CHASING APHRODITE

In Rem’s travel-minded novel, a man’s writing trip to Cyprus proves an occasion for reflection.

Milo is a man in his 50s with a geographically diverse background: He was born in Tanzania to an East Indian family and raised in England but has spent most of his adult life in Canada. Now, he’s taken to traveling by himself through Cyprus, where the mix of vacationers, expatriates, and competing cultural traditions reminds him of childhood summers spent with his father in Dar-es-Salaam. As Milo does the sorts of things that tourists do—mostly shopping and eating at restaurants—his mind flashes to memories from different periods in his life. A trip to the divided city of Nicosia to buy a specific brand of Turkish (or Greek) delight reminds him of shopping trips to Harrods with his mother. A girl on the beach in Dhekelia recalls the holidays spent with his English foster family along the coasts of Devon and Cornwall. The chapters are accompanied by whimsical illustrations by Pohl as well as short notes from Rem explaining the origin of each piece. The chapters don’t add up to a traditional novel, nor do they fully function on their own as short stories. They’re more like travel sketches, mixing sharp-eyed observations of Cyprus with richly detailed memories of other periods of Milo's life. Here, for instance, he remembers a trip back to Dar-es-Salaam as an adult and feeling like a tourist: “All along his route, he was hustled and jostled. Would he like to exchange his foreign currency at ‘very competitive’ rates? Would he like to buy some genuine local artwork or have a snack, buy some jewellery? Youngsters, aged beyond their years, solicited him relentlessly, their shirt pockets bursting with rolls of banknotes.” Still, despite the absence of plot or conflict—and the slightly intrusive notes throughout—the book makes for a pleasant escape.

A discursive but evocative novel about the appeal of staying on the move.