Solo: An American Dreamer in Europe, 1933-34

by Wright Morris

In the depths of the Great Depression, Wright Morris, age twenty-three, sets out to explore the Old World. His youthful notions are tested in France, Austria, and Italy as he begins to absorb the raw material that will later be reshaped in his novels, essays, and memoirs.

In recounting his curious adventures - running afoul of the fascist militia in Italy, cycling through the Alps, spending an other-worldly winter in a ramshackle castle - Wright Morris once again demonstrates the exacting eye for detail and the gift of gently ironic observation that inform Will's Boy (the first part of his autobiography) and his other writings. Mr. Morris's reflections on his remarkable odyssey offer an intimate glimpse of a young mind discovering its creative potential.

Genres: Travel, Nonfiction, Memoir

196 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1983

About the author

Wright Marion Morris was an American novelist, photographer, and essayist. He is known for his portrayals of the people and artifacts of the Great Plains in words and pictures, as well as for experimenting with narrative forms.
Morris won the National Book Award for The Field of Vision in 1956. His final novel, Plains Song won the American Book Award in 1981.

Reviews

[Magdelanye · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the amazing things about this account of the Wanderjar of Wright Morris, underlying the authors unabashed telling, is the year his grand adventure took place:1933-1934. An acute observer of his surroundings, Morris tends to imbue them with his his romantic notions and dream his way through some potentially fatal situations.

Another amazing thing was his budget: $1.00 a day.
His gear seems to have been minimal: A new razor with a years supply of razor blades in the handle, a notebook and a parker pen. And a book, The Magic Mountain, which he felt would seem like a different book if he re-read it at sea.

Morris begins his grand tour by hitchhiking, by car and rail, to Chicago to raise the necessary funds by working the Worlds Fair, then making his way to New York, and on to Antwerp by crowded steamer. His descriptions of his journey are laconic and telling. Although things don't often go just as he anticipates, he has a wonderful low-key way of adapting to each specific challenge. The people he meets are not quaint background, but each a mystery and a potential friend.

Morris carries on to prove his adaptability and genuine decency as he engages with his surroundings and fellow travellers. Following his intuition and the encouragement of new friends, he does not linger in the gloom of Paris but sets off for Austria, where he hopes to be able to see through a crack in the veil of time.
Thus just as Europe is gearing up for war, Morris finds his timeless niche in a medieval castle, acting as a willing servant to the eccentric Meister and his even more eccentric wife.

Morris is naive enough to brazen his way through most difficult situations, aware enough to sense the prevailing mood of political unrest, not yet cognizant of its implications, oblivious to danger. Even when he and his friend are arrested by Fascists as they bicycle across Italy, even when they are thrown into jail, he does not panic but maintains his curious interest in the proceedings.

Returning to Paris, he falls into a relaxed, Bohemeian existance that culminates for Morris in the realization that a turning point has occured and his role as an innocent was over. Time to go home, to step forward, into time. For the rest of his life as a writer, Morris mined the experieces outlined in this slender volume, of his time out of time, when he discovered his vocation.

[James Payne · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful writing. It seemed that, as a man in his seventies, Morris revisited an underwritten travel journal from his twenties and gave it its proper due. The year of traveling in question? 1933-34. Given that, mundane details are imbued with haunting significance due to the rise of fascism on the continent and the impending catastrophe of WWII, which, while clear in retrospect, is surprisingly also clear to most of the travelers Morris bumps into during his wanderjahr. Morris is jailed for taking pictures of Il Duce's Italy; he witnesses a 100-foot swastika marked by shoveled snow outside a castle in provincial Austria; a young Nazi doctor doubles as a spy on his boat across the Atlantic. Amazingly, Morris is able to maintain his fidelity to his college girlfriend in Cleveland, and, through his experiences, is galvanized into the life of a writer.

One of the blurbs on my copy describes this travelogue as an "intricate still-life." Somehow, that's quite right. This historical backdrop (Europe, 33-34) seems to exist in perpetuity as the last moment before everything else. It's nice to see through the eyes of a Midwestern American (though Morris attended Pomona, this is a Nebraskan), whose narrative, aside from Schloss Ranna, is only marked by its conventionality - language club, fast friendships, ex-patriate drinks and dance and, above all, linguistic confusion.

I especially loved Morris's salty, semi-disgusted descriptions of Venice and Paris - how these places have changed due to the tourist economy! 1934's Venice sounds fit only for its rats, but when I was there, its opulence only made me feel like one.

Piqued my interest in Morris - I've never heard anyone mention him.

[Tuck · Rating 4 out of 5]

short story, novelist, essayist Morris goes to europe when he's maybe 23. gets talked into moving to Vienna in stead of Paris while on the freight steamer while going east. finds and buys a nice bike while in austria, while living on the cheap-as-possible plan, teaching a little english etc. then meets a dude who knows a dude, so moves in to a decrepit castle and lives with the 'meister" and madame delelgise , a retired opera singer. he hangs at castle through the winter, saving money, getting fattened up, sawing fire wood.... then takes off in March for biking in Italy.
there he gets busted for possibly hatching an assassination plot again Il Duce. etc etc... nice little book, of american(s) in paris, Vienna, castles, Trieste, etc..

[Chris Schneider · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wright Morris is a rare combination of writer and photographer. This book, though, contains none of his photography. It is about an extended trip he took to Europe during the Great Depression and in the build-up to World War II. In many ways it feels surreal, as he lands in one odd situation or location after another. He spends the winter in an old castle filled with eccentrics. He spends time in a fascist jail. He rides his bike through France with a companion whose bike is barely working. He works in a dance hall, for a pornographer, and for a guy where he doesn't know exactly what he is supposed to be doing.

It is an enjoyable adventure, giving an inside view of the temperament and attitudes people had as this unique time.

[CAG_1337 · Rating 2 out of 5]

Morris is a good writer, to be sure, but I didn't really connect with this book. I think this was due in part to my expecting, given the time he was in Europe, a bit more in the way of insight and reflection on the political climate and looming war. For me, this was little more than a mildly amusing travelogue...OK for what it was.