Customer Reviews

Riding Toward Everywhere

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

 

 

A real dud, although it probably sounded like a good idea for an adventure book: a guy tries to re-live the past, goes hobo and rides the rails in 2006. Alas, (big surprise) post 9/11 railroad yards have surveillance systems and the bulls ride ATVs.

How many times does Vollmann actually manage to hop a freight? Not very many. When waiting for trains gets too boring, he heads to the airport to catch a flight home. He rides Amtrak too, and cell phones and credit cards are always close at hand.

Uneasy with the authenticity of this adventure, Vollmann points out Thoreau had more financial support than he let on, therefore his own experience is as valid as Thoreau's. Trouble is, Vollmann doesn't experience much of anything, and in his search for romantic old-time hobos, he shows little interest or compassion for the real bums he meets. It's all pretty empty, and his account runs as shallow as the Frontier Days cowboy re-enactments he disparages.

No matter how many times he uses the F-word, Vollmann (summa cum laude Cornell, the New Yorker, New York Times Book Review, Harpers, etc.) has trouble getting "hobos" to accept him, and it reads like he spoke to no more than half-a-dozen. Desperate to get enough material for a book, he tries to buy stories.

Coming across a ragged couple on the sidewalk (p. 89) he offers the woman $5 to tell him about riding the rails; she says she doesn't want to talk, that her stories are too sad; Vollmann keeps waving the fiver, but she still refuses and mentions being hungry. He might have treated the couple to a Big Mac or bag of White Castles, and maybe the stories would have flowed. Not Vollmann. He tells the couple he's going to dinner and he'll stop back later to see if they're hungry enough yet to sell him some stories. He's hurt when they get angry.

In Vollmann's world (He regrets not having bought a wife in Cambodia.) everything human is for sale, and he seems to relish humiliating this pitifully poor couple who won't trade their memories for his money. (In the same vein Vollmann glories in his appetite for prostitutes, which he might defend, I suppose, by pointing out buying women provides an author with quick access to experiences that would otherwise require the slow building of relationships.) Ironically, a major theme of the book is: "Give some people a little power (money) and they turn into Nazis..."

Later, (p. 133) he pays "Pittsburgh Ed" $20 to recount his life. Not much of a story, yet good for a page and a half, but there's still the 186 other pages to fill (It's a small book.) Lacking material Vollmann just rambles on, and not very intelligently. Too bad there isn't more about the author's friend "Steve," but Vollmann misses that opportunity. I hope Steve writes his own story.

58 of the 64 black-and-white photos (one per page) are random shots of nothing. Worse than the worst of the most vacuous vacation shots you've ever had to endure, but they bring the book up to its advertised number of pages. Thumb through them. Then ask yourself, is this an experience I really want to buy?

We have our images of people riding the rails in bygone days: Vollmann's book is a fine but disturbing look at the reality of that life in today's world. Vollmann describes the subculture: those whose life centers on an existence on the rails, and those like himself and his friends for whom riding the rails is more of a getaway, and who can afford to fly home if they have to do so.

Getting on and off moving trains can be a dangerous business: Vollmann has many tales about broken limbs and lost legs. You'll learn about the people in this life--the frightening and reportedly often lethal FTRA, the misfits and rebels, the people like Steve and Brian, Vollmann's friends. People outside the life are referred to derisively as "citizens", and inside the group there are codes of conduct. You might be killed for $5 worth of food stamps, but your sleeping bag will never be stolen. There are people Vollmann meets and hears of who may (or may not) be serial killers: one tale is of a heavily-tattooed man who on one tattoo area has 30 dots--one for each person he has killed.

It's all rather like, in a way, homeless street people--people who live outside the normal boundaries of society. There's a dislike of rules, of laws. But at the same time, as Vollmann shows, you show respect to the railroad--for example, simple things such as not urinating or defecating in the boxcar you might be riding in, even if you're about to jump off a mile further on. It's no longer the kind of romantic life that you might see in Emperor of the North or Bound for Glory. There is at the end of the book a collection of 65 black-and-white photographs of the life and the people taken by the author. It's a fascinating look at a little-known life.

I loved this book and it being the first I'd ever read by William T. Vollman, I decided to pursue more of his writing. Vollman is one of the only middle-class white guys I've ever read who tries seemingly tirelessly to approach and understand people from the working and itinerant classes with an altogether humane approach. He does pay some hobos to share their stories with him - isn't that exactly the sort of transaction from which both of them can profit? As Vollman acknowledges in the forward to this book, by way of praising his traveling companion Steve -

"This book is dedicated to Steve Jones
who never pretended
that he or I were hobos..."

