Shut up already

Globetrotter Dogma

Bruce Northam

New World Library

… Globetrotter Dogma

Bruce Northam

New World Library

Conan O’Brien does a bit on his show called “If They Mated,” where he takes two celebrities and, pretending they have kids, shows the audience the deformed offspring. That bit is a convenient device to describe “Globetrotter Dogma,” the new book by Bruce Northam.

Take the song “Everybody’s Free (To Wear Sunscreen)” by Baz Luhrmann, “mate” it with the “Seinfeld” version of the J. Peterman Catalog, and you get “Globetrotter Dogma.”

Advertised by the publisher as “100 Canons for Escaping the Rat Race and Exploring the World,” one can only imagine what nuggets of wisdom “Globetrotter Dogma” can offer when, upon opening the book, it’s discovered that there are in fact 104 canons. What does it say about the book when its own publisher cuts out content meant to inspire the globetrotter in all of us? And while not as punchy as “100 Canons for Escaping …,” why not advertise the four extra nuggets of wisdom Northam offers?

Both questions are answered immediately after reading the first bit of knowledge Northam bequeaths to the reader. His “advice” is so pretentious and smacks of “I’ve circled the world”-ism (which he has – five times, he says) that at times it’s tough to resist the temptation to throw the book against the wall. Those four extra canons end up becoming a hindrance.

Northam regularly spouts off cute little one-liners like “People are people; the rest is politics” in Canon 5 called “More hugging, less mugging,” and exhibits his braggadocio with statements like, “While trekking among unclad Irian Jayan aboriginals I read this apropos inquiry in Henry David Thoreau’s ‘Walden,’…” in Canon 36, “Pack a literary masterpiece,” that the book feels like Luhrmann’s musical graduation speech and the oft-lampooned lifestyle catalog.

Northam’s hubris does not inspire sympathy in the reader. In a book meant to motivate people to ditch the “rat race,” all Northam does is promote the idea that the only way to do it is to become an intellectual snob and run off to the exotic lands of Asia. In the process, he alienates the reader. As the book rolls on, this level of alienation becomes greater and greater.

In a book meant to inspire, “Globetrotter Dogma” doesn’t do a very good job of it. Maybe Northam should have checked his ego at the door and penned a book that could be accessible to all instead of the few that can afford to go – and who probably have visited already – the exotic locales of the world.