With his full access, de Botton seemed to most enjoy interviewing airport employees and visiting back corners, where he found a multi-faith room holding an assortment of furniture and a shelf of sacred texts. At the beginning of human history, as we struggled to light fires and to chisel fallen trees into rudimentary canoes, who could have predicted that long after we had managed to send men to the moon and aeorplanes to Australasia, we would still have such trouble knowing how to tolerate ourselves, forgive our loved ones and apologise for our tantrums? How quickly all the advantages of technological civilization are wiped out by a domestic squabble. Despite the massive technology systems, construction of terminals and runways that carry wide-bodied aircraft, there are subjective psychological knots that undermine their use. The depth of de Botton’s writing is best exemplified by his analysis of human nature, and the difference between the expectations and realities of travel, in which we are still with ourselves.
We witness painful goodbyes to young lovers and the routine of short-haul business trips in and out of London. How any author could write so clearly, in full view of passengers traveling between Heathrow’s Terminals 4 and new Terminal 5 is intriguing, While reading, we are swayed by this man who enjoys airports so much that, were he traveling, he wouldn’t mind hearing a flight was delayed while they fix a hydraulic leak.Ī Week at the Airport is a delightful exploration of the airport as a “non-place” where time means nothing, unless you’re a minute late.
de Botton writes with a conversational tone as though he is thinking aloud, as in his other books, and he invites us in to look into the lives of travelers. His assignment as Writer in Residence gave him full privileges to wander the airport, night and day, and he doesn’t miss a thing from security, loneliness, behind-the-scenes workers, and mechanical marvels. It is our good fortune to observe his week, and enjoy the unprecedented access he shares with us in A Week at the Airport: A Heathrow Diary. The author was fortunate to receive an assignment to set up a desk at the new Terminal 5 at London’s Heathrow Airport for a week, and write about his observations. If you’ve ever imagined where the airport departures timetable might take you, Alain de Botton shares your travel lust.
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