I guess most people have a favourite book. Mine is a bit of an unusual choice, although I was gladdened to see that it was also the first choice of Anthony Burgess (he of A Clockwork Orange) in his review of books “99 novels.”
Huxley is more famous for his dystopia, ‘Brave New World.’ His last book, ‘Island,’ was a kind of answer to that – an attempt at a Utopia, though true to form … well, I mustn’t give away the ending.
Island isn’t so much a novel as a vision for a sane society incorporating many of his ideas about family, nutrition, health care, education and the use of psychedelic drugs. I first read this as a teenager – I can even remember which bookshop I bought it from. I still have the same copy – somewhat battered from over 40 years ago. It still gets read.
So, why I am I talking about an old novel here? (It was first published in 1963 the year Huxley died.)
Well I sometimes wonder, with all that is going on at the moment, whether part of my dream of travelling the world is a search for Pala, the island of the book. Am I looking for a place where people are sane and sensible instead of what I currently see in the world around us?
I didn’t share my original travel plans with this blog and maybe that gap needs filling, but basically the journey is a trip around the world incorporating all the continents except Antarctica and by going overland as much as practically possible. Above all it is about doing it slowly – so the trip, even with only staying in countries for a few months at a time, is likely to take me 10-12 years.
The link to my original plan is here!
Since the Coronavirus lockdown I have been having a rethink. I have had to stay for 6 months in the UK and that has given me time to ruminate about the book and its meaning. It has also taken up time when I could have been travelling!
Pala is fictional and there is no one country that has the same qualities. Are there any countries that do have some of the facets that Pala has and are they worth visiting on the basis that I might be able to learn something from being there?
Pala is a country of pacifists and doesn’t have a functioning army – thus the money used to prop up the military is used to bring about a better standard of living for its residents. The only country in the world that has taken that path is Costa Rica, which got rid of its army in 1948. Whilst smashing a hole into the national military headquarters as a symbol of the country’s new direction, the head of government at the time, José Figueres, has said “I took a sledgehammer to the wall atop the Bellavista Barracks, symbolizing the elimination of the remnants of the Military Spirit of Costa Rica of another era, and I delivered these installations to become a Museum of Anthropology that to this day is radiating culture.”
There are other smaller countries without armies but this is for more pragmatic reasons – usually that they are too small to support one – as far as I am aware Costa Rica is the only country to do so because they believe the pacifist way is best.
Other positive features of Pala are more difficult to quantify. Which is the happiest country in the world and how is that measured? Similarly – equality or quality of life. There are various polls that aim to try and measure this. These usually show the result that the most developed and richest countries in the world, (often in Scandinavian) are the most equal and happiest on the planet.
This causes me a couple of problems. Firstly, the original route did not take in the “north” of Europe and Asia – so that Scandinavia and Japan were going to be missed out – possibly for another, Northern trip. Secondly, most of the countries in the “best of” list are western, “well to do” countries with a high standard of living and I wanted to get a flavour of the world at large – not just countries that were similar to the UK.
Another big and personal issue is the fact that my health is not good. I have written elsewhere about my battles with diverticular disease and I have also recently been diagnosed with IBS (Irritable Bowel Syndrome.) Stress and changing eating habits have both had an impact on these conditions and so travel is perhaps not the best thing to be doing. However, I am encouraged by blogs from other people with IBS who are coping and I don’t want to let things stop me from moving towards my goal. This is one of the reasons why I have been taking things slowly and only moving away from home in a gradual manner – in order to get used to new ways of eating and drinking.
If I was to follow my Pala ideal, I might be jumping on a plane now and flying straight to Costa Rica – but my sensible head tells me that I still need to take things gently and to travel slowly. Hence my plan to go to Spain and Portugal before taking (what is to me a big leap!) the journey out of Europe to Morocco and possibly Algeria and Tunisia.
Of course, it is relatively easy to look up countries that have high scores in polls for things such as happiness and equality. Less easy to find out if particular regions do well in such things. Where is the happiest or the most equal place in the UK for example?
Well … the BBC said last year that the happiest place (in a poll conducted by an estate agency) was Hexham in Northumberland. Really? I know it is over 20 years ago since I visited, but whilst there I witnessed a major brawl in a cinema and had to hide behind a cardboard cut-out of a Star Wars character! Nowhere in Scotland makes the top 10 happiest places – whilst the only one in Wales, Llandridrod Wells – is lovely, but also rather small!
Barnsley in South Yorkshire (a town I know well) is said to be Britain’s most equal city – but I guess that is because the people there are all equally poor – it is certainly not one of the richest places in the UK.
Which raises the question of whether it is better to be poor in a country where everyone is poor. Ukraine might be the Barnsley of the world on this criteria – another country that I was not planning to visit.
I am also reminded of the fact that some of my students from the website I teach on are looking to leave their countries of origin in search of some of these things.
I recently talked to a young Brazilian who was querying why so many of the teachers he met from the UK were not living there. I explained that it was often about cost of living and the fact that people were taking the opportunity to travel and earn money teaching English, but he made the point that many of them said they would never go back because of politics. This may be a case of western privilege that I, with my EU and UK passports, CAN travel the world (when there is no virus about!). It is a LOT more difficult for some.
At the time of writing I am still leaning towards my original plan, with maybe a few diversions en route, (Sardinia comes to mind.)
Perhaps looking for a Utopia is a bit like searching for unicorns – it is the sort of thing where I am likely to be perpetually disappointed. Pala is a fictional place … I may have to make it up myself.
