 | A WRITER'S WIT |  A. Christie |
My Book World
Ventura, Michael. If I Was a Highway: Essays. With a foreword by Dan Flores and photographs by Butch Hancock. Lubbock: Texas Tech UP, 2011.
This journalist originally from New York befriends the Southwest US, from Lubbock, Texas to Los Angeles; and, in turn, the Southwest seems to befriend him. In “A Life of Destinations,” Ventura says: “To be that man who only lives to live. That is my task from now on. It isn’t about writing anymore, or finding a meaning, or changing the world, or getting and keeping love, though all of that is important; but it isn’t about that stuff anymore. The task now is to be that man who only lives to live. For whom life, life, life, is enough” (15). What a great attitude!
As a Lubbockian (a term the author may have coined for no one I know uses it seriously), myself, I particularly liked Ventura’s essay, “Lubbockian Identity,” He begins this way: “Let us consider Lubbock Texas. In 1973, January through September, I lived in Lubbock—not a resident; a drifter, taking my time passing through. The Lubbockians I got to know all were Texans, mostly born and raised in Lubbock. Ethnically, most were some mixture of Anglo-Saxon-Celt, often with Cherokee stirred in a few generations back. Many traced their American ancestry to well before the Civil War” (35). But this delineation is only the beginning of Ventura’s portrayal of Lubbock—a place he likes more than he doesn’t. Will buy copies of this for friends [and I did] who don’t live in Lubbock—just so they know I’m not entirely crazy for living here!
Coming Next:
TUES: A Writer's Wit | Rachel Field
WEDS: A Writer's Wit | Anne Meara
THURS: A Writer's Wit | Mark Levin
FRI: My Book World | Rachel Louise Snyder, Women We Buried, Women We Burned
This journalist originally from New York befriends the Southwest US, from Lubbock, Texas to Los Angeles; and, in turn, the Southwest seems to befriend him. In “A Life of Destinations,” Ventura says: “To be that man who only lives to live. That is my task from now on. It isn’t about writing anymore, or finding a meaning, or changing the world, or getting and keeping love, though all of that is important; but it isn’t about that stuff anymore. The task now is to be that man who only lives to live. For whom life, life, life, is enough” (15). What a great attitude!
As a Lubbockian (a term the author may have coined for no one I know uses it seriously), myself, I particularly liked Ventura’s essay, “Lubbockian Identity,” He begins this way: “Let us consider Lubbock Texas. In 1973, January through September, I lived in Lubbock—not a resident; a drifter, taking my time passing through. The Lubbockians I got to know all were Texans, mostly born and raised in Lubbock. Ethnically, most were some mixture of Anglo-Saxon-Celt, often with Cherokee stirred in a few generations back. Many traced their American ancestry to well before the Civil War” (35). But this delineation is only the beginning of Ventura’s portrayal of Lubbock—a place he likes more than he doesn’t. Will buy copies of this for friends [and I did] who don’t live in Lubbock—just so they know I’m not entirely crazy for living here!
Coming Next:
TUES: A Writer's Wit | Rachel Field
WEDS: A Writer's Wit | Anne Meara
THURS: A Writer's Wit | Mark Levin
FRI: My Book World | Rachel Louise Snyder, Women We Buried, Women We Burned
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