Rating: 
Summary: Good concept executed with mediocrity
Review: This is a good idea for a book, but I don't think he had an inkling of a plan before he sat down to type. He rambles, repetitiously without really stating or arriving at a destination, leaving me hungry for a point. I think he also greatly over-intellectualizes nearly everything.
Rating: 
Summary: not up to Iyer standards, or even my standards
Review: What happened to the Pico Iyer who wrote the wonderful 'Falling off the Map'? Mr. Iyer was once able to capture the spirit of a foreign place, and his humble, amused, and always acute observations of distant, exotic cultures reflected a keen intellect as well as a keen eye.Now Iyer, as the world-weary 'Global Soul' comes across more as an ordinary, grumpy foreign correspondent than the wonderful travel-writer that he used to be. Gone is the loving eye that he had cast on quirky, wonderfully undiscovered lands. Instead, he turns his hardened, more-bitter-than-sweet gaze towards Atlanta, London, and California, with nothing but critical remarks and a barely-tolerable condescending air. Granted, he spared Toronto and Kyoto (but not the rest of Japan) of his barbs for the most part, but it is clear that Mr. Iyer's love of his job is not what it once was. His gift, and the gift of the best travel-writers, was to revel in the differences, good and bad, of foreign cultures and places, and to take with them the good experiences to be had in the *PRIVILEGE* of traveling. Mr. Iyer, who once seemed happy to be alive and experiencing the privilege of globe-trotting and soaking up different cultures, then writing about them for a living, now seems to trudge through most of what he sees, and the sense of the world's splendor in his eyes is now gone. This is a shame, too, with a man of Iyer's talents and background. While this book does fill in much of his highly unusual, mysterious background, rather than making it intriguing, Iyer seems to only reluctantly fill in the background. He says that while his parents lived in California, they sent him to boarding school and university in England. This was back in the 70's, back when doing so would be even more exorbitantly expensive than it would be now. Yet, Iyer maintains that his parents, as academics, were of only modest, middle-class means. What gives? I loved some of Iyer's early work, particularly, 'Falling off the Map', in which his love of things new and foreign was palpable, and in which he was able to bring the reader closer to another place through his enthusiasm, playful wit, and keen, insightful observations. I was looking forward to savoring 'the Global Soul', yet found reading it to be slow-going, unenjoyable work. Particularly trying is Mr. Iyer's fondness for endless listing of meaningless specifics-- "(Int'l Blvd) offered a Hard Rock Cafe, a Planet Hollywood, a McDonald's outlet, and a seventy-three-story Westin hotel.."..."Indian cricket teams were Indian, Australian were Australian, English were English, and West Indian were 'Indian, Negro, Chinese, white, Portuguese mixed with Syrian'..." In fact, endless, meaningless lists dominate this surprisingly tedious-to-read book, as if Mr. Iyer felt that his painstaking attention to specific minutiae and proper nouns were a testament to the breadth of his ability to remember and assimilate details of current world pop-culture, yet still quote from english classics. The resulting mix is a nearly unreadable mix of words, structured so that the places Iyer explores come across as a massive deluge to the human senses. I am sure that this was his intent (his message being that the world is assaulting him with heaps of meaningless sensory overload), yet if this was his true impression, it is not surprising that he did not get much positive out of his experiences at the time. Mr. Iyer would do well to note that his readership approaches travel-writing for an escape, to be transported and enjoy the thrill of exploring that which can only be experienced through extended travel. Even not-so thrilling, but sobering and eye-opening experiences are of course fascinating and enriching. Most of us with regular jobs are not in a position to thorougly experience many foreign cultures and places, so we must read about it and see it through the eyes of those who are lucky enough to experience it first-hand. If we wanted amateur negative commentary on what is wrong with our respective societies, we can do so much more easily and succinctly by watching the news or reading the newspaper. After all, Mr. Iyer has the nerve to slam the city of Atlanta for its poor and homeless, yet unashamedly whine about his treatment as a 'Global Soul' (and a privileged one at that) at the hands of English and Japanese officials while he globe-trots between the two countries. Despite everything you read in this book, the world is *still* a wonderfully wide, diverse, and stimulating place!
