It's interesting that cars played such a part of Humbert's travels seeing how Nabokov couldn't drive and was chauffeured all of his life!Quote:
Originally Posted by Hank Stamper
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It's interesting that cars played such a part of Humbert's travels seeing how Nabokov couldn't drive and was chauffeured all of his life!Quote:
Originally Posted by Hank Stamper
Dashiell Hammett had car chases in a number of stories, and there was one in Red Harvest. Actually, car chases happen fairly often in detective novels. I can't remember which ones have chases, but some of the Spencer novels have them.
ok, it's not a car chase, but one avant-la-lettre like the French would say.
There is a horse chase in Dumas' Vicomte when d'Artagnan needs to arrest Fouquet and he flees on horseback. They chase each other on a straight road. Absolutely compelling. .
In Brideshead Revisited are two cars, one with Julia in it when she gets Charles from teh station and one when they are out in London.
As they are talking here about carriages anyway: there is at least one passage in Monte Cristo in a carriage during the carnival of Rome. And one in Les Misérables during Mardi Gras in Paris and the wedding of Marius and Cosette. There is one earlier in the Vicomte where d'Artagnan chases the carriage of Mlle Mancini (mistress of the king, who is leaving) for the king, for him to say goodbye.
Is tehre not some significance to the car of Hastings, Poirot's assistant? I have only the impression, as I only saw the adaptations on ITV, but they are very good...
Rebecca? In Monte Carlo and at the end of the book particularly when they drive up to Doctor Baker's in London followed by Favell .. and then when they return to Manderley (the book ends while they are still in the car)
It's been a while, but I vaguely recall Nancy Drew books having a number of car chases and cars following each other.
And Nancy had a blue Mustang!
A lot of stories about journeys are going to permeate this thread. But the book that comes to my mind is On the Road, which I don't think has been mentioned.
A lesser known novel, Edward Abbey's A Fool's Progress is about a guy, a car, and a journey home.
I really appreciate all the input! I am reading "All the King's Men" (Warner) again, as mentioned on the first page, and the car is indeed mentioned quite a bit. Not as a central theme, but the drive itself is described and a love starts occurring in a car ;) And there's the occasional car accident (drunk driving)...
I think I'll make April into a "books with cars in it" reading month :lol:. I hope I can find all novels mentioned here. :)
The Great Gatsby and On the Road immediately spring to mind.
OK, done with the Great Gatsby :D And I did find this thread on Car Symbolism in the Great Gatsby in the debts of the forum. It doesn't says everything I found in the book though...
First of, the car is a place where 2 lovers can be alone... as is mentioned in All the Kings Men too. Both books have some "first love" experience with a car involved.
In All the Kings Men Sugarboy drives fearlessly, probably recklessly but you do not get the idea he has no control over the car: people/animals almost get under his wheels but it always seems a bit their own fault (though it's really Sugarboy who drives too fast). In the Great Gatsby, a bad driving style is mentioned. First Owl Man and a friend drive into a ditch, loosing a wheel but not getting seriously hurt. Second it is mentioned that in Santa Barbara Tom runs into a wagon and ripps the front wheel off his car (he has a mistress with him) - causing a small scandal. And third there is the all-ending accident, with an upset person behind the while who started driving "to steady herself". Well, that surely collapsed!
And there is the other theme, in which Nick tells Jordan she's a bad driver and she isn't too concerned about it as "it takes two bad drivers to cause an accident". Now that is certainly a careless thing to say. Jordan later turns it into a sort of symbolism, comparing the bad driving with lying.
Maybe that's the symbolism in the whole book - Tom does cheat with a garage owner's wive... mixing cars and lies (though he's not that secret about it).
Not sure yet what I want to say here :lol: Just mentioning some things I noticed I guess.
Still searching for a book with a good insight in the mind of a reckless driver though. Sugarboy was just being Sugarboy, doing everything for his boss and thus moving as fast as he could. The characters in the Great Gatsby just did not care enough about the common people (or themselves) to drive safely... I still need some more insight. :D
Travels With Charley in Search of America - Steinbeck
The Music of Chance - Auster
Christine - King
SPOILER
In Death of A Salesman, Willy drives a car into a wall or something- it's not clear whether it was his dementia or suicide.
There's a short story called The Golden Cadillac where the car becomes a status symbol- unfortunately not one the clack family are allowed.
Cars and travel I am sure were mentioned in the novel "Grapes of Wrath". I would venture to guess that a few car chases take place in the book, "The DaVinci Code". I am sure there are many more I can think of. One is in "Lady Chatterly's Lover"; her sister visits her in a little roaster, I believe. Also, a car trip through the countryside plays into the other Lawrence novel - "The Virgin and the Gypsy" and now that I think of it, in "Women in Love" there is a very prominent scene where Ruppert gives Ursula some rings as he his drivng a car. In "Howard's End" I recall a car being pominent, since one of the sons owns one and is always driving fast in it.
Now that I think of it:
In Saramago's The Raft of Stone (about the drifting off of the Iberian Peninsula (don't ask...)), there is a car. I think it was a Volkswagen or Citroën 2 hp. Quite important I think, but it's too long ago to deduct any meaning from it right now.
In another of his books The City of the Blind (not sure of the translation) (where everyone in a city apart from one man becomes blind), the start of it takes place in a city at the traffic lights. A huge traffic jam starts when no-one can no longer move.
The Wooden Shepherdess - Richard Hughes
I think that has a car chase in it - certainly the cars play a sigificant part in the story. And I seem to remembers some car descriptions in Hughes' other novel, The Fox in the Attic (to be read before The Wooden Shepherdess, as the Shepherdess follows the Fox:D)
And, thinking about foxes, are there not significant cars in Foxfire, by J C Oates, and maybe some others of hers?