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William T. Vollmann
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Riding Toward Everywhere Kindle Edition

by William T. Vollmann (Author) Format: Kindle Edition
4.3 out of 5 stars 43 ratings

Vollmann is a relentlessly curious, endlessly sensitive, and unequivocally adventurous examiner of human existence. He has investigated the causes and symptoms of humanity's obsession with violence (Rising Up and Rising Down), taken a personal look into the hearts and minds of the world's poorest inhabitants (Poor People), and now turns his attentions to America itself, to our romanticizing of "freedom" and the ways in which we restrict the very freedoms we profess to admire.

For Riding Toward Everywhere, Vollmann himself takes to the rails. His main accomplice is Steve, a captivating fellow trainhopper who expertly accompanies him through the secretive waters of this particular way of life. Vollmann describes the thrill and terror of lying in a trainyard in the dark, avoiding the flickering flashlights of the railroad bulls; the shockingly, gorgeously wild scenery of the American West as seen from a grainer platform; the complicated considerations involved in trying to hop on and off a moving train. It's a dangerous, thrilling, evocative examination of this underground lifestyle, and it is, without a doubt, one of Vollmann's most hauntingly beautiful narratives.

Questioning anything and everything, subjecting both our national romance and our skepticism about hobo life to his finely tuned, analytical eye and the reality of what he actually sees, Vollmann carries on in the tradition of Huckleberry Finn, providing a moving portrait of this strikingly modern vision of the American dream.

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  1. Print length
    291 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    HarperCollins e-books
  4. Publication date
    October 13, 2009
  5. File size
    4.9 MB
  6. Page Flip
    Enabled
  7. Word Wise
    Enabled
  8. Enhanced typesetting
    Enabled
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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In this sometimes heavy-handed though brief (especially for Vollmann) memoir of hopping trains and riding the rails, Vollmann, National Book Award winner for Europe Central, explores a personal and national obsession. From a certain open boxcar in a freight train heading the wrong way, he writes, I have enjoyed pouring rain, then birds and frogs, fresh yellow-green wetness of fields. Taking to the rails out West, Vollmann sometimes travels with buddies pursuing the same thrill, the same freedom people have long associated with railroads. Other times, he meets up with grizzled hobos and degenerates, reflecting on himself and his reasons for risking life and limb to see America from a speeding freight train. Whatever beauty our railroad travels bestow upon us comes partly from the frequent lovely surprises of reality itself, he says, often from the intersection of our fantasies with our potentialities. While he never really gets around to fully explaining his own reasons for doing so—he makes long, curlicue allusions to his restless soul and search for deeper meanings of things—Vollmann pieces together a kind of patchwork portrait of the lusts and longings of a nation torn by social inequity and riven with anger about the current state of affairs, especially but not limited to the war in Iraq and the ongoing sadness of American overseas misadventures. Through the self-indulgent mist, though, a sharper picture emerges. Vollmann captures an ongoing romantic vision of America—a nation always on the move, nervous and jittery, and never really satisfied with itself.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Bookmarks Magazine

Vollmann has spent a good deal of time in some rough placesâ€"he made a reputation for his reporting from Bosnia and Afghanistanâ€"and his talent as a writer is hardly disputable. A prolific fiction writer and essayist (Poor People, *** May/June 2007; Rising Up and Rising Down, **** Mar/Apr 2004; Expelled from Eden; The Rainbow Stories), he won a National Book Award in 2005 for his novel Europe Central (***1/2 July/Aug 2005). A chronicle of his adventures on the rails (the book is expanded from a 2007 piece for Harper’s), however, meets with less success. Although much of the book bears the unmistakable punch of Vollmann’s prose, critics comment on the graceless prose and the lack of continuity and aim in the narrative (“no purpose, no destination, no story,” as the New York Times puts it). Still, Vollmann aficionados will find something here, even if first-timers might be better off picking up, say, Europe Central.
Copyright © 2004 Phillips & Nelson Media, Inc.

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B00125OKTE
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ HarperCollins e-books; Reprint edition (October 13, 2009)
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ October 13, 2009
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 4.9 MB
  • Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 291 pages
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.3 out of 5 stars 43 ratings

About the author

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William T. Vollmann

William T. Vollmann

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William Tanner Vollmann (born July 28, 1959) is an American novelist, journalist, war correspondent, short story writer, and essayist. He won the 2005 National Book Award for Fiction for the novel Europe Central. He lives in Sacramento, California, with his wife and daughter.