Rating:
Summary: not up to Iyer standards, or even my standards
Review: What happened to the Pico Iyer who wrote the wonderful 'Falling off the Map'? Mr. Iyer was once able to capture the spirit of a foreign place, and his humble, amused, and always acute observations of distant, exotic cultures reflected a keen intellect as well as a keen eye. Now Iyer, as the world-weary 'Global Soul' comes across more as an ordinary, grumpy foreign correspondent than the wonderful travel-writer that he used to be. Gone is the loving eye that he had cast on quirky, wonderfully undiscovered lands. Instead, he turns his hardened, more-bitter-than-sweet gaze towards Atlanta, London, and California, with nothing but critical remarks and a barely-tolerable condescending air. Granted, he spared Toronto and Kyoto (but not the rest of Japan) of his barbs for the most part, but it is clear that Mr. Iyer's love of his job is not what it once was. His gift, and the gift of the best travel-writers, was to revel in the differences, good and bad, of foreign cultures and places, and to take with them the good experiences to be had in the *PRIVILEGE* of traveling. Mr. Iyer, who once seemed happy to be alive and experiencing the privilege of globe-trotting and soaking up different cultures, then writing about them for a living, now seems to trudge through most of what he sees, and the sense of the world's splendor in his eyes is now gone. This is a shame, too, with a man of Iyer's talents and background. While this book does fill in much of his highly unusual, mysterious background, rather than making it intriguing, Iyer seems to only reluctantly fill in the background. He says that while his parents lived in California, they sent him to boarding school and university in England. This was back in the 70's, back when doing so would be even more exorbitantly expensive than it would be now. Yet, Iyer maintains that his parents, as academics, were of only modest, middle-class means. What gives? I loved some of Iyer's early work, particularly, 'Falling off the Map', in which his love of things new and foreign was palpable, and in which he was able to bring the reader closer to another place through his enthusiasm, playful wit, and keen, insightful observations. I was looking forward to savoring 'the Global Soul', yet found reading it to be slow-going, unenjoyable work. Particularly trying is Mr. Iyer's fondness for endless listing of meaningless specifics-- "(Int'l Blvd) offered a Hard Rock Cafe, a Planet Hollywood, a McDonald's outlet, and a seventy-three-story Westin hotel.."..."Indian cricket teams were Indian, Australian were Australian, English were English, and West Indian were 'Indian, Negro, Chinese, white, Portuguese mixed with Syrian'..." In fact, endless, meaningless lists dominate this surprisingly tedious-to-read book, as if Mr. Iyer felt that his painstaking attention to specific minutiae and proper nouns were a testament to the breadth of his ability to remember and assimilate details of current world pop-culture, yet still quote from english classics. The resulting mix is a nearly unreadable mix of words, structured so that the places Iyer explores come across as a massive deluge to the human senses. I am sure that this was his intent (his message being that the world is assaulting him with heaps of meaningless sensory overload), yet if this was his true impression, it is not surprising that he did not get much positive out of his experiences at the time. Mr. Iyer would do well to note that his readership approaches travel-writing for an escape, to be transported and enjoy the thrill of exploring that which can only be experienced through extended travel. Even not-so thrilling, but sobering and eye-opening experiences are of course fascinating and enriching. Most of us with regular jobs are not in a position to thorougly experience many foreign cultures and places, so we must read about it and see it through the eyes of those who are lucky enough to experience it first-hand. If we wanted amateur negative commentary on what is wrong with our respective societies, we can do so much more easily and succinctly by watching the news or reading the newspaper. After all, Mr. Iyer has the nerve to slam the city of Atlanta for its poor and homeless, yet unashamedly whine about his treatment as a 'Global Soul' (and a privileged one at that) at the hands of English and Japanese officials while he globe-trots between the two countries. Despite everything you read in this book, the world is *still* a wonderfully wide, diverse, and stimulating place!
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