Book 1 Post 2

 

Reiterating from my last post I chose to read Gloria Steinem’s My Life on the Road. I chose this book because hearing stories about different people’s lives and cultures through traveling is one of my greatest joys. Through reading this book I was hoping to understand how one can live on the road as well as listen to entertaining stories and situations Steinem went through. I felt the book just missed my expectations. There were parts where I was compelled by a story she was telling, but there were other parts that weren’t stories and just felt out of place and less interesting. Lastly, now that I have finished this book I am looking to read another similar book recommended to me called The Motorcycle Diaries: Notes on a Latin American Journey. This book is about Ernesto Che Guevara’s journey around South America with his motorcycle. In reading both these books I hope to find a lot of interesting stories on what it’s like to live on the road.
 

 

Through Steinem’s stories I took away many lessons. First would be listening. To understand other people in any context you have to hear their life directly through them. Next, trust allows you opportunities you would not have had otherwise. There were many occasions in the book that Steinem would go on some adventure simply by trusting a stranger she had just met. One interesting anecdote was upon meeting a taxi driver with a truck driving past, she decided to join him traveling to different truck stops from Boston to New York.
 

 

For my favorite part of the book, I loved the chapter on why she doesn’t drive. This chapter was more what I thought the book would be like. It was bulleted story after story of fascinating taxi drivers she interacted with.
 

 

Alternatively, alterations and something I did not like about this book was its structure. There were times in the book where I felt lost when she would go deep into political discussions. Because the book wasn’t in chronological order it would be difficult to remember or connect the different freedoms she was advocating for or the historical significance of the time.
 

 

There were large lengthy chapters that were divided by roman numeral subheadings. This made it difficult to keep reading at times knowing the conclusion of her thoughts and the end of the chapter were tens of pages away. Because the book was also not perfectly in chronological order, each chapter had a theme or metaphorical link. But, I would be confused even with the thematic ideas of the chapter by going from Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama’s democratic race, to the Vietnam war, or to a campaign trail for Bobby Kennedy. I will say that this may have been intentional and an artistic choice. Like living on the road, you never know what will happen next. From my first post I wrote about my love of one of her father’s quotes “If I don’t know what will happen tomorrow, it could be wonderful!” (Steinem 19). I do commend her for fitting over 40 years of stories and traveling into less than 300 pages.
 

 

My consensus on the book is that there are probably better books of pure storytelling and adventure. The book was less “on the road” than I thought it would be. However, with many experiences in the book, Steinem does a great job of weaving her feminist significance to that of her travels. I would recommend this book for a reader interested in a better understanding of Steinem's place in the rise of feminism, and would not for someone looking for interesting stories while traveling.