Posts Tagged ‘travel’

Is a Travel Memoir Really a Memoir?

Friday, May 15th, 2009

by Jerry Waxler

When I started studying memoirs, my original focus were the conventional ones like Frank McCourt’s “Angela’s Ashes” or Jeanette Walls’ “Glass Castle.” At first, I didn’t understand why some travel books were sold as memoirs. Travel books weren’t about the author’s childhood, and they included a lot of journalistic descriptions of the places they were traveling through. And yet I realized they were first person accounts that let me get inside the author’s point of view and see the world.

To understand more about what goes into a travel memoir. I read a few like Doreen Orion’s travel memoir, “Queen of the Road,” and Mark Richardson’s “Zen and Now.” I’ve also dabbled in others like Tom Coyne’s walk around Ireland recounted in “A Course Called Ireland” and Rosemary Mahoney’s solo trip in Egypt, “Down the Nile Alone in a Fisherman’s Skiff.”

Based on my research, I decided travel books indeed could be considered as a sort of memoir. In fact, in my perfect world, the book store would have a whole bank of memoirs and autobiographies, including sub-sections for Coming of Age, Overcoming Hardship, and Travel memoirs, to name a few. Here are a few of the features of travel memoirs you might consider when reading your next one, or planning your own.

On the road alone means inside your mind

Travel provides the fascinating unfolding, as places appear in the distance, come closer, and then whiz by, fading into the past. From this perpetual flow of locations, comes a variety of outer experience.

And while the miles disappear under the tire, hull, or shoe, the protagonist’s main activity is… nothing. With nothing to do but move your body from A to B, traveling is a sort of meditation in its own right, providing the protagonist ample time to reflect. That’s what Bob Pirsig did in his classic “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance” and when Mark Richardson road his motorcycle along the same path, he too reflected about life in “Zen and Now.”

Since Doreen Orion is traveling with her husband in an RV she has other options. She can read, or banter with her husband. Considering she is a psychiatrist, I wonder if her absence of introspection is a sort of subterranean irony, a feature I have noticed throughout Orion’s entertaining approach to her material.

Wrestling with your Stuff

Traveling raises all sorts of issues about stuff. First you have make a list of what to take, buy what you need, and then pack your luggage. You have to store it somewhere and lug it along. Sometimes you can’t fit much. On his motorcycle ride, Mark Richardson could only bring a couple of pairs of underwear. When he stopped in a motel, he methodically unpacked his saddlebags, including motorcycle repair tools. Then the next morning, he packed them up again. At the other extreme, Doreen Orion packed her luxury RV with all sorts of amenities, such dozens of pairs of shoes. But even she had limits. One day she jumped in the tagalong SUV and went shopping, and when she tried to put the purchases away, she realized she had run out of room for her stuff.

Describe the people you meet

During travel, you meet people, and these meetings add character to the journey. Richardson tells about the small town girl working in the motel, and the Russian couple who own it. He describes other bikers he meets at stops, and he looks up some of the same people who had met with Pirsig during the original ride. He even stops in a town and speculates about which tree Pirsig and his son might have sat under, and asks some of the locals to help him figure it out, while Orion chats up the other campers at the RV parks – neighbors for a night.

Focus on your vehicle (boat, feet, RV, motorcycle)

In “Zen and Now” Mark Richardson focuses in detail on his motorcycle. This is a neat trick that emulates Robert Pirsig’s “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.” Both motorcyclists do an excellent job of showing how their world has collapsed down to their vehicle and the stretch of road they are on right now. By describing the motorcycle they let you feel intimately connected with their contracted world. Doreen Orion also showed us her small world by bringing inside the cab of her luxury RV in “Queen of the Road.”

