Review: Blue Highways by William Least Heat Moon

After losing his job and having his marriage crumble, Least Heat Moon sets off on a journey around the country, traveling slowly, along blue highways (state and local routes marked in blue on his maps), meeting the people and examining the small, forgotten places along these back roads. He drives around in a converted van he names Ghost Dancer but rather than have adventures, there's a sort of dreamy, wandering pace to his travels and his narrative. He never mocks the people he meets, listening to their thoughts and opinions respectfully, chronicalling a fast disappearing way of life.

The narrative, as would seem appropriate, is loaded with descriptions of the areas in which he is driving so the reader sees the shift in the physical landscape as Least Heat Moon loops around the country. There is also very much a personal, introspective theme running through the pages. Least Heat Moon interweaves his own Native American heritage and beliefs throughout his chronicle as well as calling attention periodically to history, both recent (at least recent at the time of his journey--1970's) and centuries past. The writing is as meandering as the trip and if the reader is in the proper frame of mind, this works. But be forewarned that only the trip itself, both physical and of self-discovery unite the various chapters. This is a quiet, contemplative sort of book but it resonates deeply long after the last page has been turned.

Review: Eve's Ransom by George Gissing

Maurice Hilliard is a young man who is given some money long owed to his late father and with this unexpected windfall, he determines to spend a year, or as long as the money holds out, truly living his life. He quits his job, bids farewell to his friend, and strikes out to do just this. But after determining that he is as aimless in Paris as he was in England, he decides to search out a young woman with whose portrait he'd become enamoured at his former landlady's home. Once he tracks down Eve, he pushes to know her and her friend Patty, becoming a major player in their lives. He falls for the sometimes unapproachable Eve, taking on a sort of benefactor's role in her life. Eve has known real penurious hardship and so she allows Maurice to buy his way into her life, all the while knowing that Maurice's windfall is temporary. She cannot see her way to living a life on the edge of poverty again and so she continues to hold herself slightly aloof from Maurice.

Gissing, a Victorian author, has drawn a realistic and challenging portrait of a man who is in love with a woman who cannot force herself to love him, feeling gratitude but nothing deeper. Although this is a short book, his descriptions of dreary, dingy, industrial age London, Paris, and Birmingham is instructive. He has captured the reality and result of grinding poverty on the soul and the limited prospects available to the lower class of the time. Only Maurice and Eve are completed characters and neither is totally likeable, both grasping and desperate in their own ways. I was disappointed in the ending of the book. The tone changed very drastically and the characters seemed so changed without the reader seeing that change that the conclusion just felt off. It almost seemed as if at the last minute Gissing felt as if his intended ending was too depressing to foist on the serial reading public and so whitewashed things. Other than that caveat though, I enjoyed this and would recommend it to other readers who enjoy the realism so often found in Victorian fiction.