Cars (and their drivers) in literature

I remember a comedian (I think it was Eddie Izzard) who mentioned that there are many car chases in movies (even through densely populated neighbourhoods :eek2:), but none in books.

Now I wonder, is this true? I personally can not recall a car chase in a novel, but I really doubt that nobody ever has tried it.
I do think it is possible to describe it, the whole driving experience, the recklessnes, the scare, the inability to stop...

Maybe there is a book in which one of the characters is involved in a car accident due to risky driving? A book in which the accident itself is described, possibly from the (joy rider?) point of view?

I can only think of Toad, I think he and his T-Ford ended up in the lake in The Wind In The Willows...

If nothing comes to mind, maybe a novel in which cars play a central part? Or maybe a poem from the perspective of a guy who's crazy about his car? Or about the experience of driving?

This thought popped in my head because of this thread in the general chat:
Guys and Cars
I thought maybe it would be interesting to read a book from a car driving maniac's point of view :)

Of course the first one that comes into my mind is The Great Gatsby and though it is not truly an accident or a chase, readding All the King's Men now, it makes me think of how they always talk about Sugar-boy's driving and he seems to be a bit of a recklass driver as they speed down the streets.

Found the sketch:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Eddie Izard (Unrepeatable)

Have you noticed that in films there are lots of car chases? There are no car chases in books, are there? (mimes reading from book) “He looked up in the mirror. Behind him, the man was driving. He looked in the mirror and then he was driving. Oh, they drove faster, faster, driving fast and looking in the mirror. The other guy was pulling a face and driving fast, and then there was a terrible crash.” Just doesn’t work, does it? Anyway…

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I still have to read the Great Gatsby. I will look into it.

And I do not recall that about Sugar-boy, another reason to read that book again :) Thanks for mentioning.

I know I will proabably get stoned for daring to mention this, but if memory serves me correctly I beleive there was a car chase scene in The Da Vinci Code.

Crash - JG Ballard

Great Gatsby immediately came to my mind too. Cars play a significant role in that book.

There was also this short horror story, "Parallel Highways" by James Van Pelt (available for free online) that deals with cars and driving. It's been awhile since I read it; I don't remember loving it.

Automobiles and driving play significant roles in Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath and Kerouac's On the Road. A couple of lesser known novels where cars play an important role are The World According to Garp (John Irving) and The Bonfire of the Vanities (Tom Wolfe), in both of which a car accident is a pivotal plot point.

Thank you all for these ideas :)

Especially Crash by JG Ballard sounds interesting. Wiki says: "Finally, the book asks why we, as an enlightened society, accept such a “perverse technology” – that kills a vast number of people yearly – as such an integral part of our culture"

I guess it has much to do with the fact that we like to transport things and transport ourselves and keep in contact. Many accidents might happen on the road, but there also happen quite a few at home.
I am really curious what the book has to say about all this.

I've read the Da Vinci Code, and enjoyed it though I did not think it exceptionally entertaining. It was a nice read, and indeed - there was a car chase :) I might reread that part, I remember it was quite thoroughly written...

I'll read that short story when I find the time. I do like horror :D

BlueVictim, I planned on reading The Grapes of Wrath. The other I have not looked into yet.

If anybody knows an other book/story/poem - keep them coming :).

It's an interesting thought, the lack of cars in (modern) fiction: is it because cars and ownership are regarded as indications of materialism and therefore unworthy of 'literary' attention?

Fast travel is hinted at, if not actually described, in classic novels - Mr Darcy has to move at considerable speed to intercept Wickham and Lydia in Pride and Prejudice, for example. In the tv production of a few years ago, he entered fresh from his errand of mercy, breathless and in a very dishevelled state, suggesting a hard ride, for all the world the eighteenth century equivalent of a car chase!

Detective novels often use cars as symbols - Inspector Morse in the Colin Dexter books about crime among the dreaming spires of Oxford is associated with his classic Mk II Jaguar, giving him an aura of solid craftmanship, classic design, relaibility, verve and elan - oh, and speed.

Bernard Cornwell wrote a one-off 'detective' story, Gallow's Thief, about a precursor of the Bow Street Runners which I'm sure he wrote as a bet to see if he could incorporate all the attributes of the modern detective story into an historical tale: he managed all of them, the intellectual senior officer, the common man sergeant, the useful contact in the criminal world, the token female, useful for the woman's touch with female suspects, and yes, a high speed road chase - with coach and fours! It was tongue-in-cheek but exciting and well written (and yes, the wheel came off at the appropriate moment.) Hardly 'literature' but entertaining - perish the thought that one should waste one's precious reading time on such trivia....

The Great Gatsby is the first thing that came to mind. Other than the ones mentioned, I seem to recall that Jason Compson's car noticably breaks down in William Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury.

And I also recall cars being somewhat relevant in Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead Revisited.

Lolita?

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Originally Posted by kasie

Fast travel is hinted at, if not actually described, in classic novels - Mr Darcy has to move at considerable speed to intercept Wickham and Lydia in Pride and Prejudice, for example. In the tv production of a few years ago, he entered fresh from his errand of mercy, breathless and in a very dishevelled state, suggesting a hard ride, for all the world the eighteenth century equivalent of a car chase

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It has been a while but I also recall there was a whole thing all about carriages in Northhanger Abby, the young man was bragging about how fast his carraige was, and I think there might been something about them reckless or fast.

Yes, I also remember a book in which one of the characters gets run over by a carriage and does not survive... If only I remembered the name :blush: Always the same problem: I know there is but not whom or when or what!

Thank you all for the input.

Gatsby, immediately.

Oh, and in Lolita the car is being followed by another car!

There's even a reference in the Bible at 2 Kings 9:20 about Jehu's lunatic driving.

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Originally Posted by Hank Stamper

Lolita?

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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!

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?

There is a story by Dahl set inside a motor vehicle which is pulled over for speeding. It's a slick comedy called The Hitch-hiker"

On the Road and Sanctuary

I've just remembered that "The Orchard Keeper" has several scenes/ incidents taking place in or around motor vehicles. Some good description of vehicles on lonely roads at night.

If I remember correctly, there's a long driving scene in the beginning of Updike's Rabbit Run.

Oh, and I'm surprised no one mentioned The Wind in the Willows. Mr Toad, the original boy-racer, gets 20 years for joyriding!

EDIT: Oh, they did. Serves me right for not paying proper attention to the op...

I keep thinking of Great Gatsby

I think Duel by Richard Matheson is pretty much one big car/truck chase, right?

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Originally Posted by Bibliophile79

I think Duel by Richard Matheson is pretty much one big car/truck chase, right?

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Yep. Great movie, too.