Roads, trains & automobiles, 1932

[ellenkushner]

"Our fathers used to say that the railway had killed the understanding of towns, that men came to them hurriedly, arrived by the back-door, left hurriedly, and had no sense of approach, fruition or farewell. They said - quite rightly - that the road and the river were the two proper entries to any town, any town of tradition and lineage, any town that had grown up through the millioned intercourse of men.

"But the railway did not do as much harm as the automobile has done . . . . [T]oday Saulieu is but an episode on one of the most obvious of modern trajectories, and one where when men stop they stop only to eat. They come to it in a flash, not knowing through what they came; and to go on through that landscape which is crammed with history . . . is only another flash: all over in an hour, and nothing seen." -- Hilaire Belloc, "Saulieu of the Morvan" [a town in French Burgundy], from the series "The Tuileries Brochures, published bi-monthly by Ludowici-Celadon Company, Makers of Ludowici Tile, for distribution among the members of the architectural profession" Vol. IV, no. 1, January 1932


Also of interest are passages like: "...the automobile runs in crowds - or ran when people had money - through the place. For the rich coming from Britain to the Riviera found Saulieu on their way, and it was a convenient place to stop for food " and later: "They cook (or did cook when the rich still passed through, as they may pass again)...well.."

Comments

[emilytheslayer.livejournal.com]

Something else you may be interested in:

Combustion on Wheels, by David L Cohn, 1944.

[ellen-kushner.livejournal.com]

Thanks!

[emilytheslayer.livejournal.com]

No problem! The fiance read it recently. It's not as poetic as what you're reading now, but he thought parts of it were really funny, and a lot of it was just really interesting to see what people thought about the history of automobile travel that early on.

[kradical.livejournal.com]

Amusingly, Belloc's complaints are of a very similar tenor to complaints made in the 1950s about the interstate highway system. Plus ca change.......

[ellen-kushner.livejournal.com]

But they are all true! People experienced the world - and small towns - in such a different way before each innovation. It behooves those of us who write about pre-industrial worlds, to try to understand the differences in our guts.

[elegantelbow.livejournal.com]

Totally, totally off-topic, but I wanted to say that I just read The House of Nine Doors and it inspired me to nominate one of your books for my book club. I'm hoping we'll read Thomas the Rhymer.

[winterbadger]

I think about this when I'm hiking or cycling. Most of the roads and trails I use are quiet, dusty, and not heavily trafficked, and I reflect on how many "highways" would have been like this in the past, and how many people (up until the age of motorcars) would have *only* had walking as their experience of how to go from place to place (riding or coaching the wealthier and later in time they got; even hitching rides on carts and wagons would have been an invaluable convenience--maybe not faster, but less exhausting).

Life moved at a slower pace, for the most part. Which made the things that happen quickly in any age (mostly the face to face interaction of people, in whatever form), or the reactions of people to news, letters, etc.) that much more intense by comparison.