Destination: Wyoming

Book: (NEW) Come Again No More (September 2010) by Jack Todd

They were three miles west of town when the sun broke through. The wind tore the clouds to rags, the sun lit the rags on fire and in fiery trails they streamed across the sky that opened like a bruised and tender heart. [Opening sentences of Come Again No More]

In that opening, Jack Todd paints a beautiful picture of the open skies of Wyoming, but I like this passage a few sentences later, where the author gives us a capsule of the time when people are taking road trips, as well as the setting.

Now and again they caught up to battered jalopies tiptoeing along the road on tires that were tall and thin and bald as a buzzard, the drivers gritting their teeth as they held on to the wide steering wheels, fighting to keep an ancient Model T or a battered Studebaker form skidding into the barrow pit.

Now I know that the times are tough, and since the Model T is already ancient, I assume the 1930′s have arrived with the Great Depression. By the colloquialism ‘bald as a buzzard,’ I’m tipped off that this is the Western United States. Automobiles and road trips are important in this book, particularly since people wandered from state to state seeking relief from unrelenting hardship.

Todd portrays two worlds–ranching and gangster-ridden boxing–and there is no doubt when you leave one for the other. Not only the character’s speech, but the narrative reflects the rhythm and usage of its world.

On the ranch:” Ezra Paint crawled out of his bunk while it was still darker than a stack of black cats.”

In Jake, the prize fighter’s world: “..his knuckles had been broken so often that his hands looked like a bowl full of walnuts.”

The use of “telling details” eludes lesser writers (I will admit that it is the bane of my existence), and sets Jack Todd apart as a masterful teller of tales.

Come Again No More is the second in a trilogy about the ranching family, the Paints. Since I missed the first one, and devoured this one, I yearn to read the entire set, starting with Sun Going Down, and the third when it appears.

On his website, Todd explains that while he based the tales on stories from his parents‘ and grandparents’ experience, he fictionalized the events in order to reflect a broader view of the experience of those years.  He tips his hat to the master, John Steinbeck, whose The Grapes of Wrath (link to Penguin Classics edition) is the go-to novel for understanding life during the hard years of the depression.

Jack Todd doesn’t live in the American West, because he left the United States to avoid being drafted for the war in Vietnam. He is now a sportswriter in Canada. I am glad that I didn’t read the fine print about his personal choices before I read the novel. Whatever you think of his iconoclastic journalism or his surrender of his American passport, his writing about the West shines.

Take a look at Music Road for suggestions of music to accompany your road trip to the Western United States, including Wyoming.

Touchstone, an imprint of Simon and Schuster provided a review copy of this book to me. The photograph of the Bitterroot Mountains shows a Wyoming location, but the view from the Paint Ranch in Montana would have been similar. This photo comes from Flickr with a Creative Commons license. Please click on the photo for more information about the photographer.

I have highlighted several book titles above. If you click on the link it will take you to Amazon.com, and if you buy anything at all while you are there, A Traveler’s Library will gain a few cents.  Amazon statistics tell me that many are clicking, but few are buying. Come on, better start doing your holiday shopping. What better place to do it than here? Thanks for your support.

In the comments below, tell me if you are influenced by the personality or background of an author, or if you just judge a book by its contents. Let’s talk.

This content is a post from: A Traveler's Library To comment on this post or search for related information, click on the link to A Traveler's Library. We'll leave a light on for you.

©2012 A Traveler's Library. All Rights Reserved.

Atlanta Midtown

Destination: Atlanta, Georgia

Book: A Man in Full by Tom Wolfe (1998)

Tom Wolfe is not only a writer, but he plays one on T.V. Dressed in a white linen suit and white homburg hat, he chats amiably–those perfect southern manners on display, of course. And I will happily read anything he has written. So although he actually hails from Richmond Virignia, I’ve picked his book A Man in Full, which is set in Atlanta, Georgia for our road trip travel plans to that state.

