Customer Reviews

Purple Mountains: America from a Motorcycle

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

After reading "Purple Mountains", I began planning my first long trip on a motorcycle. Up to now, I've restricted my riding to a one-day journey.
This author grew up in Hawaii - where long motorcycle trips are close to impossible. But through his eyes you will see the richness of the land and people of America like you have never seen them before. Author Notch Miyake describes his three month solo journey around our country. But it is not a travelogue.
Instead, Notch uses all five senses to help you feel how riding a motorcycle around our country (not our cities) can bring depth to a person's life. Four things the author avoided: cities, expressways, hotels, and fast-food. Rather, he took the crooked road - the less traveled road - to experience America like few others have.
Campgrounds and mom-and-pop restaurants are the background for most of his people encounters. This way, he was able to exchange stories with local people - some motorcycle riders - but mainly people who wished they could break out - and be a touring rider.
After reading Notch's revealing book, you will want to escape from the "Disney World Trail", and other top tourist destinations, and see the breadth and depth of America's people and the beauty of their land.

This well-crafted, literate, and beautifully edited work is a personal story that, viewed broadly, is a deeply patriotic celebration of America. No flag-waving or speeches. Just the opportunity to pursue a big dream...of a man on a motorcycle, across the United States. Massive expanse, individualism, and freedom: the combination is uniquely American. Those who need help planning and cannot think for themselves should look elsewhere.

What differentiates and distinguishes this excellent work are reunions, reflections and the use of color. The reunions with family and friends often meld with the reflections (thanks to the discipline of daily journal entries), yielding the opportunity to reveal his American experience along with his Japanese roots in Hawaii (where the dream started). What could be more Japanese-American than the image of a teenage boy of Japanese parents flying low around Hawaii on a motorcycle? Bikers always feel more alive on their machines, and being alive, as C.S. Lewis puts it, we have "the privilege of always moving, yet never leaving anything behind. Whatever we have been, in some sort we are still."

And he is a brave man. Mr. Miyake does not dwell on his (meritorious) Naval service in Viet Nam, but merely uses it modestly to amplify the relationship he has with those fellow vets he will visit.

The third distinguishing feature is the use of color, and it is striking. Miyake paints America. No one could fault him if he emphasized the black of asphalt or somber earth tones, sort of a unifying strip of color for his journey. But the dominant color of the book - irrespective of the title - is green. And it is probably a tip of the hat to F. Scott Fitzgerald. Miyake is his own man, and has traveled from Rochester, N.Y. to Alaska and back, the twin magnets of wife and hearth drawing powerfully.

All this folds up neatly into a well-made origami of an American eagle, perhaps a symbol of who he is...a best-blend of Japanese and American culture and values, strong accent on American.

This guy seems to have the potential of doing some interesting writing. This book didn't quite hit the mark, however. For example, he is riding the Alaska Ferry down the inside passage and doesn't tell us about the scenery, more about himself and a few mildly interesting other people and alot about the food he eats along the way. Ho Hum.
I'm waiting for his next book because I think he has it in him..somewhere!

Good read, but I guess that I was expecting more. Sometimes politics gets in the way of a good book.

I bought this book while planning my own bike trip across Canada. Bases on the previous review, I was sure it would be great. I was very disapointed. I don't mind persevering through uninspired writing if I am getting good information, but this book has none. Half way through I just couldn't take another page and had to put the book down. I am reading now, the other book I ordered, "Odyssey to Ushuaia" and it is great! Order this one, not "Purple Mountains".

The book is exactly what I thought it would be, an insight into motorcycle travel across the US on your own, meeting all sorts of people and keeping off the freeways.
An excellent read.