Riding Toward Everywhere

3.5 stars would be closer, but I'll round up because we need more books like this that value freedom in America over "homeland security." Vollmann's elegy to trainhopping has plenty of sharp commentary and poetic self-reflection--with more meat, either facts or story or sustained characters, this could have been really great. But you won't find too many other middleaged literary geniuses doggedly pursuing the tedium and terror of catching freight trains these days, so my hat's off to him.

https://msarki.tumblr.com/post/164551617213/riding-toward-everywhere-by-william-...

Never been much of a Kerouac or Dean Moriarity fan, but have always been interested in the road, marching to a different beat, and eating off the land. The people Vollmann highlights here do not exactly fit the exacting romance I hold so dear. What William does achieve however is making me listen to him and actually focus on what he has to say. And that is good writing, no matter the subject or obsessions posed on his page. I read this book much as a slow-moving train. The sway and rhythm soothed me, and the certain-to-come rain failed to dampen my days like it might have his. I did feel sodden however with the pain of loss presented through the show more characters he met along the rails and diners and ditches on the way to his own Cold Mountain, the satori Kerouac strove for.

I never could have gotten to Cold Mountain because I lack Cold Mountain’s mind. I love cities as much as solitude, prostitutes as much as trees…But as Vollmann finishes, saying …Sometimes when I ride to Everywhere I believe in Cold Mountain. show less

One of the first books about "catching out" that I really didn't enjoy. The author is all over the place in this book and the train riding and hobo interaction is sparse. The author can be considered a joy rider. He travels by whatever means to get to a rail yard and then if not successful heads to the hotel or flies home. I'm sure that his time riding was exciting but he misses the culture that is present in other books such as Rolling Nowhere.

The book was just good enough to keep reading but barely. The second half of the book is better than the first.

Snapshots of a vanishing culture, written in a companionable Vollmann style. No writer is better at observing the world and conveying a perspective that is uniquely his own. But, the rants about airport security are silly and they read like any number of cranky letters to the local newspaper. The freedom Vollmann enjoys going everywhere doesn't have much to do with these impositions at the airport. I get his point, I suppose, but its certainly not the best contrast for the kind of freedom he is writing about. Furthermore, he confuses freedom and transgression. The problem-solving required to catch out, the uncertainty of success and the frisson provided by evading railroad bulls are the most substantial parts of his thrill and they are show more what heighten the rest of the experience. Otherwise, its just riding and looking at scenery. You could do that on the bus. Freedom and transgression are related, but they are also at odds. I'm pretty sure Vollmann wouldn't like a world without bulls any more than he'd like a world without poor people. show less

Then through a vaginal cut in the red rock, our freight train pulled us up into the sky, with small pines on either side of the tracks, and the entire world was red like Bryce Canyon or Zion.

I am nearly sure I saw WTV and his family, a short while back in Atlanta, as we were preparing to fly to London. I didn't approach him but now I wonder if he was struggling with an interior urgency: I need to get out of here.

Not what I expected. Riding Toward Everywhere is less sociology than travel. Well, it is actually less travel than a memoir. The use of that term has to be inflated in this context, for this is really a long article for a periodical allowed to drift from its own momentum. Despite that, I found and allow what some may regard as show more padding. it is quite good at times. This isn't a history of riding the rails, but a few snapshots of its contemporary configuration larded with oral history a few dozen photographs. show less

I'll write more later
This book is about a particular fear and feeling. Vollmann describes an America, shortly after 9/11 and in the grips of George W and his tightened security. Vollmann feels and senses a loss of freedom, and longs to regain it by riding the rails. He quotes from Hemingway, Thomas Wolfe, and Kerouac's On the Road with respect to their own attempts to leave somewhere and reach Everywhere. but where is that? Can you ever attain Everywhere? What is it we are longing for? What does it mean to be free?
The writing is good, especially his lyrical description of riding the trains and seeing the night sky or lying under a eucalyptus.

As much as the reader may sense how glorious riding the rails, catching out on a freight train may be to William T. Vollmann, somehow he fails to really ignite the same awe and wonder in us. In me, at any rate. Frankly, the book is a rather ornery mess, sort of like a…..well, like a train wreck. It’s all over the lot, er, yard. Many of the times that Vollmann and his pal Steve hop a train, they don’t know where they’re going - except to the mythical “everywhere”. His writing resembles that lack of destination.

Vollmann is really at his best here, when he’s quoting Kerouac, or Jack London, or Thoreau. That’s not enough to keep a good level of interest. Even the sixty or so black and white photographs that are placed at the show more rear of the book are mostly mediocre. What a disappointment.

It’s clear that Vollmann is deeply troubled about the state and status of personal freedom in America. But we knew that. This book, sadly, adds nothing to our understanding. show less