One of my favorite things about traveling to a new place is dipping into its fiction. I can get a feel for the mood and history of the setting in a way that travelogues don't quite provide. A novel provides a narrower and deeper lens to a location: you take special note while walking up Petrin Hill in Prague after reading The Unbearable Lightness of Being. How do you even see the English countryside without reading Tess of the D'Urbervilles? You don't. You can't. (I assume. I've never been to the English countryside.)
I also love documenting literature set in Michigan. People should know that the Midwest is not just for corn and industrial ghost towns!
Was this project made just for me?
Check out the literature of the places you want to go. More importantly, put some Midwest reads on the map! "Placing Literature" runs on the knowledge of its users, and it was very easy to place some books I thought should be mapped on Ann Arbor and Detroit. I can't wait to see what people love to read in Michigan!
Yes it was. Ann Arbor and Detroit are vibrant places that need the attention.
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing!