Single-Storied America
Posted in Reviews on Fri Oct 13, 06 by Kyle under Books and Photography.
People joke about the four remaining ostensibly communist countries of the world, North Korea, China, Cuba, and the People’s Republic of Berkeley mistaking the distinctly un-blue collar but earnestly organic, macrobiotic, imported French blue-cheesed, “animal companion”ed, more terroir, not war on terror sensibility of Bay Areans for communist ideology.
After all vegans nearly starve themselves for a smug sense of superiority on the world dietary stage much like North Korea starves its people to fund a weapons program to give their leaders a smug sense of superiority on the world political stage. Cubans and nearly-elderly acid heads alike expend enormous amounts of energy and resourcefulness to maintain a fleet of decrepit, rusted, flamboyantly psychedelically colored, hopelessly out of date cars that have been strained by use for almost half a century. Of course, it must be noted that the hippies got their cars and vans from Germany, and the Cubans got theirs from the United States and the old Soviet Union, but that is but a minor point of contention. Like the new market fixated People’s Republic of China certain intrepid BoHo’s have become adept at selling the accouterments of the spiritual culture of Tibet to our craven capitalist souls and heading straight to Banana Republic, the Farmer’s Market, the new subdivision, and the luxury high-rise with the resulting profits.
Taken individually one could easily dismiss these similarities as happenstance or mere conspiratorial talk radio fodder. That is until one comes across a little red book, well, actually a medium red and grey book entitled Ilf and Petrov’s American Road Trip: The 1935 Travelogue of Two Soviet Writers. This book with its expository title, originally published as Single-Storied America in the Soviet Union is the travelogue of two satirical Soviet journalists as they drive across America in from New York City to San Francisco and back taking sharp, witty verbal and photographic snapshots the entire way.
After reading the book I was struck by the similarities between the stereotypical disdain the left coast sometimes displays toward the taste and mores of what we now with ever-so-delicious irony call the “Red States” and the tweaking criticisms the two travelers dish out on depression wracked America.
To begin with, halfway through their small description of their impressions of San Francisco they unequivocally proclaim that the city “is the most beautiful city in America. Probably because it looks nothing like America.” (p. 80) Anyone who has the pleasure and good fortune (and believe me, it costs a good fortune!) to live in San Francisco would surely agree. They were writing in the 30s, 20 years after the great rebuilding from the 1906 earthquake and fire, before the disastrous elevated freeways had been built, and before the Modernist inspired urban “renewal” programs gutted the middle of the city. I would have loved to have been able to see the city then.
They also lambast the moral, aesthetic, political, and cultural depravity of the city of Hollywood (Norcal’s greatest rival) and the film industry:
We watched at least a hundred picture shows and were simply depressed by the amount of vulgarity, stupidity, and lies. ... Each kind of movie has only one plot, with endless and excruciating variations. So year in and year out, American audiences are actually watching the same thing. And they’re so used to it that sometimes a picture with an original plot doesn’t do well at the box office. (p. 89)
Their wickedly pointed summarization of the typical plots and tropes of Hollywood movies are still sadly accurate and would give the most intrepid Marxist critic a run for their capital in terms of the clarity and aplomb of their language. They write to communicate their point, not to obfuscate their way to a tenured chair. “You can graduate from twenty schools and universities and after a few years of regular cinema attendance turn into a total idiot.” (p. 91) Imagine what they would have said about MTV and Everyone Loves Raymond!
America may be a land of equality, but is can also be a land of numbing homogeniety. We like to think that the 1950s and the rise of the commercial consumer society and suburban development was the beginning of the bland uniformity in the United States, but Ilf and Petrov relive us of this notion:
America is primarily a country of one or two story-buildings. ... But the general mass of American cities are indistinguishable as the Canadian quintuplets, whom you can tell apart only by two or three little birthmarks. This undifferentiated mass of brick, asphalt, automobiles, and billboards is capable of stimulating only a feeling of annoyance and disappointment in the traveler. (p. 15-16)
Their critique extends beyond movies and urbanism into such weighty subjects as race, the treatment of Native Americans, national infrastructure, advertisement, the economy, employment, and breakfast.
You could easily begin to wonder if Ilf and Petrov somehow managed to secretly sow the seeds of the multi-storied coastal disdain towards our landlocked elevator deprived hinterlands, so neatly do they mesh with the sentiments of many contemporary monied urban dwellers. The People’s Republic of Berkeley theory becomes more and more viable with every page, but the writer’s scorn is also tempered with touching moments of personal endearment and technological and natural awe and amazement towards the United States.
You can feel them pulled between speaking from a political point of view and a more personal and unencumbered humanist sentiment. This interplay between more candid human experience, and the two great ideologies of the guests and hosting nation in conflict draws away curtains of obfuscation, be they iron or velvet, and makes for a fascinating portrait of a people, their cities, way of life, and outlook on life.
And to find out what they did like about America and see the great vintage photos, get off the internet and read the book!