Bio from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Photo by Øystein Vidnes (http://www.flickr.com/photos/oysteinv/160077312/) [CC BY-SA 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons.

Customer reviews

4.3 out of 5 stars
43 global ratings

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Top reviews from the United States

  • Sal Paradise
    5.0 out of 5 stars Train-Hopping Mystic
    Reviewed in the United States on February 22, 2016
    Verified Purchase
    This probably one of the best books on train-hopping that I've read since Eddy Joe Cotton's Hobo and Ted Conover's Rolling Nowhere. Vollmann who quotes Cotton frequently throughout the book kind of takes a spiritual journey with catching out that I think few people will ever get to experience. Of course catching out is extremely dangerous, now even more so, but this book dispels the romanticism of it while at the same time reinforcing it. We take a journey along with Vollmann and his assortment of characters he meets on the rails. Their stories are tragic and uplifting. Where do all the lost people go when they are searching for their own Cold Mountain? Is being a citizen (aka normal) really pay-off or is it just a dull road to the same morbid destination? These are questions that you are somehow obligated to answer when reading this book. Yes, it's disjointed and Vollmann has his own style of grammar much like Selby, but it's a great read to add to your hobo wanderings library.
    2 people found this helpful
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  • Bob Wachholder
    4.0 out of 5 stars The book was a great read on the becoming a non-existent means of traveling ...
    Reviewed in the United States on November 24, 2014
    Verified Purchase
    to be fair I am a big W.T. Vollamann fan. The book was a great read on the becoming a non-existent means of traveling cheap. Vollmann writes some very poetic and beautiful prose and is not shy about providing opinion.
    One person found this helpful
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  • Theresa Twain
    5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
    Reviewed in the United States on February 22, 2015
    Verified Purchase
    Love this book. Vollmann is so smart and always thinking.
    One person found this helpful
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  • Alayne
    5.0 out of 5 stars A different way of life.
    Reviewed in the United States on September 13, 2016
    I met a man who was a HOBO and then read the book and loved it. It made everything he said to me and what I had read all the more interesting.
    Loved the book - - great read.
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  • LT
    5.0 out of 5 stars Riding the Rails with WTV
    Reviewed in the United States on February 27, 2011
    I loved this book and it being the first I'd ever read by William T. Vollman, I decided to pursue more of his writing. Vollman is one of the only middle-class white guys I've ever read who tries seemingly tirelessly to approach and understand people from the working and itinerant classes with an altogether humane approach. He does pay some hobos to share their stories with him - isn't that exactly the sort of transaction from which both of them can profit? As Vollman acknowledges in the forward to this book, by way of praising his traveling companion Steve -

    "This book is dedicated to Steve Jones
    who never pretended
    that he or I were hobos..."

    I respect Vollman for being doggedly honest in all of his (at least self-recorded) transactions with other humans, and for talking about issues that many of the rest of us find uncomfortable enough to avoid, despite their being pressing and essential for really interrogating what it means to be a moral human. I suggest everyone also read his current (March 2011) Harper's article on the homeless in Sacramento for more of this type of writing.

    And finally - I am planning on riding the rails myself after reading this book. I felt more alive then, just from reading it, than I have except when adventuring on my own cross-country bicycle trip. Wahoo!

    -LT
    2 people found this helpful
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  • Blaue
    4.0 out of 5 stars goodstuff
    Reviewed in the United States on March 6, 2012
    Verified Purchase
    Its worth checking out. Kinds did it cause he wanted to, not like most that have to, but he owns that. It is a good book, and worth the time
    One person found this helpful
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  • Raymond Viola
    3.0 out of 5 stars Catch Out, if you can.
    Reviewed in the United States on September 27, 2012
    Verified Purchase
    An interesting glimpse into vagabond life on the rails. Though some literary effects seem to be over used, this work provides a box car perspective on the hobo existence of a previous era.
    One person found this helpful
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  • M. Brown
    5.0 out of 5 stars as usual, BREATHE!
    Reviewed in the United States on September 18, 2008
    As usual, WTV's writing flows like a mighty river, turning one upside down and backwards but ever onward... with breathtaking turns of phrase. I'll ride with him anywhere.
    One person found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

  • Al
    1.0 out of 5 stars Bad description
    Reviewed in Australia on July 21, 2024
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    Giant sticker on the front of a ‘New’ book
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    Al
    1.0 out of 5 stars
    Bad description

    Reviewed in Australia on July 21, 2024
    Giant sticker on the front of a ‘New’ book
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