While the rest of you (Americans) were celebrating Flag Day yesterday, I was celebrating a remarkable day in the history of travel writing - one that saw the birth of Colin Thubron in 1939 and Jonathan Raban three years later.
Raban has moved on to fiction, for the most part, a genre Thubron has also done some time in. But they are both known primarily for their travel books, which combine fierce intelligence, acute observations and brilliant writing. Raban took the United States as his subject (Old Glory, Hunting Mister Heartbreak) and then made it his home, while Thubron has put on his back that huge territory occupied by China and the former Soviet Union.
While eminently serious writers, both possess a fine sense of humor. Thubron's story of asking a Chinese woman if Westerners smell, and her response (thinking he said "smile") is one I always read in writing workshops as a beautiful example of how humor can be used not just for laughs but for revelations.
When I was a travel editor I interviewed both men: Raban in Seattle (where he lives) and Thubron in Philadelphia (where he was speaking at a conference). Raban was fascinating and prickly; he spoke disparagingly of newspaper travel sections (he had never seen mine). Thubron was gracious, thoughtful, modest, learned. You experienced in person what was so evident in his books: a mind that enabled him to comprehend, and a heart that allowed him to connect.
