Page - 54 - in >mcs_lab> - Mobile Culture Studies, Volume 2/2020

54 Mobile Culture Studies. The Journal 6 2o20 (Travel) Rhian Waller | Postcolonial Pictures more permanent by pinning them to the page. Like his writing, the immersed lens signifies dis- comfiting elements of voyeurism. However, the multi-layered photograph provides a complex, challenging perspective. Here, the subject-position of the traveller is destabilised and their pri- macy questioned. Unlike the other covers, where the perspective of the photograph allows the viewer to look down on the subjects from a “position of symbolic power” (Jewitt and Oyama, 2004: 135), this places the subjects at an advantage. They appear to lock eyes with the viewer, across time and space, creating a sense of counter-observation. The image is Edenic, suffused with blues and greens, but this is an inhabited Eden and the viewer is an intruder. It is surprising this is the only cover to closely feature human figures. As Harrison points out, “the human face is one of the most powerful resources in visual imagery because people are ‘hard-wired’ from infancy to study faces and their expressions” (2003), and human interactions are an integral part of the travel narrative. It is worth noting the most recent Penguin edition of The Happy Isles (Theroux, 2012), reverts to the paradise contrived mode, featuring an empty beach and a lone palm, that time-honoured sign of a desert (and deserted) island. Perhaps the composition of these book covers suggests, on an instinctive level, publishers believe readers prefer fixity and simple, controlled visions of paradise, an empty space waiting for a part-time Crusoe. Fig 4: Side-by-side comparison of The Happy Isles of Oceania editions 1992 and 2012 (Theroux).