Wolfe took his newspaper reporter’s eye for the telling detail and moved on to book-length discourses on icons of American culture–Manhattan lefty socialites and American racism (Radical Chic and Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers), Hippies (The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test) astronauts (The Right Stuff), among the titles that added to the American vocabulary. And his work set a standard for a new school of non-fiction: The New Journalism. Who can hear “the right stuff” without thinking of the astronaut culture? And Radical Chic became the perfect put down for the faux-sincere backer of causes. He moved into fiction with a novel that pinned to the wall the finance industry, Bonfire of the Vanities, written LO-O-O-NG before our present banking crisis. Then he took on his own region– the modern South and its class and race friction hidden under a veneer of politeness and its focus on doing bid-ness– A Man in Full.

Tom Wolfe lays his characters out on the table and slices them open with a sharp wit–laying bare every foible and pretense. And in A Man in Full, he not only paints sharp portraits of a vast array of human characters, but also slices and dices the city of Atlanta, symbol of the modern South.

The book is long and the plot is complex, but nothing Wolfe every writes is ponderous.  His individual sentences and phrases are delights. It takes him a long time to shape a book, and if you pause to ponder as you read the perfect word choices you will understand why.  He is in his eighties now and some doubt that he has enough time to finish a final work because of his meticulous approach–not because of any lack of energy.

If you need proof of his still lively, sharp mind, read this article printed about a year ago in the New York Times about NASA.

If you have never read Tom Wolfe, take a look at one of his books. If you want to know how a born and bred southerner sees the new South, and you’re ready to visit that most un-typical part of Georgia on your own road trip, read his novel set in Atlanta, A Man in Full. It’s a peach. (Sorry, couldn’t resist.)

Tom Wolfe

Charlie Rose interviews Tom Wolfe and you can see a copy on the Tom Wolfe website . Charlie Rose talks a bit too much in this half-hour show, but it gives you a good view of Tom Wolfe, nevertheless.

The portrait of Tom Wolfe, is filched from his publisher’s web site. The gorgeous picture of Atlanta at night above is from Flickr compliments of Creative Commons license. Please click on the picture to see more of that photographer’s work. Good stuff!

Don’t forget to pick up your road trip music over at Music Road. Kerry wrote last week about music for the two states, South Carolina and Georgia.

To begin at the beginning, you can go back to Blue Highways, or to start the trip south, see Virginia. And please, don’t miss any of the Road Trip,or the other travels at A Traveler’s Library. Subscribe! you now have three ways to follow along–

• I will e-mail you each post;
• you can get it in your RSS feed,
• or you can click on the Facebook widget over to the far right (with all the pictures) and follow me on Facebook.

Are you already a Tom Wolfe fan? Tell me what you’ve read, and how you like the “New Journalism” style. I’d love to have a conversation about one of my favorite authors. Alabama is coming up–suggestions??

This content is a post from: A Traveler's Library To comment on this post or search for related information, click on the link to A Traveler's Library. We'll leave a light on for you.

©2012 A Traveler's Library. All Rights Reserved.

Destination: North Carolina (The Sand Hills)

Book: The Last Child by John Hart (2009) Winner of this year’s Edgar Awards for best Mystery Novel

North Carolina Sandhills

John Hart nails the small towns of central North Carolina in the gripping mystery, The Last Child. I have never visited the Sandhills, but my curiosity is piqued. The Sandhills mark an ancient ocean front–leftover dunes separate the Piedmont zone from the coastal plains. The aberration of geography creates a place of eerie charm but not much wealth.

I am intrigued by the fact that I came away with a clear view of the area and the people, but paragraphs of description are nearly non-existent in the book.  The author skillfully led me into the heart of the Sandhills by dialogue and story.

