(TXT) View source
       
       # 2025-03-23 - Parnassus On Wheels by Christopher Morley
       
       This is the story of a middle-aged woman who impulsively buys a
       mobile book store, similar to a tiny house or a vardo.  She leaves
       her domestic responsibilities to go adventuring on the road.
       
 (TXT) Vardo
       
       I downloaded the ebook from Project Gutenberg and i was not
       disappointed.  The story begins as a fast paced first-person
       narrative.  I could easily like and relate to the protagonist.
       It made for a lazy Sunday afternoon read.
       
       This book has a sequel titled The Haunted Bookshop.
       
 (DIR) The Haunted Bookshop
       
       What follows are quotes and spoilers from the book that interested me.
       
       It's all right for college presidents to draw up their five-foot
       shelves of great literature, and for the publishers to advertise
       sets of their Linoleum Classics, but what the people need is the
       good, homely, honest stuff--something that'll stick to their
       ribs--make them laugh and tremble and feel sick to think of the
       littleness of this popcorn ball spinning in space without ever even
       getting a hot-box! And something that'll spur 'em on to keep the
       hearth well swept and the wood pile split into kindling and the
       dishes washed and dried and put away. Any one who can get the
       country people to read something worth while is doing his nation a
       real service. And that's what this caravan of culture aspires to...
       You must be weary of this harangue! Does the Sage of Redfield ever
       run on like that?"
       
       "Not to me," I said. "He's known me so long that he thinks of me as
       a kind of animated bread-baking and cake-mixing machine. I guess he
       doesn't put much stock in my judgment in literary matters. ...
       
       * * *
       
       The road from Shelby to Port Vigor runs across the broad hill
       slopes that trend toward the Sound; and below, on our left, the
       river lay glittering in the valley. It was a perfect landscape: the
       woods were all bronze and gold; the clouds were snowy white and
       seemed like heavenly washing hung out to air; the sun was warm and
       swam gloriously in an arch of superb blue. My heart was uplifted
       indeed. For the first time, I think, I knew how Andrew feels on
       those vagabond trips of his. Why had all this been hidden from me
       before? Why had the transcendent mystery of baking bread blinded me
       so long to the mysteries of sun and sky and wind in the trees? We
       passed a white farmhouse close to the road. By the gate sat the
       farmer on a log, whittling a stick and smoking his pipe. Through
       the kitchen window I could see a woman blacking the stove. I wanted
       to cry out: "Oh, silly woman! Leave your stove, your pots and pans
       and chores, even if only for one day! Come out and see the sun in
       the sky and the river in the distance!"
       
       * * *
       
       What absurd victims of contrary desires we are! If a [person] is
       settled in one place [one] yearns to wander; when [a person] wanders
       [one] yearns to have a home. And yet how bestial is content--all the
       great things in life are done by discontented people.
       
       There are three ingredients in the good life: learning, earning, and
       yearning. A [person] should be learning as [one] goes; and [one]
       should be earning bread for [one's self] and others; and [one] should
       be yearning, too: yearning to know the unknowable.
       
       author: Morley, Christopher, 1890-1957
 (TXT) detail: gopher://gopherpedia.com/0/Parnassus_on_Wheels
       LOC:    PZ3.M8265 Pr4 PS3525.O71
 (DIR) source: gopher://gopher.pglaf.org/1/5/3/1/5311/
       tags:   ebook,fiction,vagabond
       title:  Parnassus On Wheels
       
       # Tags
       
 (DIR) ebook
 (DIR) fiction
 (DIR) vagabond