Reading Response

Conover's "The Road is Very Unfair" was exactly the type of writing I would love to do someday. It takes little to no funding, requires travel, hanging out, and observation, and has a political, social edge. I am starting to really appreciate the telling of story as a way of informing, making a political statement, without using explicit critical commentary. Marin told me last week that I need to get away from feeling like everything I write has to make a statement, be important, and write to tell the story in a way that speaks for itself. I think what she meant was not that what I write shouldn't be important (in terms of subject) but that I, myself, should not have to be important in everything I write.

This is a good lesson to learn and one that parallels with some of the stuff in the Ethics reading from Telling True Stories. I think by being focused on making some sort of statement, I often "change the story" and manipulate what is really happening to what I either want to be happening or what I can be critical of, both pretty unethical if I am still claiming to be writing a representation of some one or some place.

To continue about Ted Conover, his style, at least in "The Road is Very Unfair," appears to tell the story of what it really is to be a truck driver, driving across parts of Africa in the midst of an AIDS epidemic, while also including "I" but not making the story about him and his political position. The result is a piece that informs and doesn't alienate any readers, it draws them into the piece to share and experience what he shared and experienced. It lets the characters, the main people in the piece, be fully developed and individuals in their own right.

I love Conover's use of quotes through-out the piece, I wonder if he recorded or wrote down furiously, or just knew these people so well by the end that he could recall those conversations easily (I imagine this is the case). He also did a great job of letting the readers know he was legit- small duffel bag was all he carried, etc- but also reminded us that we could trust him and relate to his experience because he still was a newcomer, a Westerner, someone who was learning as he went as well (relationship with girlfriend in US, condom cost comparison, etc.) He shows us how he navigates, answers the questions before we ask them.