Representation of Oriental Travelees and Locus in Jurgen Wasim Frembgen’s Travelogue: The Closed Valley: With Fierce Friends in Pakistani Himalays

Abstract

The oft despised and ignored genre of travel writing was recognized as worthy of scholarly investigation in 1970s thanks to Edward Said’s Orientalism, the wave of deconstructionism, and postcolonialism (Calzati, 2015). For these scholars, travel writers do not present a transparent window to an alien space and its residents even though they normally claim it. For them the representation of the traveled terrain and travelees is an ideological construction which is tainted with the travel writer’s ‘habitus’ and ‘field’ and crafted through fictional devices. In this regard, by drawing on postcolonial methodology, the current study seeks to evince how Frembgen in his travelogue, The Closed Valley: With Fierce Friends in Pakistani Himalayas which narrates his voyage to Harban, a far-flung mountainous region in Pakistan Himalaya, reproduces the pitfalls of previous Western travel writers when he depicts his destination and travelees in negative terms. From his perspective, his timeless traveled locus is rife with violence, yet a space to escape from dehumanizing ambience of the West. Additionally, for him the women in this tribal region are tyrannized by husbands and victimized by Muslim extremists. Last but not least, he portrays this remote oriental space as an object of curiosity which needs to be salvaged textually. Keywords: Travel Writing, Timeless, Escape, Women, Violence, Curiosity

Image of Oriental Turkmen Female Travelees in the Nineteenth Century Western Travel Writing

“…Another common technique at the disposal of Western travel writers to exoticize their travelees is drawing on Romanticism (Gholi, 2016). Romanticism is characterized by its interest in remote places, strange customs, legends, folklore and medievalism among the other (Baldick 2001& Abrams, 2000 to achieve wonder.…”

A Non-Orientalist Representation of Pakistan in Contemporary Western Travelogues

“…To analyze Frembgen's Red Sufi in pursuit of this argument, the present study benefits from Debbie Lisle's (2006) theories on the cosmopolitan vision of a travel writer and Edward Said's (1978) theory of Orientalism. Unlike the prejudiced colonial writer for whom the locals are merely an uncivilized mass, the cosmopolitan travel writer not only appreciates the complexities and intricacies of the Orient but also seeks to liberate the Western audience from their colonial bigotry by drawing attention to the harmonizing effects of globalization (Gholi, 2017). Through a close reading of the text with reference to Said's postulations on Orientalism, this study aims to initiate inquiries into the discursive representation of power and identify the various ways in which the narrative demonstrates alternative views of Pakistani people and culture to debunk certain Orientalist presumptions.…”

“…It is because of its unconventional form and content that Frembgen's narrative has remained tremendously underresearched. Noting the unorthodox deconstruction of Orientalism throughout Red Sufi, Gholi (2017) aptly observes that, From his [Frembgen's] perspective, his timeless traveled locus is rife with violence, yet a space to escape from dehumanizing ambience of the West. Additionally, for him the women in this tribal region are tyrannized by husbands and victimized by Muslim extremists.…”