Here, There, Elsewhere

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Great Roads, Occasional Potholes

If you’re slightly puzzled by William Least Heat-Moon’s Here, There, Elsewhere, then you’re not alone. Several of his stories from the road are pure inspiration.  Others, not so much.  There’s an inconsistency here that will keep you off balance.

The book, released in 2013, is a compilation of articles published years or decades earlier. Some have been updated to escape editors’ heavy-handed revisions.  Some are cool and laugh-out-loud funny such as “The Last Thanksgiving of Whispers To Hawks,” which tells about a favorite uncle during the holidays.  Many are thought-provoking such as “Not Far Out of Tullahoma.”  That one describes how American travel has shifted from savoring the journey to simply rushing toward the destination.

A few of Heat-Moon’s stories, though, border on pretentious.  He’s making a point somewhere.  But he buries it so deeply under his sentence structure and embroidered vocabulary that you may be unable to dig it out.  It’s as if he tests you to see if you’re worthy.

Don’t be put off by that, though.  Here, There, Elsewhere is a keeper.  And William Least Heat-Moon has works out there that are worth exploring further. 

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Quotes

Among the variety of American travelers, those who visit a somewhere ostensibly lacking any feature other than mere existence aren’t numerous, although perhaps they should be.  The growing throng crowding national and theme parks and any piece of sand leading to waves anywhere can encourage a rambler to seek out the overlooked and presumed humdrum.  Surpassing even the great Sir Edmund Hillary, this other kind of excursionist, resolutely curious, goes to a place truly “because it’s there” and not because it’s the highest mountain on earth.

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