Long Way Home On the Trail of Steinbeck America (Audible Audio Edition) Bill Barich JJ Write Audible Studios for Bloomsbury Books
Download As PDF : Long Way Home On the Trail of Steinbeck America (Audible Audio Edition) Bill Barich JJ Write Audible Studios for Bloomsbury Books
"We do not take a trip; a trip takes us," John Steinbeck noted in his 1962 classic, Travels with Charley. In the summer of 2008, Bill Barich stumbled upon a used copy of Travels in Ireland, where he has lived for the past eight years, and it inspired him to explore the mood of the United States as Steinbeck had done almost a half century before. With a hotly contested election looming, and in the shadow of an economic meltdown, Barich set off on a 5,943-mile cross-country drive from New York to his old hometown in San Francisco via Route 50, a road twisting through the American heartland.
Long Way Home is the stunning result of his pilgrimage, an illuminating and perceptive portrait of America at a dramatic point in its history. Where Steinbeck returned from the road depressed about the country's soul, Barich - while not uncritical of the narrow-mindedness and incivility of our present culture - finds brightness among the dark and rekindles his belief in the long view, as exemplified by the unbridled optimism of some high school kids in Hutchinson, Kansas, and by the undaunted spirit of an 80-year-old barber he chanced upon in Jefferson City, Missouri. "The world truly does renew itself while we're looking the other way," he observes.
From the Eastern Shore of Maryland to the spectacular landscape of Moab, Utah, to Steinbeck's own Salinas Valley, filled with memorable encounters and redolent with history and local color, Long Way Homeis a truthful, inspiring account of the country at a social and political crossroad. "The highway snakes into a tunnel," Barich writes about a stretch of Route 50 in West Virginia, "then erupts into the light with the force of revelation."
Long Way Home On the Trail of Steinbeck America (Audible Audio Edition) Bill Barich JJ Write Audible Studios for Bloomsbury Books
This book is simply someone's travel journal. To link it to John Steinbeck's "Travels With Charlie" is an insult. The author doesn't even live in the United States of America, so maybe he should keep his opinions in Ireland where he feels more comfortable. I am not an author, and I admire an author's ability to put into words that make me jealous. Bill Barick is a good author, but this book is one I wish I had not bought. He does not follow the path of Steinbeck, and I know it has been done before, and is somewhat trite, but then don't call it "on the trail of Steinbeck's America" because it is far from the truth. It is more a report on the presidential race of 2008, somewhat like a low-class T. White attempt. The author allows his liberal vent to ruin the book for anyone other than a liberal. He spends time railing against conservative talk radio, and yes it is over the top, but what about the lies and false comments from the liberal side of talk radio and the media? Any comments about that? Didn't think so. He says that Americans have become a docile, sheeplike breed. Don't know about you, but that does not sound like me. He spouts his distaste for the 2nd ammendment - probably one of the reasons he choses to live in Ireland, and paints honest gun owners as low-class idiots incapable of a thought of their own. As I said, I am no author, I am simply stating my opinion of this book. It has nothing to do with Steinbeck, and simply quotes from said author to give his travel journal some legitimacy - far from it. It is written by someone who has not lived in America for over ten years. Would have been nice to have an outside perspective, but the author came with a load of liberal ideas to begin with. If you like a travel journal, with liberal bias thrown in and anti-convervative values, this might be a good book for you to read. I, from my individual perspective, just cannot recommend it.Product details
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Long Way Home On the Trail of Steinbeck America (Audible Audio Edition) Bill Barich JJ Write Audible Studios for Bloomsbury Books Reviews
"Long Way Home" chronicles Bill Barich's 2008, cross-country, westbound drive across US 50, the cement spine of his native country- through Maryland, West Virginia, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, Colorado, Utah, before breaking from US-50 for Nevada and California.
His journey began innocently enough while living in Dublin with his second wife Imelda, Barich spots a paperback version of John Steinbeck's "Travels With Charley" in a second-hand bookshop. Steinbeck's book awakes in Barich an ambition of his youth to travel across the United States, as Steinbeck did, and to capture in words the country before him.
"Steinbeck used the term vacilando to describe a certain kind of wandering," Barich writes, "`If one is vacilando, he is going somewhere but doesn't care greatly whether or not he gets there...'"
Many of Barich's earlier works are well-heeled vacilando pamphleteering, powerful stump speeches for this certain kind of experience "A Fine Place to Daydream", "Big Dreams", "Traveling Light", "A Pint of Plain".