Journalistic accounts of the world

In the musical “Sound of Music,” Julie Andrews walks along a country road with the kids, and suddenly they all burst into song. It’s entertaining, albeit a little out of place. Something similar takes place in a travel memoir, when the author decides to insert a little background description about something they are seeing. My quirkiest example is in Doreen Orion’s “Queen of the Road.” In a night club she visited with her husband, a girl performed a clog dance. Orion included a brief history of clog dancing. Not your typical memoir material, but it worked as a lovely way to pass the time in her company. Of course, the scenery, the towns, and the people are all fodder for the writer’s research, should they choose to add a few details about the world they are moving through.

Getting there and back is a perfect container for a story

The whole purpose of a good story is to portray a sort of journey, that takes the protagonist as well as the reader from the beginning of the book to the end. Travel memoirs turn this into a literal journey from one geographical location to another. When you insert your experience into travel, you allow your reader to go along with you as you prepare, pack, and go forth from your home. Leaving your familiar world behind, you enter a new world with different rules and make progress through obstacles. This allows for the curiosity and adventure of discovery, as well as the contrast with the familiar. At the end, you complete the journey, providing the appropriate metaphorical as well as circumstantial ending.

By breaking the protagonist out of the daily grind, travel memoirs still provide plenty of room for an inner journey, too. Under the stress of confusing situations, or the tedium of the passing miles, or the curiosity of new observations, travelers discover new things about themselves. As the outer miles go by, the inner journey is also underway, making the travel memoir an excellent framework for writing about life.

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Notes

For discussion about some of the classic memoirs, see my essay, “Why so many memoirs about dysfunctional childhood?“

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Posted in Book Review, How-to, travel | 12 Comments »

Break the Rules! A Travel Memoir with a Twist of Zen

Thursday, March 12th, 2009

By Jerry Waxler

In the early 1970′s, Robert Pirsig was overwhelmed by too many thoughts. To sort himself out, he took a motorcycle trip with his son and a couple of friends and wrote about the trip in “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.” The book wasn’t just about a motorcycle ride. It was also about his troubled relationship with his son, and also about his passionate belief in a philosophical idea he called “Quality.” The book became a cult classic, selling four million copies, and many of its followers continue to read it over and over, finding new meaning on each page. Others, like me, felt lost.

Now, decades later, I traveled Pirsig’s road again, not by rereading his book but by letting another author, Mark Richardson, take me on a tour. Richardson thoroughly researched Pirsig’s life and set off on his own motorcycle to follow the route from Minneapolis to San Francisco. Richardson’s book is more accessible than Pirsig’s, and I was able to relax while reading “Zen and Now: On the Trail of Robert Pirsig and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.” It was a good trip.

Because of the fame of the seventies classic, millions of people have some curiosity about the subject, and Richardson fulfills their curiosity by jumping all the way in. This is full immersion journalism. He entered the situation and reported what he saw.

Writing Prompt

Fantasize for a moment about what situation you would be willing to spend time jumping into. To keep it practical, consider a trip you’ve already taken, or take advantage of some research you’ve already accomplished. From a less constrained point of view, expand your options to things you wish you could do. Keep in mind that Richardson’s actual motorcycle trip only took a couple of weeks.

Travel is a brilliant device for a publishable memoir

According to some memoir pundits, if not the Memoir Police themselves, a publishable story is supposed to describe a fixed period of time. According to this view, it’s easiest to grip a reader and more importantly, a publisher, if you can stay within a discrete period. I’m just kidding about the Police. There’s really no such rigidly enforced code. Even if you can define the rules, most memoirs break them anyway. For example, Jeanette Walls’ block buster memoir, “Glass Castle” is supposedly about her childhood, but then it continues, trickling over into her adult years. The same is true of John Robison whose “Look me in the eye” covers most of his life, more like an autobiography than a memoir.

However, if you want to publish, it doesn’t hurt to follow as many rules as possible. And placing your story into a time-limited wrapper appears to make a book more sellable. I was recently at a writing conference (Philadelphia Stories at Rosemont College) in which Tom Coyne told about his idea for a memoir. His concept of walking through Ireland and visiting every golf course sold and became the successful memoir, “A Course Called Ireland”. Similarly, Doreen Orion proposed going for a trip with her husband in an RV around the United States. She sold it and wrote “Queen of the Road.” Another book that works this way is “Down the Nile Alone in a Fisherman’s Skiff,” by Rosemary Mahoney, about the author’s fascination with the River Nile and the fulfillment of her fantasy.

