Leonard and Sundeen Travel and Journey Narratives

Contemporary American travel literature illustrates convergences of time and space, creating a borderless and timeless mode of narration. Granted, American travel narratives do not offer the same sort of epic and sweeping scope that epitomize classic works like that of Ibn Battuta and Basho. Contemporary American travel literature is imbued with American mythos. Moreover, contemporary American travel literature demonstrates postmodern tropes and conventions including a strong sense of uncertainty and ungroundedness. Solitary and introspective as they are, the works of Brendan Leonard and Mark Sundeen also exemplify Freudian theories of anxiety. As the importance of nation-state diminishes, the anxieties of identity construction may increase. Postmodern identity construction is less dependent on geographic space because of historical and temporal factors: factors like geographic independence in freelance work and mobility. Yet as liberating as geographic independence can be, it also bestows new anxieties. Those anxieties rise to the surface in travel literature because travel literature as a genre has been viewed as lowbrow, “being seen by some as essentially frivolous or morally dangerous,” (Holland and Huggan vii). Travel narratives by Brendan Leonard and Mark Sundeen depart from the typical vehicles of framing the Other, instead shifting the focus on how travel becomes the means by which to achieve personal and existential goals.
An ideal theoretical framework for studying how literary characters deal with their anxiety by going to other places would ideally blend Sigmund Freud’s anxiety theory with Bertrand Westphal’s theories of geocriticism and real and fictional space theory. Additionally, the philosophies of epicureanism and hedonism offer unique lenses with which to understand the function of travel in the postmodern mind, and the role of travel literature more specifically. The essence of epicureanism is that “all activity, even apparently self-sacrificing activity or activity done solely for the sake of virtue or what is noble, is in fact directed toward obtaining pleasure for oneself,” (O’Keefe 1). Epicureanism is similar to hedonism in that its fundamental proposal is that, “pleasure and pain are the only things of ultimate importance,” (Weijers 1). Travel memoirs—indeed any memoirs—are by definition hedonistic and epicurean in the sense that they ooze self-indulgence. Even Mark Sundeen’s anti-materialistic The Man Who Quit Money is ironically self-indulgent in that it uses the vehicle of memoir to market a mode of living that is consciously opposed to the working class norm in America. Like Thoreau, Sundeen deliberately eschews modern conveniences but does so from a position of power and privilege. The fact that Sundeen has agency, and acts with the power to choose his lifestyle without money, undermines the genuine struggles of those who live in poverty around the world. It is this disingenuousness that has rendered so much travel literature ethically questionable (Holland and Huggan vii).
Brendan Leonard’s Sixty Meters to Anywhere shows how individuals can resolve their anxieties via pushing past their boundaries and self-imposed limitations. Freud shows how anxiety is all about the expectation of what might happen, a profound level of discomfort with one’s life and the role one plays in the universe. Anxiety is different from fear, and in Sixty Meters, Leonard shows how ironic it is that feeling fear during the act of rock climbing can prompt a person to confront and overcome the deeper anxieties that can cause psychic paralysis. Moreover, Leonard’s Sixty Meters shows how Freud’s anxiety theory can be blended with Westphal’s theory of geocriticism. Geocriticism shows how space and time do impact the shape that a text takes, as well as its content. However, Westphal also shows how texts and their authors are liberated from time and space constraints, particularly in a borderless world. Rock climbing exemplifies the transcendence of time and space: a person achieves total transcendence by pursing vertical rather than the more accessible horizontal space. There are no vertical boundaries, as there are geopolitical boundaries in the typical space-time continuum.
Typically branded more as a rock climbing narrative than a travel one, Sixty Meters to Anywhere also has elements of hedonism and epicureanism embedded in the text. The author’s journey begins with his need to go to rehab, and Leonard frankly lists his hedonic indulgences related to alcohol abuse. Leonard also has access to power and privilege, enabling him to actually request time off for a time spent in rehab—something that most Americans do not have the ability to do. Furthermore, Leonard has access to a sport that demands time and money; essentially it is a sport of white privilege. Brendan Leonard’s The New American Road Trip Mixtape even better exemplifies Bertrand Westphal’s theories of real and fictional space, and of geocriticism. Arguably better written than Sixty Meters, The New American Road Trip Mixtape also has elements of hedonism and epicureanism, allowing for a blended theory of contemporary travel literature to emerge. The protagonists/narrators in these texts confront their anxieties through self-imposed immersion in challenging situations. In The New American Road Trip, the situation is less challenging than in Sixty Meters, but both allow the individual to directly deal with the “apprehensive expectation or dread” that is the essence of anxiety (Spielberger 9). In Sixty Meters, leonard admits that his rock climbing expeditions represented a sort of “penance” for his being “self-centered, arrogant, and out-of-control,” showing how self-directed activity helps a person overcome their psychic distress (Kindle Edition). When Leonard takes his epic road trip adventure described in The New American Road Trip, he was “hoping something big, something life-altering, something that would make sense of my life, would happen,” (3).
The two Leonard narratives show how a blended theory is best suited for analyzing contemporary American travel literature. Likewise, the two Sundeen narratives also showcase the efficacy of a blended theory. Sundeen’s The Man Who Quit Money comes across as a polemic against capitalism, even more than it is a travel narrative. Sundeen confronts his personal anxieties about the direction society is headed by dropping out, deliberately eschewing the philosophical underpinnings of private property. The author seems like an anti-hedonist, and yet he is clearly not; he derives enormous pleasure from his communion with nature, his location of power and privilege in abnegation and asceticism. As such, The Man Who Quit Money should be viewed not just within the lens of Westphal’s geocriticism but also where “geocriticism meets ecocriticism,” (Prieto 1). Ecocriticism and geocriticism interface in The Man Who Quit Money, which underscores the importance of time, space, place, identity, and politics. Sundeen resolves his anxiety of having power and privilege in a world that denies power and privilege to so many. Westphal’s geocriticism shows how currency can be divorced from the nation-state, every bit as much as personal identity is separate from national identity. For Sundeen, the currency of kindness transcends finance. Unfortunately, the narrative degenerates into something that lacks awareness of those who truly do have nothing, as when Sundeen states what every homeless person knows: “turns out there are plenty of places to sleep free in America; you just have to know where to look,” (19). The travel narrative can serve as a self-indulgent fantasy that resolves feelings of guilt and anxiety.
Sundeen continues to expound on and develop his fascination with alternative lifestyles in The Unsettlers. The Unsettlers is different from The Man Who Quit Money and also from the two Leonard books because it is not autobiographical or written in memoir style. Instead, Sundeen profiles three American families who had consciously decided to shun a typical life in favor of one steeped in values and principles. The three families are located in Missouri, Detroit, and Montana. Located squarely within the geographic time and space, the narratives in The Unsettlers do show how relevant Westphal’s geocriticism can be for understanding the function and form of contemporary narratives. These are people who extricate themselves from the conventional American Dream, and relocate and resituate themselves. By removing themselves, they become migrants who shift their allegiances and identities via the act of movement and transcendence. Just as Leonard achieves transcendence by defying gravity, the characters in The Unsettlers achieve transcendence by defying the norms of a materialistic and capitalistic society.
Literary characters in creative non-fiction deal with their anxiety by going to other places, immersing themselves into unfamiliar surroundings. By pushing the boundaries of time and space, these people show how existential angst is a critical crisis resolved through introspection, renewal, and self-abnegation. Through profound experiences, characters ironically achieve a sense of inner peace. Leonard liberates himself from addiction, which can be viewed a symptom of perennial anxiety (Spielberger 1). Ironically, the denial of material goods and comforts that both Leonard and Sundeen endure leads to hedonic and epicurean pleasures, which is why these ancient Greek philosophies can be incorporated into a comprehensive theory of modern American literature of journeying towards self-discovery. Bertrand Westphal’s geocriticism and the theory of real and fictional space shows how authors manipulate their external realities and inner worlds. Shifting external realities can create a new here, a new there, and a new appreciation for one’s role in the world. Although fleeing and escaping can be portrayed in a negative light, some authors show how flight, fleeing, and migration create new opportunities for self-healing and personal growth.