For those who like their literature to come in neat categories, Hart’s novels sit in the box called “Southern Gothic.”  For us here at A Traveler’s Library, his book is a destination mystery, a tour guide to one of the stops on the road trip, a different kind of travel literature.  But I must admit, I couldn’t be happier when a book goes WAY beyond the criteria of recreating a place and culture. The Last Child scores on several fronts–fascinating and original characters, a plot to keep you breathing hard (or holding your breath), and delightfully readable writing.

The child of the title is a modern day Huck Finn, with a whole lot more book smarts. His twin sister disappeared a year ago, his family fell apart and his mother is kept in a dazed-by-drugs condition by the local power broker. Johnny decides to take the law in his own hands, despite the attempts of the leading good guy/ police detective to protect the kid from himself.

Everybody knows everybody in this rural county, which sometimes makes the policeman’s job easier and sometimes harder. Having a 13-year-old drive the plot puts a unique twist on what could be a familiar pattern of police procedural. But no danger of boring structure from  Hart, who  is an ambitious writer who does not take the easy way out with his writing. While the kid has enough good traits to make us cheer for him, there is nothing saccharine here, and sometimes you want to shake him.

More bad guys and more dead bodies than any county should have to cope with keep the reader guessing and the pages turning.

Author John Hart

Hart posts updates on his books at his website, and The Last Child seems to have won awards nearly every month since it first appeared in review copies.  His prior novels, King of Lies and Down River both won Edgar awards, also. (Not just a nomination–the top award.)

The picture to the right comes courtesy of  Hart’s web site, and the picture above from the site of the North Carolina Sandhills Weed Management Area. I owe gratitude to the publisher for providing the review copy of this book, and to the publicist for the Edgar Awards, Lisa Richardson, for alerting me to the finalist mysteries with strong sense of place.

I have written previously about the Edgar nominees, and my personal favorite Jo Nesbo, however, John Hart definitely deserves all those kudos he receives. ( But Jo Nesbo definitely has the coolest web site!)

A Traveler’s Library has previously discussed destination mystery novels from Massachusetts, Michigan, Venice, Virginia, Sweden, Yosemite. There’s no place without a mystery, it seems.

Of courese there are mountains in North Carolina, too, and Music Road finds music for the Road Trip all over North Carolina. Pick up your music at Music Road.

Have you traveled to the North Carolina Sandhills? Share your experiences. Should we go?

This content is a post from: A Traveler's Library To comment on this post or search for related information, click on the link to A Traveler's Library. We'll leave a light on for you.

©2012 A Traveler's Library. All Rights Reserved.

Cape Cod Beach

Destination: Wellfleet, Massachusetts, Cape Cod, New England, United States

Books: The Giant’s House: A Romance by Elizabeth McCracken

A GUEST POST by Alexandra Grabbe

Alexandra is not only a traveler herself, but runs a bed and breakfast on Cape Cod, in case you need a place to stay after this novel inspires you to travel there.

I met Elizabeth McCracken last year when she spent a weekend at my B&B.  Reading her latest book, An Exact Replica of a Figment of my Imagination, sent me off to the library in search of The Giant’s House: A Romance, published in 1996.

Provincetown Fine Arts Works Center writer's residence

Elizabeth was twice a fellow at the Provincetown Fine Arts Works Center on Cape Cod and worked as a librarian for a number of years.  She may have based the library in the book on the public library here in Wellfleet, Massachusetts.  Nobody but Elizabeth knows for sure and she’s not telling.

In her first novel, Elizabeth McCracken lets her imagination run wild, and we traipse after her down a quirky side street in a fictitious Cape Cod town, charmed both by the characters she has created and her skill at storytelling.

Here’s the plot:  Peggy Cort, a lonely twenty-six-year-old librarian heading toward spinsterhood, takes a personal interest in James Carlson Sweatt, a gentle bookworm, already quite tall at age eleven, who will grow into a gentle giant, eight feet seven inches, and become the tallest man in the world.

