Luggage (Object Lessons)

This book is about a lot more then just a history and analysis of luggage. Susan Harlan’s approachable writing style is something anyone can understand and absorb. She made me deeply interested in this subject and I enjoyed this book immensley. It’s a quick and fun read that is filled with amazing anecdotes about life, travel, and what we take with us along the way. I purchased this as a gift for many of my friends. I love this series!!

Luggage by Susan Harlan is one of the newest releases from Bloomsbury Press Academic.  The series are object lessons about simple things in life that are often overlooked in our daily lives.  Harlan is Associate Professor of English at Wake Forest University. She is the author of Memories of War in Early Modern England.Traveling has changed quite a bit even in the last two decades.  Gone are the days of two big bags and a carry on with your flight.  I used to pack up my entire life in two seabags and a carry on and move to a new military base.  It was simple. Now you get one carry on and, of course, you can be randomly selected for extra Secondary Security Screening Selection.  Live simple and you can live out of a carry on for a week.  Need more, AmTrak allows four bags per passenger. Luggage was a status symbol and one traveled with as much as they could.  Steamer trunks and bags for things that are today much more portable or disposable.   The more you (had) carried the richer you were perceived.  Ship and train travel made plenty of room for bags and trunks.  Although luggage makes up only 10% of a commercial aircraft weight the price rate is at a premium.  Although traveling has gotten easier and the travel times shorter, taking one's luggage has gotten expensive. Harlan gives a history of luggage while she packs and travels to Alabama's Unclaimed Baggage Center.  If the reader ever wondered what happens to unclaimed baggage, Harlan takes the reader into the Unclaimed Baggage Center in Scottsdale.  Luggage is purchased sight unseen,  opened, cleaned, and sold to the public at discounted prices.  Overall, it is an interesting look at what we use to carry our stuff in.  From steamer trunks, to American Tourister's 1971 commercial of their suitcase versus a gorilla, to the invention roller bags luggage, has come a long way.

“Sometimes it is difficult to distinguish between a traveler and his or her luggage. We become our things.” Harlan muses on how luggage becomes ‘baggage.’ Coming from the verb, ‘lug’, to pull laboriously, it can imply difficulty and challenge.I enjoyed this short book/essays about luggage, moving from trunks and chests to roller-boards and backpacks. (My favorite suitcase is Rick Steves backpack suitcase. I can travel for 2 weeks with only carry on! It’s nice to have backpack straps when walking through old cities with rough sidewalks or many curbs. Lots of handy compartments with easy access.)As travel changed to trains and then automobiles and planes, so did luggage needs. Luggage not only protected your possessions, it proclaimed your class/ wealth status. Fun fact: “On ocean liners it was standard for a first-class passenger to bring 20 pieces of luggage containing 4 changes of clothing per day.” Yikes.In the 1970s, a baggage rule was two bags weighing up to 70 pounds each – free of charge! I remember having blisters on my hands from my 50 pound suitcase – almost everything I needed as an exchange student for a year in Germany. No wheels.Luggage holds secrets. It is private even though it goes with us in public. The author relates brief stories about letters and stories found in suitcases and trunks. She unpacks ‘packing,’ “an exercise in anticipation, in imagining the unknown and attempting to account and prepare for it.” Packing is a learned skill. I taught my kids to pack when they were young with a list. My son learned to be a good borrower or do without ; )Harlan even elaborates that “Samsonite’s designs from the middle of the last century make it abundantly clear that men are supposed to travel one way and women, another.” I wish there would have been more pictures!This would make a nice gift for a traveler. The essays are interesting, well-written, and easy to read in little pieces while traveling. Include some real luggage or a ticket for an extra special gift!Thank you to NetGalley, the author and publisher for granting access to an arc of this book for an honest review.

This is the second book that I have read in the Object Lessons series from Bloomsbury the first being "Souvenir" and after enjoying the first I was not disappointed with my second read. Although only around 100 or so pages in length these books do have great meaning and depth as they attempt to tackle the essence and meaning of what appears to be ordinary objects. What I like about reading one of these books is that you never really know in what direction the author will take you, in this case one moment you may be looking at an advertisement from the 1950's and the next be reading the reflections of Jane Austin. The treatment of the subject is very much left to the author and here Susan Harlan is not only a writer who is interested in the relationship between memory and objects but is also an avid collector of retro luggage.The word Luggage and what it means is explored through a cultural dimension that includes films, plays and books. And the loss of what could be in the luggage may haunt someone for the rest of their lives for instance Ernest Hemingway's wife losing the trunk containing not only his manuscripts but copies at a Paris railway station on route to Switzerland in 1922. If you are looking for a structured approach then you may be disappointed but if you are happy to let the author take you on an uneven journey of her choosing then I would certainly recommend thisA review copy was provided by the publisher.