Customer Reviews

Roads to Quoz: An American Mosey

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(10)

 

 

I've been an avid fan of Heat-Moon's since I first picked up Blue Highways and Prairy Erth many years ago. Whether it's his melancholy wanderlust or the ability to make the commonplace come alive, William Least Heat-Moon is one of America's finest travel writers. I pre-ordered Roads to Quoz with much anticipation. It came, I read it, I let it stew, and in the end find I'm a bit underwhelmed.

It's not that the book isn't entertaining. It is. Heat-Moon once again has much to tell his audience. But, there is something naggingly absent. Roads to Quoz is a series of roundtrips that Heat-Moon makes with his wife. Gone are the solitary miles stretching before him to be replaced with hotels and eateries. It isn't a journey so much as a jaunt and Heat-Moon's prose suffers because of it.

"Q", his mono-initialled wife, is a complete enigma. She is quick with a quip, but not much else and remains indistinguishable throughout. She's a void beyond her sardonic comments. Furthermore, Heat-Moon, never shy about his politics, is so inclined to the point of repetition. Yet, those new to Heat-Moon might find this book adequately pleasing. I would challenge them to read Prairy Erth and Blue Highways. One simply can't come away thinking that Quoz compares favorably with anything previously written. 3+ stars.

I wasn't sure there was a word for what happens to me when I read Heat-Moon's works. I find treaures in them that seem to be written just for me to find. How can that be?

"PrairyErth" was such a treasure-box; I have read it every year since it was written, each time finding something new. "Roads to Quoz" is also such a book. Its wisdom, depth and humor take you on journeys that are pure joy for the intellect and the imagination.

Heat-Moon's "roads to Quoz" cover a vast area, so I was suprised that one of his Quoz stories mentioned a tiny town in Kansas called "Otis". It is where my mother grew up. I cannot explain such crossings of paths, but at least now I have a word for them: Quoz.

This is simply a gem of a book. It looks forward and backward at the same time, giving insights along the way, and finding wonder.
Gary Gackstatter, St Louis

Having enjoyed Blue Highways so much, I eagerly ordered Roads to Quoz on my Kindle. It was a bore from the start. I really tried to get into it but could not. I quit few books, but I didn't even get to the halfway point of this one before giving up to search for something more interesting to read.

What is especially annoying is the author's insistence on using so many words that I didn't know (and I consider myself to be well educated). I found myself using the dictionary feature on my Kindle on nearly every page. Many of his words were so obscure that they didn't even come up in the Kindle dictionary! Sadly, the author ignored the sage advice to communicators: "Write to EXpress, not to IMpress."

While certain chapters held my interest, I really struggled with most chapters and finally decided I was wasting my time with the book. I'm glad other reviewers found it enjoyable. I wish I weren't among the many who did not. At least I'm glad I didn't buy the hard cover version.

"Samuel Johnson said it in five words: `Solitude is dangerous to reason,'" writes the author. "I can think of no greater reason for taking to the American road."

In 1982, William Least Heat-Moon published Blue Highways, a remarkable book whose title refers to highways colored blue on maps. Now, in Roads to Quoz, he ventures again off the beaten path to encounter quirky but charming out-of-the-way places and people.

With an easy banter, Heat-Moon engages those whom he meets along the way--colorful characters eager to tell their stories. Venturing from Florida to New Mexico, Maine, and Idaho, and to other states in between, he writes with the delightful wit and humor reminiscent of Twain, Steinbeck, or Jack Kerouac.

He explains that "quoz" (rhymes with Oz) means anything out of the ordinary: "anything strange, incongruous, or peculiar; at its heart is the unknown, the mysterious."

Not all of America, perhaps not even the best, can be found along the Interstate highways or in the big cities. As the poet Robert Frost put it, "I took the road less traveled by--and that has made all the difference."

William Least Heat-Moon, the pen name of William Trogdon, is of English, Irish, and Osage ancestry. He lives near Columbia, Missouri, on an old tobacco farm he's returning to forest. His first book, Blue Highways, is a narrative of a 13,000-mile trip around America on back roads. His second work, PrairyErth, is a tour on foot into a small corner of the great tallgrass-prairie in eastern Kansas. River-Horse is an account of his four-month, sea-to-sea voyage across on the United States on its rivers, lakes, and canals. His three books on travels have never been out of print. Heat-Moon is also the author of Columbus in the Americas, a compendium of the explorer's adventures in the New World.