I respect Vollman for being doggedly honest in all of his (at least self-recorded) transactions with other humans, and for talking about issues that many of the rest of us find uncomfortable enough to avoid, despite their being pressing and essential for really interrogating what it means to be a moral human. I suggest everyone also read his current (March 2011) Harper's article on the homeless in Sacramento for more of this type of writing.

And finally - I am planning on riding the rails myself after reading this book. I felt more alive then, just from reading it, than I have except when adventuring on my own cross-country bicycle trip. Wahoo!

-LT

When I discovered this piece hidden in a used book store, I read the jacket and knew that I had to read it. After all, they say you can't judge a book by its cover. Very true. I judged this as being an interesting read. In reality, it's not. The concept was great. A man (and one or two companions) leave their homes and families to ride freight trains for the thrill of the illegal, mystery of the unknown, and experience of a lifetime. However, besides some beautiful descriptions of scenery, this book has little redeeming qualities. Even if the book didn't touch on much more than what happens as they travel, it would still be interesting, as we might hear and learn about the various places and things Vollman witnessed on his journey. Instead, however, he fills most of the pages with abstract, forced-romanticism, attempting to make the reader feel as though they are listening to a soul-searcher, a man who is lost in life and trying to find himself. In reality, Vollman isn't lost at all. He probably has more to his name (money, education, loved ones, confidence) than all of the people he comes across on his travels combined. He knows who he is and what his life is about. The constant mind-wandering and nostalgic references to his past are sad attempts to trick the reader into seeing him as a deep, confused human being. He constantly refers to Cold Mountain, which is basically a soul's own private, physical heaven somewhere on earth. A place where they feel at home and ease. It's a good concept, but all Vollman does is ramble about where his might be, never truly discovering anything about himself, except maybe that he's a scatterbrain. The book's platform about soul-searching makes sense, but not with this author. Instead, he should have focused more on the trainhopping aspects of the book. But no, instead we get a 50-year-old man speaking of romance and passion like he's 25. Interestingly enough, he apparently has the agility and health of an 80-year-old man. And who wants to hear their grandfather rant about fornicating with women? Not I. In summary, the book has some strong descriptive writing in relation to the scenery along the great American West, but lacks the passion and truth perfected by so many great authors before Vollman. Hopefully he finds his niche. Or stays away from nonfiction.

I've ridden a couple freight trains. If you are crazy about freight trains you will love this book, partially because there isn't much written on the topic and it a lot safer (and more legal) to read about it than to ride.

If you aren't into trains, then don't read it.

I've ridden a couple freight trains. If you are crazy about freight trains you will love this book, partially because there isn't much written on the topic and it a lot safer (and more legal) to read about it than to ride.

If you aren't into trains, then don't read it.

You can see where Vollmann is trying to go with this book. He wants to create a modern Jack Kerouac tale. He even spends some time talking about Kerouac and his journeys. One of the thing that prevents him from achieving this goal is that he seems to detest everyone. He rarely has a positive thing to say about anyone he meets on his travels. He complains about people who don't want him in their restaurants or stores because he stinks. Well, that's how people are, Will. He seems to have a particular distaste toward women, once referring to a "Cambodian whore" when calling her a prostitute would seem more appropriate, and comments about a waitress that the only person in his party that has a chance to bed her is his friend's son. Like her existence in this earth is to get screwed by customers and serve coffee, giving no indication that he has any respect for her otherwise.

The "Cambodian whore" like also reminds me of the book's most annoying flaw: Vollman comes off as a very insecure writer, desperate to impress using elaborate words or trying to be artistically coarse, when simpler methods would work better. He's not confident enough to write like a Cormac McCarthy or even a Steinbeck - not that he needs to be, everyone has a different writing style. Bradbury writes elaborately, but Bradbury does it right. He uses obscure or elaborate wording when that is what's called for. Instead of saying he's crossing the street, Vollmann seems likely to refer to "transversing the public thoroughfare", revealing a need to show off his vocabulary to the extent that it becomes a distraction from what he's saying more than support for it.

Beyond that, he spends a lot of time in self-indulgent rambling about very tangential things. He'll go into a little diatribe about how riding the rails is so beautiful and wonderful, then point out that he's a hypocrite because right now he's on a bullet train in Japan. What? Japan? What does that have to do with this, other than to show off that he's in Japan now?

Finally, the last thing I care about is his political beliefs, but he spends several pages in the beginning making sure everyone knows how much he hates George W. Bush. Further in, he whines about the "dehumanizing" searches he has had to submit to, due to increased security after 9/11. Well, he got searched and his friend got searched, two isolated incidents, but we all have to hear how America is descending into Fascism because he had to raise his arms and get patted down when he got on a plane. Sigh... I could not care less, sir. I didn't buy the book to hear about your political hatreds.