Peggy’s passion for James evolves from curiosity to admiration to love, which she does not express until 1960, a decade after their initial meeting beside the circulation desk. And, yes, there’s romance, as the title indicates.    Oh, I know.  The whole thing sounds highly unlikely, and yet it works.  James has gigantism, a rare disease, which happens to be fatal. Their unique friendship allows him to explore his feelings on being different.

The real Cape Cod I know and love is rendered with precision.  We see the Provincetown bar where James’ mother, abandoned by her husband, drinks a bit too hard, the quaint little town of “Brewsterville” where Peggy and James live, the strip malls of Hyannis where custom shoes are provided in ever-greater sizes in exchange for appearances as THE WORLD’S TALLEST BOY, a  gig Peggy sees, at first, as exploitation.

There’s even a chapter set in Wellfleet, my home town.   The pace on Cape Cod, in the off-season, is so different from the tourist rush of summer that it’s refreshing to find an accurate description, as if a photographer had focused in on the weathered face of a single shell fisherman working the flats rather than vacationers at play in the same picturesque harbor.

Cape Cod houses, with their low ceilings, are not ideal for giants, so it’s perfectly plausible that James’ family would move him into larger quarters in a back yard cottage, custom-built thanks to money raised by Peggy, during a campaign similar to one organized here three years ago to pay medical bills incurred by a favorite son, injured in a skateboard accident.

Soon the Brewsterville locals are dropping by, hoping for a glimpse of the greatest attraction in town.  Of course, the tourists follow.

Some people came out specifically to visit James; some came for the ocean and happened upon him, more impressive than the ocean because no philosopher ever wonderingly addressed him, no poet compared him to God or a lover’s restless body.  Moreover, the ocean does not grant autographs.  James did, politely, and then asked how you were enjoying your visit.

That James’s Aunt Caroline should turn his cottage, with its custom furniture, into a museum seems the logical conclusion, but it is the tender relationship between two misfits that we remember months after finishing this exquisitely rendered novel. The Giant’s House: A Romance has been called a “small masterpiece,” and I agree.

Alexandra Grabbe

Alexandra Grabbe raised three children in Paris, France, where she worked as a freelance writer, a talk-show host, and an editorial assistant.  She moved to Wellfleet, MA in 1997 to care for her elderly parents.  Six years ago, Alexandra started Chez Sven Bed & Breakfast.  She blogs about the experience of being an innkeeper and living green on Cape Cod.

Alexandra: Thanks so much for bringing this novel to our attention.  And I want to commend Alexandra for her support of books, independent book sellers and writers.  She buys books by the best new authors and places them in her B & B for her guests to enjoy. Way to go, Alexandara!

This content is a post from: A Traveler's Library To comment on this post or search for related information, click on the link to A Traveler's Library. We'll leave a light on for you.

©2012 A Traveler's Library. All Rights Reserved.

Destination: Blue Ridge Mountains, Virginia, USA

Book: Wish You Well by David Baldacci

A GUEST POST BY BERT LATAMORE

My friend Bert Latamore is fortunate to live in the Blue Ridge area of Virginia, outside of Washington D.C. (The Blue Ridge Parkway continues south through the Carolinas). Bert and his wife love to explore the natural beauty and small communities and Bert photographs the mountains in their many moods. In this post he describes a novel that could very well lure the traveler to a road trip on the Blue Ridge.

Most people know David Baldacci as the author of high tension political adventure novels, and particularly for Absolute Power which was turned into a hit movie in the 1990s. However, Baldacci’s reach is greater than any one genre.:Wish You Well ,  a coming of age novel set in 1940, tells about a 12-year-old girl who moves from New York City to her great-grandmother’s tiny mountain homestead in the Virginia Blue Ridge after an auto accident kills her father and leaves her mother comatose.

