immerse yourself in an author's world
In the finest stories, setting is a character. This is both an author's challenge and a traveler's opportunity. Reading a classic tale amid your journeys -- whether it's Victor Hugo in Paris, John Steinbeck in Monterey, or Stephen King in Maine -- can turn any trip into an intimate excursion. Even a single sentence can enhance the scenery.
What a wonder it is to wander North Carolina and ponder Thomas Wolfe's description in Look Homeward, Angel ("clumped woodlands, the bending sweep of the fields, the huge flowing lift of the earth-waves"). Spend some time with Huckleberry Finn on the banks of the Mississippi River, and you begin to understand the myriad stories at every bend in the great waterway. An excursion to Utah's Arches National Park is made that much more spectacular when you read Edward Abbey and anticipate a sunrise consisting of a "flaming globe, blazing on the pinnacles and minarets and balanced rocks." Such poetic accounts make places come alive.
But the converse is true, too. By discovering how writers were informed by places and experiences (biography through geography), you gain new insight into both the words and the wordsmith. A walking tour of J.R.R. Tolkien's Oxford offers a glimpse into the man and Middle-Earth. A journey along Long Island's Gold Coast, along with an F. Scott Fitzgerald classic, lends a salience to the opulence. A trip through Harlem -- as Langston Hughes saw it -- is a lesson in history and culture. And characters bring out the character of a place, whether it's the London of Sherlock Holmes, the Dublin of Leopold Bloom, or the Atlanta of Scarlett O'Hara.
If an author inspires you, why not visit the surroundings that inspired the words? The 44 links below will take you there.
What a wonder it is to wander North Carolina and ponder Thomas Wolfe's description in Look Homeward, Angel ("clumped woodlands, the bending sweep of the fields, the huge flowing lift of the earth-waves"). Spend some time with Huckleberry Finn on the banks of the Mississippi River, and you begin to understand the myriad stories at every bend in the great waterway. An excursion to Utah's Arches National Park is made that much more spectacular when you read Edward Abbey and anticipate a sunrise consisting of a "flaming globe, blazing on the pinnacles and minarets and balanced rocks." Such poetic accounts make places come alive.
But the converse is true, too. By discovering how writers were informed by places and experiences (biography through geography), you gain new insight into both the words and the wordsmith. A walking tour of J.R.R. Tolkien's Oxford offers a glimpse into the man and Middle-Earth. A journey along Long Island's Gold Coast, along with an F. Scott Fitzgerald classic, lends a salience to the opulence. A trip through Harlem -- as Langston Hughes saw it -- is a lesson in history and culture. And characters bring out the character of a place, whether it's the London of Sherlock Holmes, the Dublin of Leopold Bloom, or the Atlanta of Scarlett O'Hara.
If an author inspires you, why not visit the surroundings that inspired the words? The 44 links below will take you there.
|
|
|
|