I've enjoyed the majority of Vollman's work, but Riding Toward Everywhere didn't really do anything for me. It's similar in tone and format to his earlier book Poor People, but doesn't succeed where that book did. That book took a worldwide view of what it means to be poor, and how people in various different locations dealt with their own poverty. Riding Toward Everywhere, basically, is about how Vollmann likes to hitch rides on trains. He tries to elicit information from other, more seasoned train riders, but they're a pretty tight-lipped, insular bunch. Although Vollmann's brilliance shines through in several descriptive passages, overall this book left me feeling pretty unimpressed.

Is there a sound more romantic than that of a distant freight train whistle, stirring the imagination and giving birth to dreams of escape and adventure? Who hasn't pictured himself clambering onto one of those trains, speeding off into the blackness of the night to an unknown destination? In RIDING TOWARD EVERYWHERE, National Book Award-winning novelist and journalist William T. Vollmann (EUROPE CENTRAL) gives voice to that yearning, offering his impressionistic vision --- freight train rides as "parables" --- of both the joyous freedom and the perils of a life riding the rails.

Vollmann's book consists of a loosely stitched-together collection of prose poems, sketching his own trainhopping experiences --- "catching out," as those who ride the rails term it --- and portraying the lives of some of the denizens of that world. There's little in the way of chronology or conventional structure to the book. Vollmann and his occasional traveling companion Steve Jones, a pudgy, middle-aged fellow who seems to ride the rails in order to find his way quickly and economically to the best fishing holes, board freight trains throughout the Northwest United States, from Roseville, Oregon to Cheyenne, Wyoming, relishing the freedom of the pursuit and yet recognizing that the potential for a catastrophe always lurks nearby. Interspersed with the account of their travels is Vollmann's expedition into the "hobo jungle," as much an anthropologist there as he is a fellow traveler.

The men and women whose stories Vollmann tells are depicted in a sobering portrait gallery at the back of the book: gaunt, hollow-eyed, aged far beyond their years and living on the margins of a society far from the consciousness of the "citizens" (Vollmann's derisive italics) who represent to him bourgeois respectability. Colorfully named trainhoppers like Pretty Polly, Pittsburgh Ed, Cinders, Frog and Guitar Whitey (who has logged some seven decades on the rails) share their blunt and occasionally humorous stories with him. Far from being simple tales of robust freedom, they're tinged with isolation, sadness and loss. In these brief, empathetic portrayals, Vollmann attempts, not always successfully, to transform them from faceless hobos into flesh and blood human beings.

There is constant danger on the rails, from the obvious risk of death by injury with each mount or dismount to the exposure to thugs and robbers. Vollmann writes of violent, racist gangs like the FTRA, Goon Squad and Wrecking Crew, and shares examples of their disturbing graffiti in a series of stark, black-and-white photographs. Although the world Vollmann describes primarily is inhabited by men, he offers the stories of a handful of the women --- "Diesel Venuses" --- who have found their way into this life.

Vollmann also links himself to some of the titans of American literature who have celebrated life on the open road --- the "ecstatic openness of Kerouac's road voyagers," the "dogged cat-and-mouse triumphs of London's freight-jumpers" and the "canny navigations of Twain's riverboat youth." It's a fertile literary tradition, and Vollmann's homage to it is frank and heartfelt.

But it would be misleading to suggest that RIDING TOWARD EVERYWHERE is nothing more than a romantic tribute to the hobo life. Vollmann is no anarchist, but he is harshly critical of the bargain he believes Americans have made to trade elemental freedoms for perceived security. "It is the security men," he writes, "the necessary evils who make each succeeding year of my life more unfree than the one before, these are the ones whom I hate and fear."

A good share of the pleasure of RIDING TOWARD EVERYWHERE lies in Vollmann's lyrical descriptions of his train riding experience in passages like this one: "Montana trains crawl high under the rainy sky, heading toward stumpy grey peaks like bearclaws. Whitewater keeps exploding between the moss-bearded firs and spruces, pillowing upon rocks and ledges, then speeding blindly on beneath that gloomy sky."

RIDING TOWARD EVERYWHERE isn't likely to inspire a new generation of Americans to take to the rails in search of adventure. For Vollmann and his pal Steve, it's a pastime in which they can engage before slipping back into their more conventional lives. For those likely to live out their days in train yards and on boxcars, it's an existence fraught with loneliness and danger, and yet, Vollmann seems to say that the experience of pure freedom it provides offers some rough and partial consolation.

--- Reviewed by Harvey Freedenberg

The train stuff is interesting, his very long diversions into his personal issues with America and his own being, not so much.