The Novel

Based in part on Baldacci’s mother’s experience growing up in the Blue Ridge, the book traces Louisa Mae Cardinal’s life in a place that had changed little in 100 years. In the process, this fine novel takes the reader on a tour of the Blue Ridge and the traditional life of the people who lived, struggled, and farmed there. It immerses the reader in the beauty and rhythms of a way of life that is now long gone.

From Bert’s Skyline Photos

Travel Today

Fortunately, while the old mountain farms are gone, the land and mountains of the Blue Ridge remain, largely unspoiled. And, thanks to FDR’s vision as realized in the Blue Ridge Parkway, the area is easily accessible to travelers. The Parkway, 75-years-old in 2010, stretches 469 miles, its two-lane road running along the ridgeline of the mountains that separate the East Coast from the continent to the West. It connects the Shenandoah National Park in the north to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park in the south. While Interstates in the valleys both east and west carry traffic at highway speeds, the Parkway offers a trip into an earlier, more beautiful, less hurried land. While not as spectacular as the western National Parks, the Blue Ridge offers a leisurely driving adventure, where turns in the road open windows to gorgeous mountain views interspersed with historic sites such as Mabry Mill, a working water-powered grist mill set in a beautiful park. And Mr. Baldacci’s novel provides an ideal introduction, commentary, and sample of what you can find there.

The secret to the Parkway is to take a deep breath and surrender to the rhythms of a different time. The speed limit here is 45, sometimes 35. The object is not so much to get somewhere – if that is your need then the Interstates are a better choice – but rather to experience the environment as you drive through it. Plan on making numerous stops to admire, and photograph, the scenery, explore the pull overs, and just relax.

One warning – the Parkway does close in winter from time to time due to heavy snowfalls, so if you are planning a winter visit it is best to check ahead. And in summer the camping facilities and motels can be crowded, so reservations are always a good idea.

You can read Wish You Well in a trade paperback edition, or listen to a recording on cassette or CD. Download the e-book from e-Reader.com. David Baldacci also started a foundation called Wish You Well to support family literacy.

Bert Latamore

Bert Latamore has been a writer all his adult life, and now specializes in writing about technology. He also serves as a book doctor and business report writer. His motto, “You provide the information; I craft the words.”
I met Bert about 15 years ago in an on-line group called “Aspiring Writers Club”. The core of that group continues to correspond by listserve.

The Photos: Bert Latamore took these photos along the Skyline Drive, part of the Shenandoah National Park. A road trip starting in Washington D.C. could follow the Skyline to the Blue Ridge Parkway and go all the way to Georgia. All rights reserved on Photographs.

More about David Baldacci in a post about Washington D.C. and two video interviews with Baldacci. In the 2nd of these interviews, he talks about his Wish You Well Foundation.

This content is a post from: A Traveler's Library To comment on this post or search for related information, click on the link to A Traveler's Library. We'll leave a light on for you.

©2012 A Traveler's Library. All Rights Reserved.

Buddha Statue, Tibet

Destination: Bhutan

Book: The Heart of the Buddha by Elsie Sze (Released October 1, 2009)

When I was younger I wanted very much to go to Bhutan.  I bought a detailed travel book about trekking in Bhutan that included information about the country’s people and history. I never got there and now I am settling in to a different kind of travel, and can only go to these more challenging locations vicariously.

WHAT I LIKED

For that reason, when the publicist sent me a copy, I read The Heart of the Buddha, a  novel/travel book, with  appreciation for the details of daily life, descriptions of the cities, and particularly information about Tantric Buddhism. I appreciated the glossary that allows the author to use the proper Bhutanese words in the narrative and allows me to check the meaning as I read along.

Buddhist Monastery in Tibet

THE PLOT OF THE BOOK

Briefly, a young woman has gone to Bhutan as a librarian, and when she goes missing, her twin sister goes to search for her. Along the way, the first young woman falls in love with a Buddhist monk, they steal into Tibet to obtain a sacred book that belongs to Bhutan, and the sister, following their trail, falls in love with her Bhutanese guide.

