He'll be black...

TITLE: AA Gill is Away
AUTHOR: AA Gill
PUBLISHER: Simon & Schuster

RATING
5/5 "Blackadder"; 4/5 "Black Sabbath"; 3/5 "Blackberry"; 2/5 "Black-Listed"; 1/5 "Black Friday"
SCORE: 5/5

The cover is black. Matte, ominous, "2001" monolith black, the title spelled out in stark white letters. It's a collection of travel writing, but no clues for guessing that when AA Gill is away, he's not sunning his backside in St. Tropez or picking sunflowers in Andalusia (or if he is, he has to good sense not to tell anyone). It's not just the cover that's black and white: Mr Gill takes us to some of humanity's darkest hellholes, but also shines a light in some surprising places. He veers between apoplectic rage and childish glee, but his writing always sears like a quicklime shower. This is travel writing like you've never seen before. Ladies and gentlemen, AA Gill is the new black.

The AA Gill of the title is Adrian Anthony Gill, restaurant and TV critic for the UK's Sunday Times newspaper, travel writer and contributor to magazines such as Vanity Fair and GQ. The key word there is "critic", and Mr Gill has scribbled himself a very profitable byline in being an outrageously, provocatively opinionated ass about most things. In the course of his literary career he has managed to give offense to--in order of decreasing plausibility--animal-lovers, the Germans, the Albanians, and the Welsh. Irritatingly, he also happens to be a very, very talented ass. Mr Gill is the master to the unexpected metaphor and vivid visual imagery, each page hitting you like a psychedelic thunderstorm.

He's also one of the few writers this side of Edgar Allan Poe who appears aware that English is a spoken language, not just a written one. Try reading it out loud, "chuckling children being bathed in tin buckets ... gaggling women at the wheezing water pump filling the first of interminable four-gallon plastic cans", and you realize there's more to Mr Gill than foreigner-baiting. It's travel writing, but at times it's closer to poetry.

"AA Gill is Away" is a collection of 25 travel articles by Mr Gill, previously published in either the Sunday Times or GQ (the latter are easy to spot--they're about either cars or porn), mainly between 1998 and 2001. The book is divided into four sections, titled South, East, West and North, though these divisions only make sense if you happen to be Maltese: Argentina and Cuba are West, but Milan and Monaco are North.

Mr Gill is not a foreign correspondent, and these pieces tend to be more snapshots than in-depth analyses. Often, when he takes us somewhere unexpected or makes us look at something in a new way--he spends several days as the director of a pornographic movie--this is effective and informative. Bethlehem on the eve of the new millennium is a revelation, he piece on sleeping sickness in Uganda is a wakeup call. However, when it really is just AA Gill on holiday, the end result meanders about very prettily but doesn't leave any lasting impressions.

As delightful as the articles are, Mr Gill's hyperactive vocabulary and emotional extremes can be a little wearying. Sometimes, too, he's so busy tossing out Technicolor commentary he forgets there are readers trying to keep up with him. You want to sit him down, fix him some ice tea, and say "Now the Gilly, what was that about Canadians and Cubans being the opposite poles of human variation? Can't make head nor tail of it." What does he mean when he says hating Germans is "the only thing that truly emulsifies us"? I don't hate the Germans; I know what an emulsion is, but I'm clearer of how they work in chemistry than international relations. Maybe the line works better in Britain, as do the references to Britons famous in the UK and not elsewhere.

Intellectually, "AA Gill is Away" is like learning at the feet of Socrates. You shake your head. "If only I could write like this". Emotionally though, it's hard to know how to react to the book. Mr Gill is a professional critic; that is, he earns a living by being contentious. You always wonder how much is heartfelt, how much is calculated to push your buttons. Does he really hate Japan or is that what he thought would make a better story? A little of both, perhaps. No doubt he feels, but also he exaggerates.

I doubt I could be friends with Mr Gill, and I certainly wouldn't want to travel with him. Yet I could read and re-read almost any one of these pieces endlessly and call it perfection. Black, you see, never goes out of style.