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T H I S+W E E K American byways
> Ode to the road D E P A R T M E N T S The Surreal Gourmet
Mondo Weirdo
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Capturing the essence of America is as simple as filling up your gas tank, cranking the tunes, rolling down the windows and hitting the interstate when you think of "doing" Europe, in the capture-the-spirit-of-the-continent sense, visions of trains fill your head. Crowded compartments with first-rate window-seat views. Tropical journeys suggest giant white cruise liners gliding into bustling ports. But when you think of an American journey, an entirely different vision comes to mind. Great expanses of highways. The warm smell of discarded cups and wrappers collecting in the back seat of a plush, lone automobile. Cruise control. Windows down. Wind-whipped hair. The low repetitive thump of road beneath your tires. High-pitched wails from the cassette deck. Lonely stretches broken up with greasy meals and hesitant stops at roadside filler stations. Bonnie and Clyde. Thelma and Louise. Independence. Rebellion. Small town folk. Semis with pin-up girls on their mud flaps. There is something that draws Americans to the road. When summer's long days tug at our wanderlust, only those with sad time restraints shuffle onto planes. The rest of us pack up our cars and crowd onto the interstates. And when we think of capturing the heart of our country, our destination -- whether it be our family farm or the sprawling expanse of New York and Los Angeles -- becomes mere ends to a mean. The freeways that carry us are what matters. They are the destination. Perhaps Steinbeck was right when he mused, in "Travels With Charley": "Could it be that Americans are a restless people, a mobile people, never satisfied with where they are as a matter of selection? The pioneers, the immigrants who peopled the continent, were the restless ones in Europe ... But every one of us, except the Negroes forced here as slaves, are descended from the restless ones, the wayward ones who were not content to stay at home. Wouldn't it be unusual if we had not inherited this tendency? And the fact is that we have." We set out to find some American novels that capture the spirit of the U.S. of A. Not surprisingly, they all turned out to be tales of the open road.
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BY JOHN STEINBECK | at the age of 58, John Steinbeck sets out to cure a relentless urge "to be someplace else." An American writer, he feels detached from his country, familiar with it only through news stories and books. He purchases a truck, naming it Rocinante after Don Quixote's horse, and sets out with his poodle, Charley, from New York to his hometown in California, and back through Texas and the Deep South. One of Steinbeck's gifts as a writer of social criticism is his ability to describe "average" people without the slightest hint of condescension, perhaps erring in favor of sentimentality. "Travels With Charley," the memoir of his journey, is no different. With directness and honesty, Steinbeck describes the people he encounters while traveling anonymously. His comments on the racial tensions in the South and feeling like a stranger in his hometown are simple and touching. Select
BY JACK KEROUAC | "on the Road" was Jack Kerouac's second novel, but it was the work that propelled him to literary fame. The book was written at a frantic pace -- three weeks on one enormous roll of paper -- and Kerouac reflected that he'd spent seven years on the road in preparation for his "road book." Kerouac casts himself as Sal Paradise and his friend Neal Cassady as Dean Moriarty, a crazed and lustful mystic. They travel back and forth across the country, breaking laws and testing the boundaries of marriage, drug use, sex and kindness. There is a certain hysteria to their wanderings, but also a compelling quest, a state of searching. When "On the Road" was published to overwhelming accolades, the word on everyone's lips was "beat." Kerouac was declared the founder of a new "lost generation." But in reading his novel you find that he did far more than define a quirky but lasting literary movement; he found a new way to look at the country, to test its promise of freedom and accompanying limitations. Select
BY HENRY MILLER | henry Miller returned to the United States in 1939 after 10 years of living the expat life in Paris, desiring reconciliation with and a deeper understanding of his home country. After purchasing a car and obtaining a book deal and a travel companion, he sets out to discover his country, only to be thoroughly disgusted by it. Part travel narrative, part societal critique, Miller rails against the greed and shallowness he sees around him. He paints the country in stark contrast to Europe, and more importantly, to its founding ideals of freedom and democracy. Miller sees hypocrisy everywhere. He's horrified by Americans' habitual consumerism and lack of spiritual or aesthetic values. Although he does find time to fall in love with his car and weep before the Grand Canyon, for the most part this patriotic novel is a lamentation for and flat-out critique of America. Yet it's strangely patriotic: Only someone deeply concerned with a nation's welfare would take such painstaking measures to discipline it in writing. Select
EDITED BY JEAN LINDAMOOD | "road Trips, Head Trips, and Other Car-Crazed Writings" is the anthology for automobile fanatics. Edited by Jean Lindamood, the co-founding editor of Automobile Magazine, and introduced by P.J. O'Rourke, the witty right-wing gadfly, this funky collection includes fiction, poetry, historical essays and personal memoirs on every topic relating to cars imaginable. There's Dave Barry's famous essay "Slow Down and Die," about those annoying people who insist on driving slow in the passing lane. A charming essay on the virtues of the motorcycle by L.J.K. Setright is included, sandwiched between more industry-oriented pieces such as Bruce McCall's "History of the Studebaker Corporation, 1852-1923." Joyce Carol Oates' poem "Night Driving" is particularly lovely and quite at home among the work of Ernest Hemingway, Allen Ginsberg and Calvin Trillin. If there were any question of the car as symbol for America, this book answers it resoundingly. Select BY MIKE MCINTYRE | a disillusioned journalist abandons his job, his girlfriend and his bank account to backpack penniless from San Francisco to Cape Fear, N.C. Refusing to accept money, he places himself totally at the mercy of strangers. With only a few harrowing encounters, he is given rides, fed and sheltered almost consistently throughout his journey. In the process he learns that this country is full of good-hearted strangers willing to take the risk of kindness. Select July 1, 1997 Is a car the best way to see the country? Have you had any interesting experiences on road trips? Join the ongoing discussion in Table Talk. |
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