WHAT DID NOT WORK

As a novel, The Heart of the Buddha fails to hold my attention.While the plot line has potential, the exposition comes in sodden lumps rather than being scattered seamlessly within dialogue and story. We  constantly get almost apologetic explanations of why some particular action is possible:  something like, “Since he studied the Tibetan language in school, he could pass as a citizen of the country.”

Although at times, the language mimics the hot panting (or is that hot pants?) of a romance novel, it also tries to be a story of  suspense.

Cliff hanger questions are stated boldly and relentlessly. “What did he look like? Would he answer to Marian’s description of him? And the question that worried me most–where was Marian?”  Trust the reader. We kinda know what she is thinking about since she went all the way to Bhutan to find her sister.

The worst thing about the book, though, is the violation of the most sacred principle of story telling–show, don’t tell. Part of the story is told through a written memoir and most of the rest, is related in conversations.  The memoir also contains long passages of dialogue so that there is no difference in style between the supposed memoir and the novel itself.

In the near future, I will be writing about Mistress of the Sun by Sandra Guilliland. I am currently reading this book that serves as a model of how a writer can be a careful researcher, include the tiniest details of daily life plus a broad overview, and still make the writing sparkle. Unfortunately, Ms. Sze is not at that point.

Both photos in this post are courtesy of Bob and Clare Rogers, all rights reserved. Bob and Clare are currently on a bicycle trip across China, Tibet, Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand. Click on the picture to follow their adventure.

IMPORTANT QUESTION FOR MY READERS: How do you feel about my writing about books I do not recommend? Would you rather that I only tell you about recommended books, or do you want the bad apples as well? I am particularly interested in your reply because I currently have on my coffee table a book about a very interesting place that I simply cannot slog through–despite the fact that it has been recommended by lots of people in high places. (The authors have a lot of friends.) So do you think I should discuss books like that, too?

This content is a post from: A Traveler's Library To comment on this post or search for related information, click on the link to A Traveler's Library. We'll leave a light on for you.

©2012 A Traveler's Library. All Rights Reserved.

Book: Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden

I have never been to Japan. The country has always mystified me. The elaborate rituals, the complex rules for gardens and for tea ceremonies. And mostly the tradition of Geishas. “What’s with that?” this feminist wondered, as I observed movie depictions of Geishas mincing around and bowing and serving.

Because Geishas are exotic creatures to Western eyes, we tend to see more of them than of other parts of Japanese society, historic or present. By that I mean they appear in books, musicals, movies and advertisements probably more than their numbers justify. Just as gunslingers and dancehall girls represent the early 19th century western United States to large parts of the world, although plain old farm families, hardworking ranchers and miners existed in larger numbers.

At any rate, I absolutely loved the book[amazonify]1400096898::text:::: Memoirs of a Geisha[/amazonify], for giving me the kind of meaningful detail of Japanese  culture that had been glossed over by other depictions. Besides, it tells a compelling story and makes you care deeply about the characters. The book is written with such detail that I felt I had already seen all the scenes, but the movie added a few more details of Japanese architecture and fashion that I could not create in my mind.

Combined, the novel and the movie might  make me want to travel to Japan—but not to become a Geisha. Did you see the movie and read the book? Which did you prefer? Would you like to be a Geisha?

For more about Japan, see this about children’s books or this about unusual experiences in Tokyo.

This content is a post from: A Traveler's Library To comment on this post or search for related information, click on the link to A Traveler's Library. We'll leave a light on for you.

©2012 A Traveler's Library. All Rights Reserved.

Zorba dancing

Place: Crete, Greece

Book: Zorba the Greek by Nikos Kazantzakis (1946)

Movie: Zorba the Greek with Alan Bates and Anthony Quinn(1964) and subsequent musical, Zorba

Several years ago, during our travels in Greece, Ken and I had a marvelous 10 days of driving back and forth across the mountains of Crete and exploring its rough-edged beauty. I was particularly happy to learn that we could stroll on the very beach that Anthony Quinn and Alan Bates danced across to the unforgettable (and in Greece, at least, inescapable) theme song of the move, Zorba The Greek.

