The Trouble with Travel Blogs

November 13 - Just yesterday my favorite travel writer--Paul Theroux--confirmed for me why this business of writing an Indian blog is so tough.  He says, in his newish book:

"Most writing about travel takes the form of jumping to conclusions, and so most travel books are superfluous, the thinnest, most transparent monologuing.  Little better than a license to bore, travel writing is the lowest form of literary self-indulgence: dishonest, complaining, creative mendacity, pointless heroics, and chronic posturing, much of it distorted with Munchausen syndrome.

Of course, it's much harder to stay at home and be polite to people and face things, but where's the book in that?  Better the boastful charade of pretending to be an adventurer:  

Yes, swagger the nut-strewn roads, 
Crouch in the fo'c'sle 
Stubbly with goodness

in a lusty 'Look at me!' in exotic landscapes."

From "Ghost Train to the Eastern Star"

Granted, I am not traveling so much as relocating, so there must be a difference in that.  But does it make a difference in the writing?  Certainly gracious friends that encourage me to write in the first place have assured me that just writing about the mundane day-to-day is what they want most--where I am "being polite to people and facing things."  But at the same time there is so much about our comfy conditions that feels self-indulgent--that is self-indulgent, for heaven's sake.