This collection of travel letters by the American writer
Howard Wolf is based on the author's 1990 around- the- world trip that took him to
Singapore, Malaysia, India, Turkey, and Greece. These unset letters make up something
like an epistolary autobiography woven from a global fabric. wolf looks at the American
scene --- family, education, self-knowledge, and culture --- against the backgrounds of
the Malay Peninsula, India ( the largest section of the book), Greece, and Turkey,
Between his departure from Western New York and his return to Florida, the author
searches for " versions of home."
The Letters are closely related in time and recurring themes; and, all together, a
personal universe of characters is portrayed.
A Version of Home : Letters From The World is not an experimental or Post-Modern
"text." At the same time, the genre of travel letters, with its inevitable
shifts of focus as the traveler moves from place to place, gives the book a contemporary
feel. The author's commitment to irreducible human experience sets him against recent
Deconstructive trends.
As the world seems to be moving away from the the art of Nuclear Holocaust, and greater
openness between nations becomes possible at the end of the 20th Century. A Version of
Home : Letters From The World is a book that makes real enhanced opportunities for
communication between persons around the world. It is a book that discovers the common
roots of the human tree and lets us take comfort beneath its canopy. |