The Greek director, Michael Cacoyannis, shot the film on Akrotiri peninsula of northern Crete in Chania . The famous Zorba dance (click for you tube clip) took place on the beach of the small town of Stavros, and these many years later, the town’s tavernas still make a buck off of the honor.

Zorba continued to haunt our travels in Crete, not just because you cannot get through an evening without hearing the song and watching somebody try to do his best Zorba imitation on the dance floor. But also because his spirit so reflects Greece. And why not, Kazanzatkis, the creator of Zorba in the novel also named [amazonify]0684825546::text:::: Zorba the Greek[/amazonify] , himself born in Crete, still ranks as one of the most evocative writers about Greece, its religion and thought.

During our journey, we stopped at a small mountainside village hoping for a cup of tea, but the makeshift cafe on the front porch of an old couple had only cafes (The powdered Nescafe foisted off as coffee on Americans.) When she saw I was disappointed, the woman came out with a big bag of gray-ish dried weeds.  By gestures, she told me that she had collected them herself in the mountains above her house, they grew only in Crete, and they cured many things, particularly women’s complaints and colds. (I am always amazed by the depth of conversations carried out with complete lack of the other person’s language.) I recognized it as a sage plant, perhaps a variety that grows only there. Someone told me it was probably dittany, but she used the leaves, not the blossoms, so I still think it was sage. Years later when I opened my paperback version of Zorba the Greek, I was amazed to see it opens with Zorba having a cup of sage tea.

When we sat on the old couples’ porch, we could see the characters in Kazantzakis’ novel and the movie passing by on the street, or peering suspiciously at us from the more populated cafe across the street. The exuberance and love of life of Zorba were all around us.

I remember many images from the movie, but the strongest, most disturbing scene convinced the young scholar (Alan Bates) to leave the hedonistic life of Zorba and return to his studies.The villagers gather at the home of a dying woman like so many vultures, and the moment she is pronounced dead they swoop in and strip her house. The scene disturbs and opens the traveler’s eyes to a darker  side of the carefree-seeming image created by Zorba with his ready smile and willingness to ignore convention.

I truly believe that Zorba and his creator Kazantzakis provide the best guide to the Greek traveler. Despite all his novels about Greek Orthodox religion, Kazantzakis turned to Buddhism, and I have a t-shirt with a quote from him, in Greek: “I hope for nothing, I fear no one, I am free.” Perhaps that is the secret to the exuberant love of life experienced in Greece. If you hope for nothing, you are free of yearning.

The author also said: “Every perfect traveler always creates the country where he travels.”  Let’s hear your reaction to Kazantzakis’ quotes. Please join the discussion.

For other posts about Greece and Crete, see the By Country page.

This content is a post from: A Traveler's Library To comment on this post or search for related information, click on the link to A Traveler's Library. We'll leave a light on for you.

©2012 A Traveler's Library. All Rights Reserved.

Book: American Fugue by Alexis Stamatis

I like books that are dense with ideas and expressed poetically. American Fugue by Greek author Alexis Stamatis fills the bill.  Here’s my review from Amazon:

American Fugue’s author Alexis Stamatis confounds  genres as he writes an innovative literary novel that combines with a thriller and a road trip book. The Greek author has an amazingly accurate finger on the pulse of America, and includes literary and cinematic and music references that nail pop culture as well as high-class culture. Beautifully written and a gripping story. Loved it.

The book also is a bit of Freudian self-analysis of the central character, a review of American literature and pop culture, observations on a Presidential election (Bush-Kerry), and a how-to study of the construction of a thriller.

