Travels with Myself and Another: A Memoir

"I was in that state of grace which can rightly be called happiness, when body and mind rejoice totally together. This occurs, as a divine surprise, in travel; this is why I will never finish travelling."

If you think Hemingway is a fearless adventurer, you must not be acquainted with Martha Gellhorn, a renowned war correspondent and his third wife. While a prolific journalist and lifelong traveler, Travels with Myself and Another is her first and only memoir which reflects on her experiences at any length. Spanning East Africa, Crete, Stalin-era USSR, and China during the second Sino-Japanese war, among others, and traveling via horseback, cargo planes, and ships transporting dynamite for the WWII Allied effort, Gellhorn's tales are as show more varied as they are ridiculous. Her reflections are evocative and inviting as she recalls endless mishaps, wrong turns, run ins with skin rot, and trash filled beaches. Gellhorn's memoir is a chronicle of her most memorable (read, disastrous) travels, often hilarious, always potently delivered. show less

I have always been fond of Martha Gellhorn, as the only one of Ernest Hemingway's wives to give back to him as good - or perhaps better - than he dished out. She didn't like the fact that, after her marriage to Hemingway, her name was always linked with his. After reading her work, which in my opinion is just as good as his, I can understand her frustration.

This book of her travel writings does include Hemingway, but he is not mentioned by name. Instead he is called UC for Unwilling Companion for the fact that he had not wanted to accompany her to China just before America's entry into World War II.

Besides her trip to China, this volume also covers a trip around the islands of the Caribbean, Africa, and the Soviet Union. She looks at show more all the places she visits with a gimlet eye and through the prism of her own liberal political values. Written in the 1970's, some of her comments - especially about the people in Africa - are problematic viewed through today's sensibilities. However, the reader needs to take the times into account and not be too picky as there is too much to enjoy in this book. show less

Enjoyable selection of 'horror journeys' endured by Martha Gellhorn, though none featuring war reportage for which she is justly remembered. An African journey is the longest piece, with a stark contrast between West and East Africa. Musing, towards the end, on the meaning of travel, she considers that more than all the hardships and difficulties, boredom is the thing she fears most - something that speaks to my own experience. The writing is open and perceptive, though some of the judgements and opinions expressed are, at the very least, dated.

Martha Gellhorn, a well-known journalist and war correspondent, would not necessarily want you to identify as Ernest Hemingway's third wife, but she was. Martha Gellhorn, would like to be known as a person who didn't let the details get in her way, and was a very care-free traveler, and in some instances she was.

Her writing is clear, humorous and a joy to read. She easily depicts Africa as a lost continent, incapable of ruling themselves because the populations who lived there all their lives are ignorant. The Massi tribe is depicted as so very ugly that one has a difficult time looking at them. Made uglier by the long, deep groves of scars decorating their faces, she thinks they plead ignorance so they do not have to work.

The book show more begins with her journey to China, the weather is depicted as God awful hot, and the inhabitants were ignorant and small minded. Like the Soviet Union, she finds the government oppressive and crooked.

When I told a friend that she has a strong distaste for the ugly Massi tribe, my friend overreacted and said she would never read her books, and for that matter, I shouldn't either. When I tried to explain that books written in another time frame than current, are best read with an open mind, and the reader must take that into their view of what appears her sarcasm, prejudice, and loftier than thou perceptions, I was met with silence.

I very much liked this book. She writes with just enough description and feeling, that I was amazed at her ability to overcome many troublesome events. show less

I have to admit I gave up on this book, although I had been greatly looking forward to it. The purpose, according to Gellhorn, is to recount "horror journeys" or the worst trips out of her many travels. But I don't get a clear enough sense of her point of view, and the anecdotes, written long after the fact, just lack richness for me. If one is interested in another side of Hemingway (the Another) maybe they would like this better.

Okay, I tried it again a few months later and enjoyed it. You have to look past her prejudices and accept that you won't learn a lot about the places she goes to, but you will get little glimpses of travel in a particular time period. Her travel to Soviet Russia was particularly interesting.

This collection of autobiographical essays is an unbeatable introduction to a writer of great talent, unfaltering conviction, and pitiless, razor-sharp wit.

Four amazing travel stories by Martha Gellhorn, one of America's most important war correspondents. Made me move right into a biography of her.