A Structure of Irony

One would not expect a full itinerary of armchair travel from a poet, but Richard Tillinghast’s leap to travel writing wasn’t a big one. His travels have always informed his poems, which often focus on the intersection between the historical and the personal in his experiences of foreign—and familiar—lands. In his recently released Journeys into the Mind of the World: A Book of Places, his second book of travel writing, Tillinghast once again trades the compression of poetry for the expansive canvas of prose to delve deeply and broadly into the idea of place and all that it encompasses.

The breadth of Tillinghast’s experiences and knowledge is impressive. He writes about everything from Sufism to architecture to racism in places as different as Iran and Tennessee. He explores history and culture while at the same time reveling in sensory experiences. No matter if it’s the legendary Orient Express or American highways, Tillinghast deftly combines interesting historical facts with vivid details that evoke the sights, smells, and tastes of his destinations. His introduction of Istanbul, the last stop on the Orient Express when it was “a very ordinary rail journey,” is both grounded in fact and rich with description. He writes,

You changed money on the black market, in a little room behind a shop in the Kapali Çarşi. Food was cheap. A plate of white bean salad with chopped onions and tomatoes, olive oil and lemon juice, and strong black olives—with a chunk of freshly baked bread and a couple of crinkly hot green peppers on the side, plus a bottle of water—cost fifty cents American.

Throughout the collection—which moves through several countries in the Middle and Far East, Ireland, England, Hawaii and his home state of Tennessee—a common thread of human connection stitches together the essays. This focus on human experience is remarkably resonant in the current political and cultural climate of the United States, especially when he writes about Islam and American-made racism. His essays about his travels in Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India and Nepal are couched in his experiences as an American Sufi. Throughout his journey, he interacts with others who practice Sufism, a form of Islamic mysticism. Describing much of his journey as a spiritual pilgrimage, Tillinghast provides a rare view of predominantly Muslim countries before major cultural changes that began with events like the Iranian Revolution in 1978 and the Russian invasion of Afghanistan in 1979.

Tillinghast’s depictions of both devout and secular Muslims and their daily lives are rooted in xenia, the ancient Greek concept of showing hospitality of those far from home. Among many other individuals he meets, Tillinghast shares tales of Farhad, an Iranian man who befriends him on the train and teaches him a few words in Farsi; an Afghani man who approaches him and a friend to inquire if they are Jewish, and upon learning that Tillinghast’s friend was, treated them as honored guests to a kosher meal at a nearby synagogue; and a Muslim police chief in India who returns Tillinghast’s lost passport and money. At a time when many mainstream American beliefs of the Muslim world are influenced by political agendas, these personal essays can inform discussions that are often skewed by a political lens.

Perhaps even more relevant to current US debate, Tilllinghast addresses the Confederate legacy that still informs Southern identity. A native Tennessean, Tillinghast explores and illuminates the Confederate experience of the Civil War as well as the racial discrimination that was part and parcel of the South’s history. Though he doesn’t write about it in these essays, Tillinghast participated in nonviolent protests against segregation at the University of the South in Sewanee as an undergraduate. He was also active in the successful integration of the college. Knowing that, its easier to read his admiring tales of Confederate heroes, their derring...