Having enjoyed the authors earlier Blue Highways less than a year ago my wife gifted me Quaz for my 64th birthday. With that first book Least Heat Moon taught me that travel writing could go far beyond describing a trip. That within the outline provided by the trip the more engaging elements of characterization, drama and all kinds of other disciplines could be blended to create complex and interesting reading. I've read less than a quarter of the book and will finish it just like the skim milk I mistakenly bought but it's just plain hard work unlike Blue Highways which I avoided reading only because I wanted it to go on forever. The problem with Quoz is not so much the vocabulary as the blending of too many academic disciplines and unending passages juxtaposing antropology, history, geology to the point where I loose track of where I am and stop caring. The author also misses a great opportunity at creating interest by not developing his wife as a more conventional sidekick in his journey.

I'll echo the legions of readers who've hailed "Blue Highways" a terrific book; I've recommended it to others and still re-read random portions of it to myself when the mood strikes. "Quoz" is not on par with its distinguished ancestor, but that's not to say it isn't worth reading, or that it doesn't have merits of its own to recommend it.

WLH-M's greatest strength is his rare ability to relate the stories of ordinary Americans (some of whom have done extraordinary things) without sounding like a condescending carpetbagger. All the while, he refuses to go for the cutesy or the trite. Even in his quest for authentic waterside cuisine, or in his beautiful (though sad) descriptions of America's natural beauty and indigenous history falling prey to human greed and development, the author finds ways to imbue his narrative with insight and meaning. I disagree with those reviewers who find no overarching point or theme in this book--by documenting these random instances of "quoz", WLH-M is doing his small share to shore up memory, without which humanity itself is doomed. That he's able to accomplish so much through travel and anecdote is a marvelous thing indeed.

As with any road-trip companion, WLH-M's constant presence can occasionally be irritating. He's loquacious, no doubt. He can be pretentious at times (though I found the style of "PrairyErth" to be far more cloying than "Quoz"). His anti-Bush rantings were needless and, frankly, puerile (though his cry against capitalism run amok is worthy of consideration). His strange obsession with "Q" is indulgent (though, unlike many readers, I'm not turned off by his expansive vocabulary--for crying out loud, if you don't know what a word means and have any curiosity at all, grab a dictionary and learn something; it takes about ten seconds!). And the author does tend to be preachy to the point of absurdity. Happily, when any of the foregoing became too much to handle, I was able to the put the book aside for awhile--something you can't do with an actual traveling partner.

I doubt WLH-M could ever top the success he had with "Blue Highways" and for readers to ask him to do so is unfair. As another reviewer has stated, that book arose out of a very specific moment in his life. To duplicate that book now would be an impossibility and, for a writer of WLH-M's talents, a bore. "Quoz" itself is an entertaining and insightful enough read, as well as a worthy addition to the author's literary resume.

This book is really a compilation of different anecdotes dealing with less travelled sections of our Nation. The conversations the author participates in with Q, his wife, while visiting certain areas, add to our understanding of the surroundings. Also I enjoyed the direct way in which the author address his reading audience, often utilizing humor in spots to call attention to particular attractions.

The down-sight for me was that fact that Heat-Moon appeared to forget that not every reader possesses a PHD in English literature. He seems to have swallowed a dictionary, using five or six syllable words where two or three syllable words would do as well. During the first part of the book I had to stop my reading continually in order to learn word meanings. Thereafter I gave up and perused the remainder while guessing as to vocabulary definitions.

Typical Heat-Moon book. A good read if you're into meeting personally quirky people in off-the-beaten-path places, although this one seems a bit less focused than earlier works by him.

I think the book is better early on. The more it progresses, the more it seems to repeat itself - not the stories, but the overall theme. And the last section following the ICW down the East Coast seems like just a long float to nowhere. Only when he goes ashore does the author tell us about his usual assortment of interesting meet-ups.

By the way, I am not impressed with the author's attempt to astound me with his vocabulary. Why not let the diction reflect the people he meets? And the "q" thing gets a little over the top.

I agree with other reviewers. To me, this isn't as good as his first three books. Though it's by no means lacking in interest or quality, it's indeed tendentious or repetitive in many spots, and the writing too often labors when it tries to be fine. I'm currently rereading Blue Highways, and that's a breath of fresh air by comparison.

I cannot finish this book. Steve Koss is so right: "He cannot say anything simply if there is a way to make it long and pretentious." How unfortunate. Blue Highways was exceptional.