And, as in Blue Highways, it is not the traveling that is most significant, but the dwelling upon what one sees. Here, Least Heat-Moon journeys in and out of the landscape of ravine and cattle, stone and grass, men and women living now and in Chase County’s past.
This time, however, rather than making a horizontal journey across and around America, Least Heat-Moon makes a vertical journey within a single tract of earth, Chase County, Kansas, exploring a landscape where supposedly nothing has ever happened - where, ironically, an interstate passes through the county, but there are no access ramps. Soon, Blue Highways will be joined by PrairyErth, William Least Heat-Moon’s second book, published by Houghton Mifflin. Even more important, though, has been its ongoing role in speaking to those concerned with the tensions between community and diversity, the continuing struggle not only to preserve the past but to be open to its lessons, and, above all, the importance of bearing witness to what is beside the road. The book - as proclaimed on the front cover of the paperback edition - spent forty-two weeks on The New York Times bestseller list. Luckily for his readers, this experience became a journey of exploration, not one of mere escape, and in 1982 appeared Blue Highways (Atlantic Monthly/Little Brown), Least Heat-Moon’s account of the many Americas - metaphorical as well as physical - still existent beyond the entrances and exits of the interstate highway system. IN 1978, HAVING lost his teaching job at the University of Missouri as well as having split up with his wife, William Least Heat-Moon took off on the backroads of America, hoping to make a circle not only around the U.S., but also to go out and return to himself. A Conversation With William Least Heat-Moon
0 kommentar(er)
