Just before his death, the celebrated novelist set out on a journey in search for America's soul...
When the author
first saw Seattle, it was a small town nested on the hills - a city of open spaces, trees and gardens. But times had changed; this Seattle bore no relationship to the Seattle that he knew. Highway lanes, barbed wire fences, bulldozers and huge factories stood in their place. In sum, Seattle too bore all the signs of "development" and "progress".
The author says that he is not - in principle - opposed to progress, nor is he opposed to change. But this was not change for the better; this was a sort of cancerous grown upon the earth. Seattle had changed beyond all recognition. The virgin forests had been torn down, and concrete walls stood where they should have been. The hallmark, says the author, of decay and destruction! Seattle had become just another city, one more among a growing number of such cities spread across the length and breadth of America. In other words, Seattle had lost her uniqueness, her identity, and her soul.
In describing his journey, the author says that person to person contacts had dwindled. People were expected to look after themselves, whether it was toasting a toast or fetching the morning newspaper. Outwardly, there was comfort and convenience, comforts that would have been described as luxuries in an earlier time. But, says the author, these luxuries were provided by machines, and not by his fellow men. This the author found somewhat difficult to accept. The author was alive to the earth; and (as far as he was concerned) silence smacked of death.
This
abstract is mainly about the changing face of America brought about by industrialisation and urbanisation. The author, being an old-timer, wistfully clings to his memories of the past. But he, too, is swept away by the tide (of inexorable change). There is nothing much he can do, but to bewail the direction that this change has taken. Samuel Johnson used to say that (one of) the purposes of travelling is to provide a reality check to one's imagination; and instead of thinking of how things may be, to see them as they really are. This truth is forcefully brought home to the celebrated author, and he realizes that he has perhaps lost touch with his nation's soul.