most striking, the most handsome, even the boys' faces, look as though an army of boots has trampled over them. You never see, as at home, soft, thoughtful, healthily unformed faces, whose future is yet to be written on them" - Nicolas Bouvier - L'usage du Monde.
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