Dastgah: Diary of a Headtrip

By Mark Mordue

Australian award-winning journalist Mark Mordue invites you on his world trip that ranges from a Rolling Stones concert in Istanbul to talking with mullahs and junkies in Tehran, and from a cricket match in Calcutta to an S&M bar in New York, in addition to many points in between. Mordue chronicles his year-long global journey with his girlfriend, Lisa Nicol, exploring countries most Americans never see as well as issues of world citizenship in the 21st century. Written in the tradition of literary journalism, Dastgah will take you to all kinds of places, across the world . . . and inside yourself.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0971691568
• ISBN13: 9780971691568
• Release Date: October 2004
• Publisher: Hawthorne Books
• Length: 309 Pages
• Weight: 0.95 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.5" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Memoirs of the Old World

Mordue traveled through Asia, Europe, and New York before 9/11--so although this book was published in the U.S. in 2004, it seems dated--the world isn't this way anymore. Having made some of the same journeys, I find Mordue's insights to be fresh yet not so quirky that the book is tiresome to read. The author admits he is a naif in his late 30s who hadn't traveled much outside Australia and so sees the places he visits as a worldly yet wide-eyed man. I especially enjoyed his take on Iran. The book should be read as a collection of magazine pieces rather than a narrative--and so the title Dastgah, improvisations on existing themes in Persian music, is apt.

Like a Rolling Stone

This book is uneven, patchy, which I think goes along with the author's mindset while travelling and perhaps while writing the book. Some entries into this pasrt-travel diary and part-autobiography are better than others. Especially recommended are accounts of his childhood, a bus ride in Nepal, his time in Iran and his trip to the Paris cemetery where Proust and Jim Morrison are buried. I read it while travelling myself in Southeast Asia and perhaps that is its best use, as a companion while abroad.