Richardson broke a variety of other “rules”

At first Richardson’s book looks like it’s going to be about the motorcycle journey taken by Robert Pirsig in “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.” And then, Richardson veers off in a variety of directions, musing upon the meaning of his own life, including memories from long before the period being described, for example the tensions and dynamics in his own marriage, and an anecdote about the time he met President Jimmy Carter in Africa.

Regularly breaking out of chronological sequence, he jumps around going on extended flashbacks, musings, and philosophy. He includes discussions with people he meets on the road, and recounts what they say, even when it has nothing to do with Pirsig. And instead of avoiding abstract ideas, he jumps in and describes Pirsig’s philosophy. After each detour, he returns to the point in the story where he left off.

As I think more about the book by Robert Pirsig, that I read years ago, I realize it was a complex mixture of his outer motorcycle trip and the inner journey of his own mind. Now I see that Richardson’s book follows even this aspect of the earlier work. Mark Richardson’s “Zen and Now” emulates Pirsig’s rambling writing and thinking style. The resulting weave of threads is so sophisticated and yet so easy to read and understand that the best word I can think of to describe it is “Virtuoso.”

The one rule he didn’t break was to put a finite time period on his memoir. He did this precisely. Mark Richardson’s wrapper story covers the couple of weeks during which he rode his motorcycle from Minneapolis to San Francisco. It’s tight, except for the strange fact that the material actually covers decades. It’s a feat of literary legerdemain. While claiming to confine himself within the short span of his motorcycle journey, Richardson takes us on his own inner journey, allowing us to get to know him, and see the world through his eyes.

Links:

Mark Richardson’s Zen and Now Website
Zen and Now: On the Trail of Robert Pirsig and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Mark Richardson
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values by Robert M. Pirsig

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Posted in Book Review, Philosophy, reading, travel | 6 Comments »

Doreen Orion’s brilliant memoir about last year’s midlife crisis

Wednesday, August 27th, 2008

by Jerry Waxler

When Doreen Orion’s husband noticed they were getting older, he suggested they buy a recreational vehicle, take a year off from work and drive across the country. She fought the idea at first. (What’s a story without some sort of conflict?) It sounded cramped, and she would only be able to take a hundred pairs of shoes. Eventually she gave in, went on the trip and wrote about it in this delightful memoir, “Queen of the Road.”

When I first started studying memoirs, one question I asked was “Are travel books really memoirs?” It seems like cheating, since the events just took place last year. But upon reflection and further reading, I have discovered that books like this one are lovely containers for musings and sharing of the author’s life experience. So if this is cheating, give me more.

In fact, by understanding how she put her book together, I see the goal of a memoir. It is designed to take you inside a real person’s experience of life. Inside the author’s point of view, we see what they see and how they see it. It’s the closest thing to mind-melding we can get on this planet, and if the author sees interesting things in a fun way, we enjoy the experience. Doreen Orion satisfies these goals fabulously.

As a traveler, she sees interesting stuff. Traveling across country provides endless opportunities for description, so like any memoir writer, she had to select the scenes that will add up to a good read. Her choices tend towards a mix of “famous yet quirky” like the vast Wall Drugstore in South Dakota, a huge mountain-carved statue of Chief Crazy Horse, and that strange place a guy built in Florida in the 1920′s out of chunks of Coral. (see my notes for more about these travel details.)

Her observations inside the bus are just as interesting as what took place outside. She has some great scenes with her husband, while he drives and she sits there with the dog and cats. She keeps it interesting by playing up her fear of crashing, rolling, and smashing when they approach overpass or hit a bump. She portrays her phobias with grace and humor.

