posted
Mr. CG96 Signature line notes a Mark Twain passage:
quote:"Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one corner of the Earth all one's life."
Even if rail is only mentioned tangentially, this piece appearing in this past Sunday's New York Times from travel-writer Paul Theroux is a worthwhile read:
IN the bungling and bellicosity that constitute the back and forth of history, worsened by natural disasters and unprovoked cruelty, humble citizens pay the highest price. To be a traveler in such circumstances can be inconvenient at best, fatal at worst. But if the traveler manages to breeze past such unpleasantness on tiny feet, he or she is able to return home to report: “I was there. I saw it all.” The traveler’s boast, sometimes couched as a complaint, is that of having been an eyewitness, and invariably this experience — shocking though it may seem at the time — is an enrichment, even a blessing, one of the life-altering trophies of the road.
“Don’t go there,” the know-it-all, stay-at-home finger wagger says of many a distant place. I have heard it my whole traveling life, and in almost every case it was bad advice. In my experience these maligned countries are often the most fulfilling. I am not saying they are fun. For undiluted jollification you bake in the sun at Waikiki with a mai tai in your fist, or eat lotuses on the Côte d’Azur. As for the recognition of hard travel as rewarding, the feeling is mainly retrospective, since it is only in looking back that we see how we have been enriched. At the time, of course, the experience of being a bystander to sudden political or social change can be alarming.
Even if I'm not much of a traveler anymore (2010; 23 nights and using auto, air, and rail modes) and what I do is largely prompted by what's needed to "keep friends friends and family family', I recognize and respect that travel is an avocation to many here at the site. This article should fortify you when confronted with the "why must you do all that travel?" line of thought.
Posts: 9975 | From: Clarendon Hills, IL USA (BNSF Chicago Sub MP 18.71) | Registered: Apr 2002
| IP: Logged |
posted
Paul Theroux, along with Evelyn Waugh, Michael Palin and a few others, is among the world's greatest literary travelers.
Coincidentally, the Times also had a piece yesterday on a travel book by John Steinbeck, "Travels with Charley."
Most of the book, the article says, was fiction. Much of the narrative happened only in Steinbeck's mind, not in reality.
Goes to show, perhaps, that great travel writing tends to happen in the imagination, a phenomenon that lifts the genre out of journalism and into literature.
Is this a bad thing? No, because the audience at which literary travel writing is aimed is considered sophisticated enough to understand (and appreciate) what the writer is doing.
That's only my opinion, you understand.
Posts: 2236 | From: Evanston, Ill. and Ontonagon, Mich. | Registered: Feb 2007
| IP: Logged |
posted
WELL!! Now that you have burst the bubble as it were this book remains one of my favorites. It is read (by me ) about once a year with much enjoyment. I frankly don't give a hoot if it is real or imaginary. I think it is great.It lives on the favorites shelf with Elswyth Thane's Williamsburg series.
Posts: 1577 | From: virginia | Registered: Jun 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
Train Lady, it doesn't matter. "Travels with Charley" is a great travel narrative. I loved it, too.
Posts: 2236 | From: Evanston, Ill. and Ontonagon, Mich. | Registered: Feb 2007
| IP: Logged |
posted
Mr.Norman,that Mark Twain passage is one of my favorites. Thank you for revitalizing it as an introduction to the N.Y. Times article.
Posts: 498 | From: New Hope, PA, USA | Registered: Jan 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
Train Lady - if you are up for a CL, CZ ride, the Steinbeck museum in Salinas, CA is well worth a visit - including 'Rocinante', his jeep camper from the book. For those looking for travel literature (also includes lots of travel guide type stuff) this site always has some good recommendations for those of us with wanderlust in our system.
GBN thanks for the Theroux link. While I always enjoy his books, I do find them a little depressing - maybe because of the unvarnished reality he describes. I do like a little more upbeat story - must be the romantic in me.
Posts: 2397 | From: Camden, SC | Registered: Mar 2006
| IP: Logged |
posted
I read that book while in college in the early 60's. Agree that it is one of the better "travel journal" type works out there, even though a lot of it is really fiction. I believe Steinbeck was in bad shape, health-wise, when he wrote it.
Posts: 1530 | From: Ocala, FL | Registered: Dec 2006
| IP: Logged |
posted
I can't let mention of "Travels with Charley" go by without mentioning one of my favorite 'road books' -
William Least-Heat Moon's "Blue Highways".
-------------------- David Pressley
Advocating for passenger trains since 1973!
Climbing toward 5,000 posts like the Southwest Chief ascending Raton Pass. Cautiously, not nearly as fast as in the old days, and hoping to avoid premature reroutes. Posts: 4203 | From: Western North Carolina | Registered: Feb 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
David, I agree with you. that also is a book to be read over again. He wrote 2 others that I like RiverBoat and ( I think) Journey to Quoz.
Posts: 1577 | From: virginia | Registered: Jun 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
While not a great travel book, or even a book, one of my favorite reads back in the late 80's was a quarterly "magazine" called Out West, written by Chuck Woodbury. My brother subscribed for several years, and passed them on. I kept all the issues. If interested, one can read some of those old articles here: http://outwestnewspaper.com/Posts: 406 | From: La Grange, CA | Registered: Sep 2007
| IP: Logged |
posted
Thanks GBN for that link from the Gray Harridan (Crone?) I'm glad Paul Theroux is still producing travel insights; that paragraph on earlier "adventure" travel in Afghanistan was pretty vivid with the "scolding mullahs and bowel-busting cuisine." I still have an old first edition Riding the Iron Rooster (c.1988) which described the fun of the Chinese steamtrain era... I still look at Kerouac's On The Road once in awhile, when I need a dose of gritty travel writing; I was 3 years old when that one came out. Posts: 588 | From: East San Diego County, CA | Registered: Oct 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
It's been many years since I read "Travels With Charley," but I thought that narrative was a true story of the trip Steinbeck took in that camper.
Then there was that National Geographic story about the young kid who walked across America, met his wife out west somewhere, got married, and had a child. I forgot the kid's name ("Peter" somebody?), but his story was featured in NG many years ago -- I don't remember if he write a book about his adventure.
Posts: 2428 | From: Grayling, MI | Registered: Mar 2002
| IP: Logged |
Then there was that National Geographic story about the young kid who walked across America, met his wife out west somewhere, got married, and had a child. I forgot the kid's name ("Peter" somebody?), but his story was featured in NG many years ago -- I don't remember if he write a book about his adventure.
You're thinking of Peter Jenkins and the book was "A Walk Across America" followed by, I think, "The Walk West". He would walk for a bit, stop and work when the money ran low.... I remember in particular that he was working at a sawmill near Murphy, NC when the town was struck by a tornado in April 1974.
A decade later I took my first job out of college and moved to Murphy, NC.
Jenkins writes from the heart and has a great story to tell........ but it is not the literary delight on every page that "Blue Highways" is.
-------------------- David Pressley
Advocating for passenger trains since 1973!
Climbing toward 5,000 posts like the Southwest Chief ascending Raton Pass. Cautiously, not nearly as fast as in the old days, and hoping to avoid premature reroutes. Posts: 4203 | From: Western North Carolina | Registered: Feb 2004
| IP: Logged |
Printer-friendly view of this topic
![[Wink]](wink.gif)
I'm glad Paul Theroux is still producing travel insights; that paragraph on earlier "adventure" travel in Afghanistan was pretty vivid with the "scolding mullahs and bowel-busting cuisine." I still have an old first edition Riding the Iron Rooster (c.1988) which described the fun of the Chinese steamtrain era...![[Smile]](smile.gif)
