Susan Orlean, Author of “The Orchid Thief,” on Traveling with a Purpose
Susan Orlean, New Yorker staff writer and the author of The Orchid Thief, spoke at National Geographic about her experiences “Way off the Beaten Path”.
Susan “stumbles” upon her story topics “by accident most of the time”. In fact, she had never heard of Bhutan until the moment a magazine advertisement promoting a fertility trip to the country caught her eye. Particularly unusual was its provision that one need not want to have a child to attend the trip. Susan latched onto this seed of a story and launched herself on a quest to Bhutan driven by the curiosity to understand the origins and context of the ad.
To provide her readers with an insider look into a destination like Bhutan, Susan has developed a unique manner of delving deep within a culture beyond the superficial layer, which tourists skim across. She travels with a “story” and a “purpose”. Taking in a place without a purpose, according to her, is like examining an object under a microscope; it “stops looking solid” and “breaks into a million tiny bits,” too many to pick up and build a coherent story from.
And thus, after stumbling upon a veterinary clinic in Morocco run by a woman appalled by the health of donkeys, Susan chose these animals as the core “thread” connecting the layers of one of her books. From walking ambulances transporting heart attack victims to “Arabian horses dripping with jewels”, donkeys gave her a “natural, organic” window into the culture. She had questions to ask and a story to follow, and through the particular she found the general: Moroccan society, traditions, and values.
Traveling with a purpose also overcomes the banality of repetition. In Italy, after looking at her millionth Renaissance painting, Susan determined that it would be “physically impossible” for her to look at another. But her approach changed dramatically when she decided to investigate how many different ways the Virgin Mary has looked upon receiving the news that she is pregnant. With this puzzle in mind, Susan could not wait to visit the next church in search of another depiction of the Annunciation. With a touch of creativity, she found a fascinating perspective on one incident told over and over again.
The last question of the evening for the author was selected from the Twitter audience: “What is the farthest off the beaten path you have been and how did it affect you?” When Susan was flying to Bhutan a second time, bad weather caused the captain to “cryptically” announce that they would be “overnighting it”. The plane landed in Calcutta, passports were confiscated, and the passengers were herded into an airport hotel. Susan had no idea when she would be leaving. She felt like she had “entered a black hole,” where she did not know anyone and no one knew where she was. After a day and a half she was “dragged” from her room at 4am, and her journey recommenced. But she never forgot the strangeness of feeling “absolutely alone in the universe”, of having “disappeared almost”. It was off the beaten path “not physically, but emotionally”.
When Susan Orlean admits that she has an inherently “large appetite for learning something new, for being thrown off [her] usual path”, she captures the essence of what makes her work so unique. Her inspiration touches world travelers, writers, and merely the curious alike.
To further explore travel through the nomadic authors who have spoken at National Geographic, check out:
