on the nature of everyday life

I was in Ireland once, for about week. I spent my sixteenth birthday in Blarney, got lost in Blarney castle, and kissed the urine-covered Blarney Stone. I also spent St. Patrick's Day in Dublin (where the parade was cancelled due to a panic about Hoof and Mouth disease) and even saw the illuminated manuscripts at Trinity University . . . but somehow -- and I could be wrong about this -- I don't think I got the typical Irish experience. Glassie writes:

"Tourists leave home, and some share their observations in travel literature. But always in a hurry, they never stay long enough to learn something new. Deadlines and profits beckon. Languid or angry, their shallow writings, her farrow and pain, are constructed of quick encounters in street or pub where people talk too much, too cleverly, too dogmatically." (pg. 86)

I guess the idea of The Tourist is something I fixate on (I talked about it in relation to A Small Place as well), and Glassie is hinting at why. The problem with "touring Europe" or visiting anywhere, really, is just that: you're visiting. Your experience of the place you are visiting is inherently limited by your inability to truly be absorbed as a member of that particular community. Glassie makes the case throughout his book that the only reason he was able to have such an understanding of these people is because he spent time with them, talked with them, lived with them. Their everyday lives became his everyday life, and while he is still an outsider, he probably came as close as one can get in such a situation.

I think it's one of the tragedies of the nature of our lives that we don't all have an opportunity to do what Glassie did. We are consumed by our own everyday life in such a way that it is by definition impossible to experience anyone else's. Moreover, most of us don't have the time, money, or opportunity to travel the world and immerse ourselves in a foreign culture. Our experiences, like a tourist, are limited to the views of the outsider, and are interpreted through the lens of our own everyday experiences. Much of the joy in reading this book (and I would imagine, writing it) is seeing the culture/experience of Ballymenone through its own eyes and assumptions. 

--Ashley