A “Traveler’s” Report

We travelers think alike. As I read Christa Wolf’s 1^st essay, in the form of a travel report, from “Cassandra: A Novel and Four Essays”, I can’t help but identify with Wolf’s insights as she explores Greece as well as her journey.

This month, I too have been a traveler. I have traveled through western Turkey and am, at this very moment, wandering north through Greece from Athens to Thessaloniki. After reading Aeschyles’s Oresteia, Wolf becomes fascinated with the character of Cassandra, Apollo’s priestess during the time of the Trojan War. Not only does Wolf become curious about Cassandra’s character, but she also seeks to learn about Trojan and Greek society, the nature of the Trojan War, and the practices of ancient spirituality and religion through Cassandra’s eyes. With this narrow focus, Wolf travels to Greece and develops her own unique method of examining culture and ancient sites. Like Dr. Rhodes in his approach to examining ancient architecture at Corinth, Wolf takes a very empirical, inductive method. Through observations, she generates in her own mind questions about the culture and the people, formulates themes and hypothesis’s and then through the rest of her trip, attempts to test the validity of those hypothesis’s.

In the same way, I came to Turkey and Greece with a purpose of learning about the rich religious and cultural histories of these countries and also applying it to my understanding and appreciation of my own religion and culture, and its history. Through previous literature and classes (especially the BIC), I have developed my own focuses, just as Wolf did with Cassandra. Then, actually coming to these countries and observing the people and the sites, I have been able to develop my own style of analyzing history, similar to that of Dr. Rhodes and Wolf. Because of this, there arises in Wolf’s Travel Report many observations that I identify with and that you, if you have ever traveled (better if you’ve been to Greece), might also appreciate. So, I will leave you with some quotations of her observations, questions and themes that she generated from them:

“Did Homer and the others who handed down the cycle of legends about Troy suspect that in following the myth they were helping to conceal the actual facts?” (155). What separates story truth from happening truth? How do we determine what actually happened in history? What is truth? How do we find it? How do we separate truth from lie and half-truth?

“Not only victors but victims, too, climbed up to the Acropolis. Man and beast, they took turns on the altars of the temples which stand superimposed or side by side…It was the same with the gods: the earlier god, the earlier goddess were always sacrificed to the later.” (158).

“Something more powerful than grief has engraved itself in these beautiful cheeks [of the korai maiden statues]: acid rain, polluted air…I understand the overcrowded, hurrying, homicidal, money-chasing city that pumps out smoke and exhaust fumes, trying to catch up in a few years with what some of its Western sisters took more than a century to achieve. I understand: You, the need of the present-day city, were not compatible with the need of the stone maidens with their serene, proud bearing, who supported, for more than two thousand years, the canopy over the grave of the snake-king Cecrops, founder of Athens…Was there, is there, and alternative to this barbarism [of the modern age]?” (159). What does it mean to respect history? How do we live in the present and prepare for the future, without destroying the past? Is there a “right” way to preserve historic objects? In what way do the needs of tourists and the needs of a city contribute to the destruction of history?

“The dignity of eating, in countries where you cannot take it for granted that everyone will be able to eat his fill every day; where avarice has not yet been able completely to suppress the gesture of hospitality, which, even if it has a price, meets with a ready welcome.” (161).

“We foreigners are all the more dependent on it because here we have no command of words, are incapable of deciphering even the signs outside the shops, must rely on pictures, smells…The fact that I lack words here: doesn’t this mean that I am losing myself? How quickly does lack of speech turn into lack of identity.” (161) To what extent to language define us?

“The mere fact that I do not know the language gives me an inkling of the possible terrors of exile. When did it begin, this unfortunate habit of trying out foreign cities to see how it would feel to live there? The question is, When did the feeling of having a homeland disappear?” (162). Where is home? What does it take to accepted or alienated from a foreign society? Orhan Pamuk, the Turkish novelist (Istanbul: Memories and the City and My Names is Red) lived in Istanbul his whole life and even now lives in the same house that he grew up in. Despite all its flaws, he stayed there because it was home to him.

“The old curses seem to have lost their effect; almost suffocating in the tainted air of the overcrowded buses, fatigued, dripping with sweat, we are incapable of wishing for anything but that it be over.” (163). There have been many instances on this trip where external factors, tiredness, stress with homework, hunger and body temperature, have kept us from fully enjoying and experiencing the sites that we visited.

“So there is a man named Antonis to go with the voice on the telephone, who thinks of everything for us, arranges everything, takes care of everything. Who knows everyone here and spends his days telephoning a dozen people on our behalf.” (165). I include this quotation, because it reminds me of our tour guide Cenk who did indeed to everything for us. Have you ever had a team leader or tour guide that took care of all the details so that you could enjoy the trip?

“Before and after the tourist season he [the old man who is sitting in a shack at the entrance of the ancient Amphiareion] sits here for weeks without seeing a single person, we are told. What is he guarding? A tract of antique ruins, overgrown with greenery, surrounded by a wire fence and almost all far too heavy to be stolen…Maybe the spirit of place has molded him.” We saw these people at every site, the ones who sell and take tickets.