In a "Long Way Home", Barich displays again his vacilando tendencies with a poetic splendor. Barich demonstrates that he, like Steinbeck, is part of an underground brotherhood of romantic writer-travelers, whom walk slowly, look, breathe deep, and record clearly.
Unlike these earlier works, however, Barich's newest installation is a different kind of travel book. In "Long Way Home", Barich is not wandering new, mysterious lands the Irish countryside, the Californian coast, or an undiscovered emerald-blue trout stream. "A Long Way Home" is, as its title might suggest, a homecoming. It is a journey of hopeful rediscovery.
Barich embarks on this journey, first, as a "displaced Californian" and expat, who while living in Dublin, has lost touch with his native land. America for Barich had grown into a hazier concept. Almost a decade of expatriate life with his second wife, Imelda, had created between Barich and his homeland a benign separation, which the aging author hoped to bridge with his pen.
This book is Barich's attempt to recapture a sense of the land he left behind. His attempt at salvation seems at times like an absent husband trying to save a doomed marriage five years too late. Barich, like Steinbeck, is at times quickly disenchanted with the heartland.
Barich falls into the trap of making a series of lazy observations about his native land, that sound almost cliche they are so well represented Americans like to hunt, eat big portions, are suffering from cultural depravity, are besot with debt and far more goods than they can consume, are losing the frontier spirit, and so on. Barich, though, has thankfully not lost his more discerning eye, and fills "Long Way Home" with more memorable portraits of his fellow countrymen and women.
Barich's journey ends in a place out of which it was born California. As a young, struggling writer, Barich lived in a small trailer tucked away amidst a vineyard in Alexander Valley. Of his latest return, Barich writes, "Insofar as anywhere qualified as my home, San Francisco probably was it."
On the edge of the Pacific, the reader cannot help but to be left sad- wishing he could travel longer and further, to more places, through the America heartland, or anywhere, with Barich.
Barich's observations- romantic, achingly beautiful, full of compassion- beg in the reader the hope for more experience, more sights, sounds, smells, and taste; but alas, we are left hanging, like a panting dog over an empty water bowl, wondering where Bill will head next? Regardless of where it may be, I hope he will let me travel along.
As someone who's always maintained a special place in my heart for "Travels with Charley", I viewed the wide variance in posted reviews as a reason for concern. However, the sample whetted my appetite just enough to justify the full download, and I'm glad I did.
The book does not seek to follow the actual route undertaken by Steinbeck but instead, attempts to glimpse some of the same aspects of life in America that caught both writers's attention. Experiences are related with insight, awareness, a little humor whenever possible, and (above all) the perspective of someone returning to the country of his birth and attempting to understand some of its myriad contradictions, qualities, problems and circumstances. While politics does occasionally come into play, it is not the focal point of the book, in spite of what other reviewers here have commented on...and while Steinbeck might have been more successful at masking his personal political leanings, Barich uses his perspective to base his outrage over actual/perceived wrongs to powerful effect.
In short, a thoughtful, articulate book that compliments Steinbeck's original book simply and honestly. As a reflection of the country's soul at the time of the last general election, it is worth reading and thinking about.
This book is simply someone's travel journal. To link it to John Steinbeck's "Travels With Charlie" is an insult. The author doesn't even live in the United States of America, so maybe he should keep his opinions in Ireland where he feels more comfortable. I am not an author, and I admire an author's ability to put into words that make me jealous. Bill Barick is a good author, but this book is one I wish I had not bought. He does not follow the path of Steinbeck, and I know it has been done before, and is somewhat trite, but then don't call it "on the trail of Steinbeck's America" because it is far from the truth. It is more a report on the presidential race of 2008, somewhat like a low-class T. White attempt. The author allows his liberal vent to ruin the book for anyone other than a liberal. He spends time railing against conservative talk radio, and yes it is over the top, but what about the lies and false comments from the liberal side of talk radio and the media? Any comments about that? Didn't think so. He says that Americans have become a docile, sheeplike breed. Don't know about you, but that does not sound like me. He spouts his distaste for the 2nd ammendment - probably one of the reasons he choses to live in Ireland, and paints honest gun owners as low-class idiots incapable of a thought of their own. As I said, I am no author, I am simply stating my opinion of this book. It has nothing to do with Steinbeck, and simply quotes from said author to give his travel journal some legitimacy - far from it. It is written by someone who has not lived in America for over ten years. Would have been nice to have an outside perspective, but the author came with a load of liberal ideas to begin with. If you like a travel journal, with liberal bias thrown in and anti-convervative values, this might be a good book for you to read. I, from my individual perspective, just cannot recommend it.
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