Are You Experienced? by William Sutcliffe

About the book

Are You Experienced? by William Sutcliffe is a travel novel. It was published by Penguin on 4^th June 1998.

Plot Synopsis

Nineteen year old Dave lives in London and is about to have a gap year before going away to university. He hasn’t ever really wanted to travel though, his plans being to go to a Swiss ski resort instead of doing what his friends are doing. However, when friend James taunts him about his plans, he decides maybe he should get out of Europe and do something more exciting. It helps, of course, that James’s girlfriend Liz also wants to travel so he wouldn’t be on his own.

Liz only wants to go to India though, and refuses to go anywhere else so Dave is pretty much stuck. Even though Dave and Liz hit it off before the trip, by the time they get on the plane, they’re at each other’s throats. Heading to a country he doesn’t want to go to and with a girl who hates him, Dave is about to have one unique experience.

What I thought

This is the last book I had to read for my Travel Writing class at university and I can’t say I was looking forward to it too much. Most of the other reading we had to do was extremely long and boring.

Are You Experienced? begins with Dave and Liz bickering on their flight. You can instantly tell that nothing is right between them and it made me wonder why they were even travelling together in the first place. Before explaining though, Sutcliffe drops the two characters in Delhi, where they are met with beggar children, the ridiculously hot weather and a world they are unaccustomed to.

Dave is quite the outspoken character, not caring what he says to other people or what they think of him. His narrative is funny, yet very truthful at the same time. His first ideas about India are not good; ‘Delhi airport was… it was just taking the piss.’ While the other books read for this class were written many years ago, this one is very current with a young and exciting narrative to match. Although Dave does come across as arrogant, mean and selfish, I didn’t care. He was travelling and wanted to do what he wanted to do. What’s wrong with that?

For roughly the first half of the book, Dave and Liz are stuck with each other and the bickering doesn’t stop. Each of them disagrees with the other and they clearly don’t want to do the same things while in India. Hell, Dave doesn’t even want to be in India. However, he is too scared of being on his own in a strange country so puts up with Liz and whatever she decides to do. While together, they meet an interesting range of people, including J, who because he has been in India for a while thinks he knows everything there is to know.

Sutcliffe makes Dave a very stereotypical teenager of the late ‘90s. He loves his Western lifestyle and is very quick to judge anything new and different. He would much rather be having a two week holiday on a beach somewhere. While in India, Dave doesn’t want to touch anyone because they seem dirty, he doesn’t want to talk with any locals and he doesn’t really care about seeing the ‘real’ India. Really, he just wanted to get into Liz’s pants.

While Are You Experienced? has its own plot, it can also be taken as a sort of travel guide. Kind of. Dave and Liz do see a fair bit of India and go to some well-known places, thanks to their use of the Lonely Planet guide they carry around with them. There are also parts about being ill due to the different kinds of food in India, how to travel, what the buses and trains are like, etc. Are You Experienced? is a really different way to read about taking a gap year and going somewhere you aren’t exactly sure of. It’s also about new experiences and making the most of what you have.

Are You Experienced? showcases what being a backpacker is about. Sutcliffe takes the very worst of experiences for Dave and puts a humorous twist on them. His writing is extremely witty and sharp and I couldn’t put this book down. Considering I wasn’t looking forward to reading it, I ended up loving it completely. My sister has actually applied to go to India for a while so I might give her this book to read beforehand. 

Tracks by Robyn Davidson

About the book

Tracks is a travel writing book by Robyn Davidson. It was published on 9^th January 1998 by Picador and the book is 250 pages long.

Synopsis

In April 1977, a young Australian woman set off from Alice Springs to cross 1,700 miles of desert and bush with four camels and a dog. Most locals who knew of her plan thought her at best imprudent and at worst out of her wilful mind. When Robyn Davidson discovered, as the journey neared its end, that the international press were all clamouring for reports on a new public property known as the Australian 'camel lady', it came as a considerable shock.

Tracks is a compelling personal record - told with candour and humour - of a young woman's dream and the sobering truths, unexpected rewards, joys and ironies she encountered in realizing it. The telling is as remarkable as the tale. Masterly descriptions evoke this ancient, bony, awesome landscape with unusual vividness. And although the enterprise began as a pure gesture of independence - with the launching of a myth as an unlooked-for consequence and a frequent impediment - Robyn Davidson has eloquently satisfied the world's curiosity in a book of immense integrity and interest.

(Taken from Goodreads.com)

What I thought

This is a book that I had to read for university and the first thing from the travel writing genre that I have ever read. I haven’t had the best luck with university books but it seems that my third year is going to be different as I have liked a lot of what I’ve read so far.

The first part of Tracks is spent getting to know Robyn and her desires for this trip. She starts out in a small place called Alice Springs where she learns everything she needs to know before setting out on her journey. It was really refreshing to learn about such a small place in Australia and also how the people there different from those in large cities and towns. This is where Robyn learns how to care for camels, which are one of the largest parts of her trip, and how to look after herself out in the open. The characters that she meets both help and hinder her education.

Not only do you really get to know Robyn and her beliefs but also her camels. I know how strange that might sound but they really have their own personalities and stand out so much from one another. Robyn’s relationships with her camels was one of the best aspects of this book for me. After spending so long learning how to care for a camel, how to treat injuries and how to make them work for her instead of against her, these animals were like main characters to me. Their antics made for some funny reading but there are also some quite tense moments with them at the same time.

When I first started reading this book, I imagined there would be quite a lot of boring parts where nothing much happened. As this adventure was trekking across the desert, I figured that this would take up most of the book. It doesn’t. I was thankful to Robyn for not writing about these long, boring times where all she did really was walk. I know that this was a big part of her trip and she would have crossed a lot of miles doing just this but it doesn’t exactly make for exciting reading. However, there were of course times where some of this is written about but only when something important happened.

Tracks gives a very unique stance on Aboriginals in Australia. Robyn states early on that she really doesn’t know too much about their lifestyle but in Alice Springs, she gets a clear view of how white men see things. It was definitely eye-opening to learn about this different way of life and how so many people were against them. Reading about the way that Aboriginals were treated by white people was actually really shocking. Everyone has the right to live in a way that they see fit and these people were judged and bullied because of their beliefs. Robyn actually spends some time with different tribes along the way and her perceptions of people were changed dramatically after experiencing their way of life.

Tracks was a fantastic book and a great introduction to travel writing. I love travelling myself so to read about other people’s adventures is pretty perfect for me. I can’t wait to see what other books like this I get to read this year and to see if I like them as much as this one.