Within this mix we are working through Doreen’s midlife crisis. Since I (along with a few million boomers) am recently discovering the weird fact that I keep getting older every day, midlife is a topic that is particularly interesting. Considering that both Doreen and her husband are psychiatrists, she could have applied a lot of analytical fire power, but instead of getting all heavy about it, she just has fun.

So let’s see. It’s a midlife crisis book. A travel book. A memoir. A romantic comedy. An introduction to the RV lifestyle. It even has cats and dogs. This tremendous variety becomes one of its most intriguing stylistic features. And it’s a story. Her scenes add up nicely to give me a picture of the whole trip. She lets me feel the rhythm of their day: sleeping late; socializing with neighbors in the RV camp where everyone is just passing through; unhitching their tow-along Jeep to do some sightseeing; and then back on the road, bouncing along, navigating, and making jokes to pass the time.

And that brings up a valuable lesson for writers. Just as important as the fun things she sees is the fun way she describes them. Her style is engaging and keeps the pages turning, a crucial requirement for any publishable book. I always get in trouble with the literati when I say things like this, but Doreen Orion’s memoir reminds me of Shakespeare’s plays, at least in one regard. To appeal to a mixed audience, Shakespeare laced the dialog with sophisticated innuendos for the intellectuals and gags to keep everyone guffawing. Orion does the same thing in Queen of the Road. She’s funny.

Within this simple premise of a travel book about two people at midlife, there are hidden a number of clever layers that create a wonderful read as well as a wealth of ideas that you might be able to apply to your own memoir. In fact, I find so many aspects of the memoir enjoyable and informative that when I tried writing them all, I ran out of time before I ran out of ideas. In future posts, I’ll have more to say about the many lessons from Doreen Orion’s Queen of the Road.

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Writing Prompt
Write two synopses of your memoir. The outside story will describe events in the world. The inside story will describe emotions, such as fear, hope, and disappointment. Each of these stories should feel like a journey, with a beginning, middle and end.

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Note:
About 20 years ago, I saw a documentary on public television about a guy who had built a sort of artistic compound, out of thousand pound blocks of cut Coral. I was intrigued by the weird fact that no one understood how this man moved this big rocks without any equipment. When I was in Florida, I went to see this strange out-of-the-way tourist attraction myself, and I was delighted to read Doreen Orion’s view of the place. Here is a note I found on the web with a link to the full article.

The Secrets of Coral Castle
Coral Castle in Homestead, Florida, is one of the most amazing structures ever built. In terms of accomplishment, it’s been compared to Stonehenge, ancient Greek temples, and even the great pyramids of Egypt. It is amazing – some even say miraculous – because it was quarried, fashioned, transported, and constructed by one man: Edward Leedskalnin, a 5-ft. tall, 100-lb. Latvian immigrant. Working alone, Leedskalnin labored for 20 years – from 1920 to 1940 – to build the home he originally called “Rock Gate Park” in Florida City.

Crazy Horse Statue
During the 1930′s, Chief Henry Standing Bear watched in silence as faces of great white leaders emerged from the ancient granite of Mount Rushmore in his ancestral Sioux homeland: George Washington in 1930, Thomas Jefferson in 1936, Abraham Lincoln in 1937 and Theodore Roosevelt in 1939. Finally, in the fall of 1939, the Sioux leader wrote an appeal to a Connecticut sculptor who had worked on the monument: ”My fellow chiefs and I would like the white man to know that the red man has great heroes, too.”

Half a century and eight million tons of rock after the sculptor, Korczak Ziolkowski, acted on that appeal, the defiant eyes of Chief Crazy Horse once again glare across the Black Hills of South Dakota. One year from now, on June 3, 1998, sculptors plan to dedicate an 87-foot-tall version of his fearsome visage, a monument taller than the Great Sphinx of Egypt and higher than the heads of Mount Rushmore, 17 miles away.

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Posted in Boomers, How-to, Introspection, Retire | 1 Comment »