I was sipping wine with a friend today and started talking about the writer.... Help me fill in the blank....
But dude went into the Rocky/Smoky mountains and spent the summer scouting for fires. If he spotted a fire he would use the short wave radio to bring in the guard but otherwise he thought he'd use his self imposed exile to write.
What I was remembering was how he did not bring anything to read. He ended up scrounging up every scrap of paper and reading bits of comics and newspapers left by former slobs who spent the summer in exile.
My question is 1) who was this? Steinbeck?
And 2) what kind of writer doesn't bring anything to read?
And 3) what would you bring to read?
me? I think I'd bring the complete works of Shakespeare.
― clellie, Thursday, 10 June 2004 22:53 (twenty-one years ago)
Was it Kerouac? Desolation Angels, maybe? It's been a while. I seem to remember one of his books starting out with him being a fire-watcher in the mountains.
― scott seward (scott seward), Thursday, 10 June 2004 23:58 (twenty-one years ago)
I think at the time it struck me as a pretty cool job. I was all about self-imposed exile as a teen. Maybe I'd bring lots of Balzac to read. I've got lots of Balzac that I never read at any rate.
― scott seward (scott seward), Friday, 11 June 2004 00:00 (twenty-one years ago)
I think Kerouac did a stint in a fire lookout in the Cascades. I know Gary Snyder did. There very well may be others. It was a 'cool' thing among the Beat writers.
― Aimless (Aimless), Friday, 11 June 2004 00:54 (twenty-one years ago)
At the suggestion of Snyder, Kerouac took an eight-week position as fire-watcher, working in Washington in the midst of Mount Baker
National Forest. Kerouac`s wood cabin post was on the top of Desolation Peak, twelve miles from the Canadian border. But the loneliness
was almost unbearable. He had gone hoping the ascetic life would purify his mind and his writing, but he found ` -- no liquor, no drugs, no
chance of faking it, but face to face with ole Hateful Duluoz me.` He hit an all time low:
`All I had to do was stay home, give it all up, get a little home for me and ma, meditate, live quiet, read in the sun, drink wine
in the moon in old clothes, pet my kitties, sleep good dreams -- `
He kept a journal of his thoughts, dreams and experiences which resulted in the book, `Desolation Angels.` His main writing activity of the
sixty-three days on Desolation was a long letter to his mother:
Don`t despair, Ma, I`ll take care of you whenever you need me -- just yell... I`m right there, swimming the river of hardships,
but I know how to swim -- don`t ever think for one minute that you are left alone.
― scott seward (scott seward), Friday, 11 June 2004 01:03 (twenty-one years ago)
2 months! What a baby. Okay, the no liquor thing would drive me insane, but still...
― scott seward (scott seward), Friday, 11 June 2004 01:04 (twenty-one years ago)
No way would I go and work anywhere called 'Desolation Peak' if I wasn't looking forward to a bit of, you know, desolation.
― accentmonkey (accentmonkey), Friday, 11 June 2004 11:32 (twenty-one years ago)
It´s Jon Krakauer; Into the Wild.
Or am I wrong? It sounds like that one, but it´s been a while since I read it.
― Jens Drejer, Sunday, 13 June 2004 11:48 (twenty-one years ago)