BAD TRIPS, edited by Keath Fraser...

BAD TRIPS, edited by Keath Fraser (Vintage: $12). Rain, heat, cold, wretched food, inoperative plumbing and unreliable transportation rank as the most frequently cited problems in this collection of short pieces about disastrous sojourns in foreign lands. However, the worst excursions often make the most entertaining reading. Martha Gellhorn dismisses the hippies she finds in Israel as “traveling to find themselves, rather as if oneself were a missing cuff link or earring that rolled under the bed.” Anita Desai seems to shiver as she recounts her experiences on a tiny, frozen island off the Norwegian coast. In a hilarious excerpt from “Travels in Hyperreality,” semiotician Umberto Eco struggles to capture the rococo a go-go kitsch of the Madonna Inn in central California: “Let’s say that Albert Speer, while leafing through a book on Gaudi, swallowed an overgenerous dose of LSD and began to build a nuptial catacomb for Liza Minnelli. But that doesn’t give you an idea. Let’s say Arcimboldi builds the Sagrada Familia for Dolly Parton. Or Carmen Miranda designs a Tiffany locale for the Jolly Hotel chain. . . .”