Hunting Mister Heartbreak: A Discovery of America | Jonathan Raban

Hunting Mister Heartbreak: A Discovery of America | Jonathan Raban | A Discovery of America

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Hunting Mister Hea...

	Hunting Mister Heartbreak: A Discovery of America Jonathan Raban Vintage, 1998 - 384 pages average customer review:based on 7 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

A New York Times Notable Book

"In an era of jet tourism, [Jonathan Raban] remains a
traveler-adventurer in the tradition of . . . Robert Louis Stevenson."
--The New York Times Book Review

In 1782 an immigrant with the high-toned name J. Hector St. John de Crèvecoeur--"Heartbreak" in English--wrote a pioneering account of one European's transformation into an American. Some two hundred years later Jonathan Raban, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award, arrived in Crèvecoeur's wake to see how America has paid off for succeeding generations of newcomers. The result is an exhilarating, often deliciously funny book that is at once a travelogue, a social history, and a love letter to the United States.
In the course of Hunting Mr. Heartbreak, Raban passes for homeless in New York and tries to pass for a good ol' boy in Alabama (which entails "renting" an elderly black lab). He sees the Protestant work ethic perfected by Korean immigrants in Seattle--one of whom celebrates her new home as "So big! So green! So wide-wide-wide!"--and repudiated by the lowlife of Key West. And on every page of this peerlessly observant work, Raban makes us experience America with wonder, humor, and an unblinking eye for its contradictions.

"Raban delivers himself of some of the most memorable prose ever written
about urban America." --Henry Kisor, Chicago Sun-Times

"When Raban describes America and Americans, he is unfailingly witty
and entertaining." --Salman Rushdie

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A masterpiece

Raban's four books written to date on America-Old Glory, Hunting Mr Heartbreak, Badlands and Passage to Juneau-are all elegant and entertaining meditations on America and what it is to be American. Although each book is very different, they all feature the same blend of candid autobiography, careful historical exegesis, vivid description, and wry humour. Each one is a rewarding work, but Hunting Mr Heartbreak is in my view his masterpiece. Each chapter of the book is a self-contained episode in a personal odyssey, which takes as its starting point the voyage made by the immigrants who flocked to the New World from Europe. The book was written over ten years ago and a few parts of it have inevitably lost a little of their resonance, but his exploration of the historical currents underlying American life and of the concept(s) of Americanness itself remains as relevant and perceptive as ever. Raban's skillful interweaving of allegory and analysis, cleverness and comedy, wonder and unease has resulted in a rich and endlessly fascinating book.

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A Discovery of America

This is an extremely excellent book both full of character and details as it is of a real understanding of the perspectives of the early immigrants. This is a must read book that not only opens up the US as a haven for others but also as a place of great opportunities. It will leave you wanting to read more.

Squire "Rayburn"

Jonathan Raban is, unless I'm missing some unknown genius out there (always a possibility), the best contemporary travel writer out there - hands, anchors, flaps down. I think the main reason for this is that his writing is not MERE travel writing, as such, but is as much introspective as explorative. He allows the places he visits to seep into him and produces narratives that seamlessly mingle inner and outer travel as no other modern writer does. He is also keenly aware - or makes himself keenly aware - of the history of the places he sojourns, such as Guntersville, Alabama, giving his narratives a further layer of texture and depth. Added to all these qualities, he is extremely literate and literary - And yet for all these depths, he is so much fun!

There are not many books which cause me to laugh aloud when reading them; Fielding's Eighteenth Century Classic Tom Jones was the last, if memory serves. But this book did it for me, particularly the one hundred page centrepiece of the book, the chapter "In Our Valley", set in Guntersville, Alabama: His (successful) attempt to "rent" or borrow a dog - the Labrador "Gypsy", his renting a cabin in a neighbourhood called Polecat Alley, imagining himself as a Southern squire if he buys the lakefront property a local real estate dealer is attempting to foist on him etc--Perhaps it's because I myself am a transplanted Englishman living in the South, but these hundred pages were golden to me, and worth as much as the entire book- particularly when Raban notices he's picking up a Southern accent and starting to call himself "Mr. Rayburn" (to be intoned with long-stressed Southern syllables), as the rest of the town has denominated him.

Well, I've gone on enough. Time for me, as Raban puts it, to "flat-mash the gas pedal" and let you readers do the further exploring.

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Superb

Jonathan Raban is truly a gifted writer, and he articulates in beautiful and apt prose his keen grasp and feel for the subject matter here to his readers.

A Fine Effort..........

Raban's written better books - Old Glory and Badland, to name two - nonetheless, Mr. Heartbreak is an engaging book that is a delight to read. Seeking the singular experience of becoming American, Raban sets up shop in New York City, Guntersville (Alabama), Seattle, and Key West to investigate the newly emigrated and those whose families emigrated generations ago. His observations of people and places are insightful, intriguing and occasionally quite funny.

He is an accomplished observer, capable of peering beyond the surface to uncover what lies beneath. The book's opening, in which Raban describes his sea voyage from Liverpool to New York, is particularly entertaining. So, too, his sojourn in Alabama where he provides gleeful commentary on the irony of a town embracing provincialism whilst stuggling with worldy challenges. I was tempted to award this book 5 stars, but it simply doesn't measure up to other Raban efforts. All the same, it is an excellent selection on anyone's reading list.

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reviews: page 1, 2

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