In a brand-new terminal, old thoughts on travel

September 22, 2010|Rob Verger

The title of Alain de Botton’s latest book concisely describes the subject of this brief work of nonfiction. The airport in question is Heathrow in London — specifically, Terminal 5 — and the week that the author spent there was at the invitation of the airport’s owner, BAA, which wanted to showcase the new terminal.

Thus, for “A Week at the Airport’’ London-based de Botton became an employee of BAA, which he refers to at one point as his “patron.’’ He could write about anything in the terminal; he was even given “explicit permission to be rude about the airport’s activities.’’ The result is a book, first published last year in England, which feels more like a long essay. As such, it sometimes feels forgettable or strange, and at other moments is sensitively and memorably observed, and ponders important philosophical questions about travel. It’s accompanied by color photographs taken by Richard Baker, many of which are somewhat ordinary, and some of which are quite nice.

“A Week at the Airport’’ begins with a brief introduction, called Approach, which describes de Botton’s decision to accept BAA’s offer to be the “writer-in-residence,’’ and the remainder of the book is divided into three larger sections: Departures, Airside, and Arrivals. In Approach, de Botton describes his interest in the airport this way: “[A]sked to take a Martian to visit a single place that neatly captures the gamut of themes running through our civilization — from our faith in technology to our destruction of nature, from our interconnectedness to our romanticising of travel — then it would have to be to the departures and arrivals halls that one would head.’’

Much of the book is a pensive cataloging of what the writer encounters as he explores Terminal 5. Seeing 747s parked side by side, he nicely describes their fuselages as “dolphin-like.’’ We witness the wrenching farewell a couple undergo as they say goodbye; we meet a few of the people that de Botton talks to as he sits at his desk in the terminal; we meet a man who works shining shoes. (De Botton’s observations are occasionally somewhat strange, too, as when he compares the language on the room service menu in his hotel with haiku poetry.)