Route 66 [Paperback]

Gerd Kittel (Photographer)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 2002

The road that became known as Route 66 holds a unique place in American popular culture. Unlike any other road in world history, this modest two-lane highway took on cult status, bound up with American nostalgia for a recent past in which life was far less complex and mechanized than it has now become. Inaugurated by a group of businessmen in the 1920s, at a time when the automobile was first asserting itself as one of the main preferences for family holiday travel, its life-span was short - less than fifty years - but its mythology goes on and on. While Freddy Langer's text tell's the curious story of Route 66 in some detail, it is Gerd Kittel's extraordinary photographs that tell the story of the road as it is now. Wistful, brutal and beautiful at the same time, these documents of today show what has become a once powerful symbol of American hopes and pleasures: the wrecks of abandoned automobiles, the deserted diners and souvenir shops; the battered remnants of failed silos and warehouses; derelict towns; surviving personalities and buildings, as well as some of the views the road offers as it passes through seven states between Chicago and the Pacific Ocean. Before the advent of interstate superhighways, that was the main attraction of the road - its appeal to the American drive towards the West, where opportunity and success were believed to be waiting.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

The mystique and memory of Route 66 have spawned an industry based on adventure, the open road, and the great expanse of America between Chicago and Santa Monica, CA. This reviewer confesses to searching out obscure parts of Route 66, "The Mother Road" (Steinbeck's name for it), in the California desert. Such a search should be led by Kittel, a German photographer with special observation skills and an exquisite talent for composition. In a volume that moves from the flat Midwest to the astonishing Southwest, Kittel is careful to let changing topography serve only as a tantalizing backdrop to what people built and preserved or abandoned beside the asphalt of Route 66. Each photograph deserves a few minutes of the viewer's time while its story becomes clear or, just as often, resonates as perfectly absurd in cafes and souvenir-shop interiors, reminding us that this roadway runs through a land of individuals. Unfortunately, this friendly appreciation is marred by the leaden cliches of Bloom (history, Wheaton Coll.), who must be more effective in the classroom than as a hitchhiker offering a useless text on Kittel's journey. Equally clumsy prose comes from Langer, photo and travel editor of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, whose writing here is translated into English. Otherwise, this glorious American book about a road and its endless (visual) possibilities is recommended. David Bryant, New Canaan Lib., CT
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

Review

[O]ne of the better books about America's 'mother road'.... enough to make you weep for lost time and lost loves. -- San Francisco Chronicle, 12 May 2002

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Product Details

• Paperback: 176 pages
• Publisher: Thames & Hudson (May 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0500283508
• ISBN-13: 978-0500283509
• Product Dimensions: 11.2 x 9.2 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,676,610 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Sixty-six in Kittel color., October 16, 2002

By 

Robin Benson - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Route 66 (Paperback)

A super collection of color photos of America's Mother Road. I first came across Kittel's work in 1986 when I bought his `Southwest USA' and the following year `A New England Autumn'. As well as photographing the landscape he has an eye for capturing man-made America and as a foreigner that does not mean he searches out the ugly and the squalid. What I find so impressive about his work is the color and depth he manages to capture, you are really there looking at the scene as he saw it. The only other photographer I know of who also captures color in the same way is Stephen Shore in his 1982 book `Uncommon Places'

Kittel's photo essay of Route 66, in eighty-three (well printed) images captures the sights he found along the way. It starts with a spread of the morning rush-hour on a corner of Jackson Boulevard and Michigan Avenue in Chicago and ends with a picture of Santa Monica Boulevard and Ocean Avenue in California, the photos in-between show motels, gas stations, shops and frequently the people who run them, road signs, landscapes and more. Actually just the sort of photos that you would expect to see in a book about Route 66 but not until now with this quality and beauty. Some of these images are quite stunning, page sixty-one shows the Munger Moss motel in Labanon, Missouri, with its huge neon sign, page sixty-four has a near dusk image of the Boots Motel in Carthage, Missouri, the neon strips creating a glow on the sidewalk, page 157 shows a street corner in Barstow, with at least ten commercial signs disappearing into the distance to the left of the photo

In five sections between the photos pages author Freddy Langer's words cover the history of the highway in one paragraph decorative blocks. I think you can read better histories elsewhere and fortunately the text pages don't take up too much space. There are several general books about Route 66 but I got one recently that I feel is an excellent complement to Gerd Kittel's book, check out `Travelling Route 66' by Nick Freeth. The publishers had the great idea of making it small (about the size of a postcard) but with four hundred, all color pages. It is a travelogue, state by state, with maps, of what you can see and do if you drive the whole 2,250 miles of America's most famous road. So get out there and get your kicks.

***FOR AN INSIDE LOOK click 'customer images' under the cover.