The people he meets seem like individual people and the reason for his interactions come directly and logically out of his circumstances. And yet, be it Australia, England, or backpacking on the AT, each experience he relates feels far more authentic -even when Bryson might be exaggerating for comic effect. Bryson also travels and writes about his experiences. The reason this is a problem is there is no other reason for Moon to be out where he is, having the conversations he's having other than for the purpose of the book.įor a contrast, take Bill Bryson's work. The suspension of disbelief is constantly tested in this way. According to Moon's account, he barely says three sentences during all of this, and those words are all about the hang-gliding. For example: after chatting with some guys who are hang-gliding, they randomly invite him back for dinner and drinks to talk about hang-gliding. So obviously he told his subjects far more than he is telling us. there's the middle of the novel, which has pictures of some of these folksy people. He will chat with someone for dialog-heavy pages, and then move on. He will say he's "just passing through," for example, keeping it mysterious. For a while, he seems to keep the fact that he's going to be writing a book about the people he talks to a secret. Moon also seems less than honest and forthcoming about his intentions towards his subjects. The same lack of sentence structure, the same lack of pronouns, et.al gets old fast. No matter what the background or biography, they all have a folksy wisdom-y way of getting their stories across. Each and every person he finds to chat with "sounds" exactly the same. William Least Heat-Moon supposedly speaks with many of the people that inhabit these small towns, and yet he might as well have just spoken with one of them.
He starts the journey angry and bitter and those emotions never change. To find himself? To look for "America?" To get a better perspective on his lot in life? I don't know, and he never quite says. He decides to drive all around the country in his van (named Ghost Dancer), just taking the back roads, which used to be labeled blue on maps. The author takes his trek around the forgotten parts of America after the failure of his marriage and the loss of his teaching job. Since then, I've read quite a few recollections of random journeys.and I can safely say that Blue Highways is the worst of them. Back in High School, I would read Michael Crichton's Travels, some parts many times over, just imagining what it would be like to be able to visit the places he wrote about. I've been to many places in America and I throughly enjoy exploring everywhere I haven't yet been. I love to travel and to take the roads less traveled. I am predisposed to enjoy this kind of book.
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