As we studied in the class, there are many kinds of travel literature and my favourite kind is road trips.I like to read about trips and about the things happen during them but what i love the most is when i read a book written in more literary way,so i was looking for a book about these kinds of trips.It was easy to find a lot of books such as Road Fever by Tim Cahill ,On The Road by Jack Kerouac and The Lost Continent by Bill Bryson , all these books are so good and so popular,but there is one of them was the most exciting for me which was Blue Highway by william least heatmoon.
This book is about a man who drives his old van through Ameirca but the new thing in this trip is he does not drive through the main roads.He decides to drive through the back roads of Aemirca.The motivation for this trip ,which is similar to the Snow Leopard motivation, is after the writer brakes up with his wife and after losing his job he decides to do this trip.This book is one of most popular books and it's worth reading it .
That's great Sabhan that you have done a bit of research on this book which was in the original syllabus I gave you at the start of the course. It is a really interesting read, if you can stretch to buying it, it's on Amazon. It's similar in a way to John Steinbeck's 'Travels with Charley' in the sense that it's one man on the road (however Steinbeck had his dog!!!) Least Heat-Moon's text explores the 'B' road, as you've found out, so it's interesting as he is commenting on taking an 'alternative' route to what everyone else seems to take. His observations are also really interesting. Why did he choose to do this? What do you think Sabhan? It could take longer, you reckon around 13 000 miles - well, yes, he could certainly have made the trip shorter if he had followed the A roads, so what was his motivation? The theme of wanting to 'find oneself' on the road is a common one within this genre (or even the main theme). You've picked up on this already, so here's a question for you.
ReplyDelete'Do you think anyone can ever really 'find themselves' through a road trip or travel in general?'
Sabhan, it's great we share an appreciation of 'road trip' literature. Here are some books / DVD's you might enjoy in the future:
ReplyDelete- 'Paris, Texas' Wim Wenders (German film maker - influenced heavily by the effect of the US on Germany/Europe - beautiful cinematography of the wide open spaces).
- 'Thelma and Louise' (feminist film, but you might enjoy it!!)
Texts such as Kerouac and 'The Beats' looked at briefly in class, (poetry and prose, explore themes of the open road and counter-culture).
See you tom:)