Leonard and Sundeen Travel and Journey Narratives Research Paper

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Contemporary American travel literature illustrates convergences of time and space, creating a borderless and timeless mode of narration. Granted, American travel narratives do not offer the same sort of epic and sweeping scope that epitomize classic works like that of Ibn Battuta and Basho. Contemporary American travel literature is imbued with American mythos. Moreover, contemporary American travel literature demonstrates postmodern tropes and conventions including a strong sense of uncertainty and ungroundedness. Solitary and introspective as they are, the works of Brendan Leonard and Mark Sundeen also exemplify Freudian theories of anxiety. As the importance of nation-state diminishes, the anxieties of identity construction may increase. Postmodern identity construction is less dependent on geographic space because of historical and temporal factors: factors like geographic independence in freelance work and mobility. Yet as liberating as geographic independence can be, it also bestows new anxieties. Those anxieties rise to the surface in travel literature because travel literature as a genre has been viewed as lowbrow, “being seen by some as essentially frivolous or morally dangerous,” (Holland and Huggan vii). Travel narratives by Brendan Leonard and Mark Sundeen depart from the typical vehicles of framing the Other, instead shifting the focus on how travel becomes the means by which to achieve personal and existential goals.

An ideal theoretical framework for studying how literary characters deal with their anxiety by going to other places would ideally blend Sigmund Freud’s anxiety theory with Bertrand Westphal’s theories of geocriticism and real and fictional space theory. Additionally, the philosophies of epicureanism and hedonism offer unique lenses with which to understand the function of travel in the postmodern mind, and the role of travel literature more specifically. The essence of epicureanism is that “all activity, even apparently self-sacrificing activity or activity done solely for the sake of virtue or what is noble, is in fact directed toward obtaining pleasure for oneself,” (O’Keefe 1). Epicureanism is similar to hedonism in that its fundamental proposal is that, “pleasure and pain are the only things of ultimate importance,” (Weijers 1). Travel memoirs—indeed any memoirs—are by definition hedonistic and epicurean in the sense that they ooze self-indulgence. Even Mark Sundeen’s anti-materialistic The Man Who Quit Money is ironically self-indulgent in that it uses the vehicle of memoir to market a mode of living that is consciously opposed to the working class norm in America. Like Thoreau, Sundeen deliberately eschews modern conveniences but does so from a position of power and privilege.

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The fact that Sundeen has agency, and acts with the power to choose his lifestyle without money, undermines the genuine struggles of those who live in poverty around the world. It is this disingenuousness that has rendered so much travel literature ethically questionable (Holland and Huggan vii).

Brendan Leonard’s Sixty Meters to Anywhere shows how individuals can resolve their anxieties via pushing past their boundaries and self-imposed limitations. Freud shows how anxiety is all about the expectation of what might happen, a profound level of discomfort with one’s life and the role one plays in the universe. Anxiety is different from fear, and in Sixty Meters, Leonard shows how ironic it is that feeling fear during the act of rock climbing can prompt a person to confront and overcome the deeper anxieties that can cause psychic paralysis. Moreover, Leonard’s Sixty Meters shows how Freud’s anxiety theory can be blended with Westphal’s theory of geocriticism. Geocriticism shows how space and time do impact the shape that a text takes, as well as its content. However, Westphal also shows how texts and their authors are liberated from time and space constraints, particularly in a borderless world. Rock climbing exemplifies the transcendence of time and space: a person achieves total transcendence by pursing vertical rather than the more accessible horizontal space. There are no vertical boundaries, as there are geopolitical boundaries in the typical space-time continuum.

Typically branded more as a rock climbing narrative than a travel one, Sixty Meters to Anywhere also has elements of hedonism and epicureanism embedded in the text. The author’s journey begins with his need to go to rehab, and Leonard frankly lists his hedonic indulgences related to alcohol abuse. Leonard also has access to power and privilege, enabling him to actually request time off for a time spent in rehab—something that most Americans do not have the ability to do. Furthermore, Leonard has access to a sport that demands time and money; essentially it is a sport of white privilege. Brendan Leonard’s The New American Road Trip Mixtape even better exemplifies Bertrand Westphal’s theories of real and fictional space, and of geocriticism. Arguably better written than Sixty Meters,….....

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