Why does this book belong in the traveler’s library? Because as a road trip book, it contains sharp observations of  place and brings alive the locales.  When seen through the eyes of someone from another country, America looks slightly different, but still familiar.

“He”, the hero of the book, comes to America to forget. He has lost his mother to death, his wife has left him, he cannot speak to his father. He is a writer of thrillers but unable to get started on the next book, he flies to Iowa City for a writer’s conference. I won’t reveal what happens, but it is an interesting metaphor for “losing oneself.”  His travels take him from

• Iowa City, small campus town, where he visits Wal-Mart and watches a lot of American TV and rents a car at Avis to

• 

  Millennium Park with skyscrapers reflected in "Bean"

  Hannibal, Missouri, small historic town, where he visits Tom Sawyer’s cave and Mark Twain’s house and marvels at the Mississippi River,

• Chicago, where he visits the Art Institute, Millenium Park, Michigan Avenue and Lake Michigan,
• The countryside near Syracuse New York, a farm, woods, a lake.

• 

  A.P. Building, Rockefeller Plaza, Manhattan

  Manhattan, where we see the George Washington Bridge,  Hotel Chelsea (where many literary figures stayed), Brooklyn Bridge, Rockefeller Plaza, Brooklyn .

Not a bad sampling of American places, and his descriptions of his surroundings are convincing. Until he got to the countryside farm of a retired musician who had many Native Americans living in the woods around the farm in teepees.  The Native Americans were Navajo. Navajo do NOT live in teepees–they live in hogans. The teepees bothered me greatly.  I finally saw  that Stamatis tends to lump all Native Americans together, and not realize the sharp differences between Indian nations. Perhaps the stereotype of all Indians living in teepees, was just easier.  After all, this book was written for his Greek audience, where it was a best seller, not for Americans. I could forgive this lapse, since the rest of his descriptions rang true.

The other part of the book, the thriller, pushes you to keep turning pages, with puzzles created on each page.  And underneath the bad-guys-lurking typical thriller, the main character, the writer, is both trying to discover himself and becoming the main character in a new book.  He says:

He treated himself as if he were some important character in the play of life,…he used in his stories an “elevated” reality with his hero entering a strange, hostile world where he had to apply all of his inventiveness in order to survive.  The dangerous new world was nothing other than the unbearable everyday reality, and the attempt to discover himself in it was the only way to survive. American Fugue, Alexis Stamatis

I highly recommend this book for a new view of America and as a complicated thriller novel. Enjoy the ride!

Photograph by Vera Marie Badertscher. All rights reserved.

After reading this book, I’d like to retrace his steps. Have you ever stayed at the Hotel Chelsea? It sounds very interesting. And I have not prowled the haunts of Twain in Hannibal, either.  Let’s talk about road trips.

This content is a post from: A Traveler's Library To comment on this post or search for related information, click on the link to A Traveler's Library. We'll leave a light on for you.

©2012 A Traveler's Library. All Rights Reserved.

Greek Bell Ringer on Siphnos, Greece

Destination: Greece

A Crowded Heart by Nicholas Papandreou

This is a new soft-cover book, only read by me, no marks. A novel that might well be a memoir of the childhood of the son of a very important political family in Greece and how the ups and downs of politics affects the family’s everyday life.  Good details of Greek culture in this poetically written book.  Discussed here very recently– on July 29.

Photography by VMB. All rights reserved.

It is not too late to enter! Following the rules that you will findwhen you click here, make a comment on any post or tweet me a reply message @pen4hire. Be sure to follow the rules.

And don’t miss announcements of prizes and winners. Subscribe by RSS feed (click that big obnoxious orange button above) or if you want me to send you each post to your inbox, click here to Subscribe to A Travelers’ Library by Email.

This content is a post from: A Traveler's Library To comment on this post or search for related information, click on the link to A Traveler's Library. We'll leave a light on for you.

©2012 A Traveler's Library. All Rights Reserved.