{"id":9235,"date":"2020-12-23T23:59:58","date_gmt":"2020-12-23T23:59:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ondrocks2000.com\/standpoint\/2020\/12\/23\/dont-fear-the-reaper-4\/"},"modified":"2026-08-27T04:18:19","modified_gmt":"2026-08-27T04:18:19","slug":"underrated-abroad","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ondrocks2000.com\/standpoint\/2020\/12\/23\/underrated-abroad\/","title":{"rendered":"Underrated: Abroad"},"content":{"rendered":"

M<\/span>eaning \u201caway from home\u201d, \u201cabroad\u201d appears in English in 1450. Being at large outside your own house was the sense. Thus, from the beginning, the word has carried the sense of freedoms to be enjoyed while away from the suffocating constraints of home.<\/span><\/p>\n

Being stuck at home can be claustrophobic. In the First World War, the Defence of the Realm Acts made international private travel almost impossible. And the result was to stimulate a ravenous appetite for what Auden later called a \u201csunburnt otherwhere\u201d. E.M. Forster found himself thinking \u201cThere are times when one longs to sprawl over continents, as before.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

As soon as they were able, writers began to sprawl. Gerald Brenan went to Andalucia, Robert Graves to Mallorca, Norman Douglas to Capri, Laurence Durrell to Corfu, Julian Bell to Wuhan and W.H. Auden to New York. People wondered if there were any writers actually left in this country after 1918.<\/span><\/p>\n

Of course, in the last century, the new mechanics of travel facilitated means of escape. One of the defining books of the modern era was 1957\u2019s\u00a0On the Road<\/i>, Jack Kerouac\u2019s hymn to transience and mobility experienced with the help of an automobile (in this case, a Hudson). \u201cClimb that goddam mountain!\u201d was Kerouac\u2019s advice. You can\u2019t mountaineer while working from home.<\/span><\/p>\n

The longing for elsewhere, the need to return\u00a0somewhere<\/i>, is surely so profound that it\u2019s tempting to describe it as instinctive. In this sense, homesickness is actually related to the Wanderlust. The Babylonian Captivity, when the people of Judah were exiled, is the\u00a0locus classicus<\/i>\u00a0of homesickness: an intense yearning to be elsewhere.<\/span><\/p>\n

We have recently had our own dreams of Zion. In 2020, by the River Thames, we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Mediterranean weather and going out to restaurants. Has the appetite for \u201cabroad\u201d ever been keener than it is today? Have we ever wanted to escape with more energy and commitment?<\/span><\/p>\n

But \u201cabroad\u201d is a concept of real meaning only to islanders. Depending on which\u00a0departement<\/i>\u00a0he lives in, a Frenchie can walk into Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany, Switzerland, Italy or Spain. But the islander\u2019s borders exist in the mind as much as on the map: to an islander, everything is abroad.<\/span><\/p>\n

Arriving in Calais and rolling off the car ferry, there was always a sense of infinite possibilities not available at home. Vistas were limitless, destinations unbounded. In a few hours, you could be anywhere. In my case, as a young adult travelling alone, when French air was perfumed by\u00a0disques bleues<\/i>\u00a0and the petrol smelt different, my wheezing and rattling Citroen took me often to Burgundy.<\/span><\/p>\n

I can recall now the profound sense of freedom found in a little\u00a0auberge<\/i>\u00a0in, say, Savigny-les-Beaune. A corner table, a book, a mid-range bottle and a dream of being somewhere else tomorrow. And if that freedom was tinged with a little sadness about people left behind, then that simply made it more intense.<\/span><\/p>\n

The philosopher Hannah Arendt knew a great deal about displacement: \u201cLoving life is easy when you are abroad. Where no-one knows you and you hold life in your hands all alone, you are more master of yourself than at any other time.\u201d Quite so. Isn\u2019t this exactly what \u201cabroad\u201d offers?<\/span><\/p>\n

But there are economic arguments too. Never mind the psychological freedom, abroad has often been cheaper than home. When Alec Waugh made his first round-the-world tour in 1926 he discovered that living on an ocean liner for an entire year was cheaper than living in his London flat. There really is nothing new under the sun: in 2020, the more adventurous WFH generation, frustrated by the privations of home, found they could live in Fuertaventura not Earl\u2019s Court. The home office can be a beach. Where you can sprawl.<\/span><\/p>\n

But in any case, the concept of \u201chome\u201d, in design terms, is changing. The autonomous car we are promised will replace my creaking Citroen. Here is a place you can eat and sleep. And work. Restless and intelligent, the autonomous car will always be on the move. And when it acquires a WC and a shower, your need for a static home with bedrooms and kitchen and bathroom will be diminished. The term \u201cdigital nomads\u201d will acquire new meanings. And suddenly a three-bedroom semi seems a very quaint version of \u201chome\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n

Thinking of a dire upbringing in the Gothic South, the novelist Carson McCullers wrote: \u201cI go home often to refresh my sense of outrage\u201d. Of course, it doesn\u2019t have to be a sense of outrage that\u2019s refreshed. If you were more fortunate in your upbringing than McCullers, going home often might refresh your sense of history and charm. That\u2019s the perspective being away offers.<\/span><\/p>\n

But be it ever so humble, there\u2019s no place like abroad.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The ravenous longing for the infinite possibilities of \u201cotherwhere\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9519,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[656],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9235","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-underrated"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ondrocks2000.com\/standpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9235","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ondrocks2000.com\/standpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ondrocks2000.com\/standpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ondrocks2000.com\/standpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ondrocks2000.com\/standpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9235"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/ondrocks2000.com\/standpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9235\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9239,"href":"https:\/\/ondrocks2000.com\/standpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9235\/revisions\/9239"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ondrocks2000.com\/standpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9519"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ondrocks2000.com\/standpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9235"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ondrocks2000.com\/standpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9235"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ondrocks2000.com\/standpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9235"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}