Selected Book
Blue Highways: A Journey into America
- Paperback
- Author: William Least Heat-Moon
- Publisher: Back Bay Books
- Release Date: October 1999
- ISBN-10: 0316353299
- ISBN-13: 9780316353298
- List Price: $15.99
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Summaries and Customer Reviews provided by Amazon
SummaryFirst published in 1982, William Least Heat-Moon's account of his journey along the back roads of the United States (marked with the color blue on old highway maps) has become something of a classic. When he loses his job and his wife on the same cold February day, he is struck by inspiration: "A man who couldn't make things go right could at least go. He could quit trying to get out of the way of life. Chuck routine. Live the real jeopardy of circumstance. It was a question of dignity." Driving cross-country in a van named Ghost Dancing, Heat-Moon (the name the Sioux give to the moon of midsummer nights) meets up with all manner of folk, from a man in Grayville, Illinois, "whose cap told me what fertilizer he used" to Scott Chisholm, "a Canadian citizen ... [who] had lived in this country longer than in Canada and liked the United States but wouldn't admit it for fear of having to pay off bets he made years earlier when he first 'came over' that the U.S. is a place no Canadian could ever love." Accompanied by his photographs, Heat-Moon's literary portraits of ordinary Americans should not be merely read, but savored. |
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Curiously popular
Rating:
I like both travel books and memoirs, well-written ones at least. Furthermore, I love long-distance driving (I find it therapeutic), and for years I have fantasized about taking an extended road trip around the United States. Thus, I am predisposed to liking BLUE HIGHWAYS. Alas, actually reading it proved to be somewhat of a slog. And this was my second attempt. My first was 25 years ago, shortly after buying the book (third printing of the hardback first edition); I managed to read only half of it back then. I now have more time for reading, so this time I made it through the book from cover to cover, although it took me two months of off-and-on reading.
To my mind, BLUE HIGHWAYS is an okay but not special book (3.3 stars if such fine gradations were permitted). Hence, I am mildly puzzled that so many people have regarded it to be some sort of classic. The book does contain many vignettes or verbal snapshots of interesting out-of-the-way places and people, the sorts almost never spot-lighted by the mainstream media. Moreover, nostalgia for a simpler, less crowded, and perhaps more honorable America certainly is operative. And there are a few truly lyrical passages. But at other times, too many times, the book becomes tedious; occasionally Least-Heat Moon is a tad mean-spirited; often his philosophy is somewhat too sophomoric or New Age, at least for my taste; and in the main the writing itself is not especially inspired or distinguished. My guess is that what really moves many of those who profess to love it is the underlying context of the book -- being able to walk away from an unsatisfactory relationship, put conventional life on hold, and aimlessly roam about the U.S. with complete freedom to respond affirmatively to and explore further those people, places, and situations one likes, while quickly and easily leaving behind, without explanations or recriminations, those one doesn't like or has become tired of.
BLUE HIGHWAYS
Rating:
A very enjoyable book which takes the reader along the lesser traveled roads across the US. It is like a travelogue with addition of the charming characters Least-Moon meets along the way. Recommended
Small-town America twenty-five years ago....a classic
Rating:
A little over twenty-five years ago William Trogden, who took the name of his Native American ancestors and called himself William Least Heat Moon, set out on a journey across America in what was basically the ancestor of the modern SUV, a small truck which he named Ghost Dancing.
Initially he did this because he had lost his job and his wife in the space of a month, but his journey turned into much more than just an attempt to forget. It became a classic search for and journey into the heart of the country.
This is not a trip into the weirdness of America, although Least Heat Moon encounters plenty of strange sites and people on his journey. It is more of a trip into the heart and soul of the country - figuratively as well as literally. There have been many books written over the years about people leaving home to find America, but even after twenty-five years this is still one of the best such books ever written.
My only complaint is that he quotes Walt Whitman a little too much. I can understand his references to Black Elk, given his background and ancestry, but his overuse of Whitman is a bit jarring at times. But if you work around the Whitman quotes you will love your journey across America's blue highways with William Least Heat Moon.
Tour book
Rating:
Took a tour of America with a chip on his shoulder. Guess it gives you a different perspective.
A Lot of Good Remains in America
Rating:
I have written many reviews for Amazon.com. Blue Highways is the only book to which I've given five stars. I would recommend it to anyone.
Blue Highways is William Least Heat-Moon's account of his 1978 low-budget car ride across America. Heat-Moon's reporting reminds me a lot of Charles Kuralt's On the Road reports for CBS News. Heat-Moon has a talent for engaging strangers on the road and bringing out the best in them.
What separates Blue Highways from so many other travel books? There are a variety of factors. Heat-Moon is a good writer. He understands pacing - and does not allow the story to bog down. He is, overwhelmingly, positive about the people and places that he encounters. Heat-Moon took pictures of many of the people he met and I think that those pictures add much to the book.
More so than the above factors, however, I think that Heat-Moon's philsophical bent adds a lot to the book. Blue Highways is not just an account of a trip; in meeting these people and engaging them, Heat-Moon wants to help answer some of the big questions about why we are here and what it means to live a good life. While no one can answer those questions once and for all, Heat-Moon provides some great food for thought.
As several reviewers have pointed out, Heat-Moon's 1978 descriptions of the USA are now poignant due to the changes in our society. Sadly, many of the older people he encountered must now be dead. Many of Heat-Moon's other observations are just as valid today as they were in 1978. Specifically, he laments the increasingly-homogeneous American culture, materialism, careerism, and many other problems.
I first read Blue Highways in 1993. I reread it this summer (2008). It lost nothing on the second reading. If you like travel writing and are at all philosophical, this book will "speak" to you on so many different levels. Don't pass this one up; it's that rare, wonderful book that makes reading all of the mediocre books worthwhile.
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