Nothing to declare : memoirs of a woman traveling alone

by Mary Morris

Paperback, 1999

Status

Available

Publication

New York : Picador USA, [1999?]

Description

Traveling from the highland desert of northern Mexico to the steaming jungles of Honduras, from the seashore of the Caribbean to the exquisite highlands of Guatemala, Mary Morris, a celebrated writer of both fiction and nonfiction, confronts the realities of place, poverty, machismo, and selfhood. As she experiences the rawness and precariousness of life in another culture, Morris begins to hear echoes of her own life and her own sense of deprivation. And she begins, too, to overcome the struggles of the past that have held her back personally; as in the very best travel writing, Morris effectively explores her own soul while exploring new terrain and new experience. By crossing such boundaries throughout the pages of "Nothing to Declare," she sets new frontiers for herself as a woman--and as a writer.… (more)

User reviews

LibraryThing member cestovatela
Nothing to Declare by Mary Morris is the worst thing I've read this year. This is not a book about travel as much as it is self-discovery. The trouble is, Morris is not an interesting person to discover. Her own self-analysis consists of hackneyed metaphors (I am learning to read my inner map) and
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she spends most of her amazing journey through Central America whining about her loneliness and fear. Mayan festivals and jungle ruins merit only a paragraph or two of description before Morris returns to her own petty relationship dramas and woman-traveling-alone phobias, both of which could easily be resolved with a little common sense. At least it was fast reading.
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LibraryThing member TanyaTomato
This wasn't so much as a travel book, but the author working through her own life problems while traveling. Which is probably a great way to figure yourself out, but I didn't feel that I needed to be with her on some parts of the journey. It was definitely interesting, and she didn't gloss over how
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harrowing traveling can be sometimes.
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LibraryThing member ffortsa
A very personal experience of life in a foreign culture, and the urge to travel. Morris is a brave, obsessed and sometimes foolish traveler, searching for herself as much as new experience, and she shares it with us. On the way she also shares Mexican history, geography and culture seen as much
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from the inside as an outsider can get to
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LibraryThing member janglen
I found this book totally absorbing. Mary Morris must be a very courageous person to have undertaken this journey - for most of us her experiences sound nightmare-ish. While she comes through as fairly self-absorbed she also sounds a very humane person when confronted by real need in others. The
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book provides a fascinating insight into the lives of ordinary people in Mexico and South America.
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LibraryThing member tlingit
This is reviewed as " the union of a travel book and journey into the self". I guess it's true. It was okay. Honestly it didn't show me any unusual insights into the human condition or anything extra special about this woman. Maybe I'm just jaded. There were no good sex parts. There was no
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extremely interesting people in this book. Nothing memorable really. She did describe her living conditions and the differing atmospheres well. Still the title says it all.
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LibraryThing member PaDutchTravel
A great travel book about one woman's travels through Latin America. She shows you the raw real side of living and traveling in Latin America. No fluffed up sugar coated stuff here. At times through out the book I was thinking to myself I can't believe she just did that she must have a death wish,
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she is crazy. And other times in the book I could really relate to some of her situations and it touched me way deep down inside. I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who likes to travel.
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Language

Barcode

5035
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