Nothing to Declare by Mary Morris

Reviewed by Allan Cogan

For this reader there are two attitudes one can take to both the author and her book. No one could possibly dispute that Mary Morris is an intrepid and courageous lady. She was living in San Miguel de Allende in Mexico, in the Mexican part of town, when she decided to take off on her exploration of Central America. The trip took her to countries such as Bolivia, Guatemala, Honduras and San Salvador. Just about all of the transit was on local buses and very little of it seemed to be very tightly planned. Nor was Ms. Morris looking for luxury destinations or resorts, or even decent hotels. Most of the time she seemed to be traveling the back roads. She seems to have been satisfied most of the time with whatever she found on her journey, some of it sounding quite abominable. The subtitle mentions that the book is about a woman traveling alone. However, I'm quite sure that most men - including this one - would be very unlikely to go off on such an adventure. Ms. Morris is a bit casual on dates and times and distances and numbers in general. However, her adventure seems to have covered something like eighteen months of travel.

Having said that, I also have to add that, having made all that effort, I just wish the lady had gone to more interesting places and encountered more interesting people. It's not really a travel book. The main exploration that seems to take place is in the mind of Ms. Morris herself rather than the geography of any particular country.

There's very little interest shown in the various places that are visited. For example, here's a typical excerpt from page 169. The 'Josh' she mentions was one of a few travel companions she acquired on the journey.

"Josh had taken a liking to inland Honduras and the guidebook said there were some things to see in a neighboring town called Florida. 'Look,' Josh said. 'How often are you going to be in this part of Honduras?'

'Not often,' I said. And we hitched a ride with a farmer in the back of his pickup truck. Josh had heard about a gas station attendant in Florida who knew everything there was to know about the Mayan ruins in the vicinity.

'I thought you were tired of ruins.'

'Well, we're here. We may as well make the most of it.'

We found the gas station attendant and he sent us in the direction of some ruins not far from the border. We crawled around in the heat of the day while Josh tried to decide what kind of people lived in this place.'

That's about as close as we get to the traditional tourist/travel narrative. There's not another word on the subject. I would have thought there would be at least a sentence or two describing the ruins. However, that's seemingly not of interest to this author.

Nor is there a great deal of precision about describing actual events that take place. Here's an example from page 117 when Ms. Morris is in Mexico City.

After a deep discussion with her boyfriend, Alejandro, (another travel companion) Morris writes "After he left I sat on the bed, thinking about what I wanted to do. At that moment I wanted a friend in Mexico City, someone to talk to. I thought I should take a walk and think things through. Instead, I sat and sat. I sat on the bed, thinking, until the bed began to move. The mattress pitched and rolled and I held on as if I were in a white-water raft. The room shifted. Lamps swayed and the furniture rearranged itself. I did not know what to do, so I ran from the house. I didn't think about anything except leaving. Outside the ground still shifted, the buildings rocked. And then it stopped. Around me people were staring. Some laughed, wiping their brows. When it was over, I realized I was wearing almost nothing. I went back inside." And that's the end of that particular chapter.

There's no explanation or even a hint as to what happened. The reader is left to assume it was the devastating earthquake that struck Mexico City in 1985? Who knows? It's not made the least bit clear. I looked up the earthquake in google.com and read that more than 30,000 people died in that catastrophe. However, there are no dates anywhere in this book other than the 1987 publication date. So perhaps Ms Morris was blown out of bed by the 'quake. But why wouldn't she tell us that? It's just another example of the vagueness and lack of precision that runs through this entire narrative.

One interesting phenomenon revealed itself when I tried to find out what other people thought of this book. Occasionally, when I write a review, I'm curious to see afterwards what people said about the book in question. amazon.com is a good place to look. Regarding this volume, all the professional reviewers spoke glowingly about Nothing to Declare while the average readers were usually much more subdued.

From Time, New York Times, Cosmopolitan, and the Kirkus Reviews, etc. etc. came all those familiar hyped up phrases… "Fascinating guide… instant classic… gutsy… stunning… an artfully told journey into the self… positively inspiring…" and so on. From many of the general readers we get: "A waste of time… mediocre travel writing… too caught up in herself…" even though there were a number of individual readers, usually women, who expressed their enjoyment.

Rather reluctantly I'll have to confess I'm with the general readers on this one.

In my humble O: Each reader will have to make up his or her own mind on Nothing to Declare.