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Jump to navigationJump to searchIn America: Travels with John Steinbeck by Geert Mak (view source)
Revision as of 14:26, 22 December 2015
, 14:26, 22 December 2015no edit summary
If someone tells you they're going to write a book, and it will be based on someone else's book, and it's based on a trip they'll do, which that other person also did, you might be left confused about ''why'' exactly they would want to do that. Surely more fun to do your own thing, rather than re-trace the steps of someone who's been there, done that? ''In America Travels with John Steinbeck'' is this book, based on John Steinbeck's earlier adventure but taking place 50 years later.
This is not the Dutch author's first travel book, and you get the feeling he has a pattern down pat, mixing historical references with modern day observations. I especially enjoyed the prelude to his departure where he managed to paint an illuminating picture of what 1960s America was like which really set the scene for Steinbeck's experiences. Of course, knowing what America is like today was enough for the comparisons to spring up as Mak began to retrace the older author's steps. Fifty years is a long time, and a lot has changed, some things good, others bad. Having an outside perspective helps because here we have a Dutch man writing, perhaps, for a Dutch audience rather than for the Americans who become the subject of some of his dismay. It certainly has a feel of a visitor in a foreign land, with all the wonder this brings.
As he makes his way from state to state he talks of natural disasters that are so well known they can be given an innocuous, human name such as Katrina, with this being all that is needed to recall the devastation. He adds his two cents on Guantanamo, on religion, on Congress. He observes the unique girth of this land's natives – something that never gets old to us on this side of the pond, not matter how often it is repeated.
