The Histories of Heodotus of Helicarnassus (484 BC-425 BC) could be considered as the first travel book that Antiquity has left us. But for centuries this traveler who recounted everything he saw in his comings and goings through Persia, Babylon and even Egypt, was considered a great liar, since it was implausible, so hallucinating or far-fetched, what he recounted in his writings. That is to say, if it continued to have readers throughout the centuries, it was mostly because it seemed to be an adventure novel, an entertaining novel, yes, well written, fascinating, something like Gulliver’s Travels.
Well, it would be if it weren’t for the fact that Jonathan Swift wrote his novel as a malicious satire of the society he lived in, only to have it become, over the years, a children’s adventure book; while Herodotus’ Histories have followed the opposite path. More and more archaeological investigations carried out in the lands described by the Greek certify that he was not lying at all.
Among the travel writers of recent times there is everything. After his death in 1989, Bruce Chatwin’s highly compelling travel books have transitioned from nonfiction to pure fiction. Something similar has happened with the great Polish reporter Kapuschinski (1932-2007), as there have been people who have followed in his footsteps around half the world, with the perhaps insane purpose of discovering how much lies and hyperbole there was in the master’s reports. . For some of his readers, his books have gone from being considered exemplars of truthful journalistic reporting to falling into the category of gripping, well-written works of fiction.
Then there is the case of Frederic Prokosch. Born in Wisconsin in 1906, this son of an Austrian immigrant who became a professor of Germanics at Yale University grew up in a privileged environment. In 1935 he published The Asians, a travel book that recounts the journey of a young American through a lot of countries between Turkey and the Far East, in which he does not stop running into the most diverse people, princes, wise men, majaras and beauties. ladies. His prose evokes the smells, colors, idiosyncrasies and customs of each country.
This book by an unknown young adventurer delighted Tomas Mann, André Gide and Albert Camus. The latter remarked that Prokosch had “invented what could be called the geographical novel.” Marguerite Yourcenar translated it into French. And it is that, despite the fact that on the first page the author warns that it is a novel, most of his readers accepted the experiences described by the author in distant exotic countries as good. So much so that he got thousands of young readers to follow in his footsteps.
Of course, Prokosch wrote it without even leaving home. Even so, it is truly amazing how many hits it contains regarding the political and social situation of the places he never visited.
The success of The Asians did not surpass the catastrophe of World War II, and the name of its author quickly fell into oblivion. But seen from today’s perspective, perhaps it was something like the prelude to a novel written by AI, as could also be the voyages recounted by Marco Polo or those of Ali Bey. How to verify the veracity of his writings? And, already put, how to do the same with the Bible?
Decidedly, the difficulty we have when it comes to distinguishing the truth from a lie goes back a long way and AI is just one more link in the chain of baseless beliefs that have wreaked havoc throughout history. It’s not just a matter of knowing who to believe, but knowing what to believe. And the algorithms have made it much more difficult for us. Can we trust our own memory?