Works Cited

Freud, Sigmund. The Problem of Anxiety. 1936. Digital edition: http://www.bartleby.com/283/25.html
Holland, Patrick and Graham Huggan. Tourists with Typewriters. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2000.
Leonard, Brendan. The New American Road Trip Mixtape. Semi-Rad Media, 2013.
Leonard, Brendan. Sixty Meters to Anywhere. Seattle: Mountaineers Books, 2016. Kindle Edition.
O’Keefe, Tim. “Epicurus.” Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. http://www.iep.utm.edu/epicur/
Prieto, Eric. “Geocriticism meets ecocriticism. In: Tally R.T., Battista C.M. (eds) Ecocriticism and Geocriticism. Geocriticism and Spatial Literary Studies. Palgrave Macmillan, New York, 2016.
Spielberger, Charles D. “Objective Anxiety and Neurotic Anxiety.” In Spielberger (Ed.). Anxiety and Behavior. New York: Academic Press, 1966.
Sundeen, Mark. The Man Who Quit Money. New York: Penguin, 2012.
Sundeen, Mark. The Unsettlers. New York: Riverhead, 2016.
Weijers, Dan. “Hedonism.” Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. http://www.iep.utm.edu/hedonism/
Westphal, Bertrand. Geocriticism. Trans. Robert Tally Jr. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011.