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‘Like a Violation of An Old Trust’

“Why is the motorway culture drearier in Europe than anywhere in America? Perhaps because it is imitative and looks hackneyed and unstylish and ill fitting, the way no European looks quite right in a baseball cap. While the gas stations and industrial parks matched the disposable dreariness of American architecture, set against a French landscape they looked perverse, with Gothic spires and haywains and medieval chalets in the distance, like a violation of an old trust, the compact plowed fields and meadows set off by ugly roads and crash barriers.”

From Paul Theroux, Ghost Train to the Eastern Star.

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This entry was posted on Friday, January 9th, 2009 at 12:49 pm and is filed under Etc.. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

One Response to “‘Like a Violation of An Old Trust’”

  1. Andy Says:
    January 9th, 2009 at 2:37 pm

    can you please comment on whether or not Americans will like cars if they don’t make loud noises - or any noise at all - if America’s future - say 10 or 20 years from now - is with the electric car?

    as someone who was born and raised here, would i have the best opinion?

    PS - i’m really tired of truck commercials…

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Traffic Tom Vanderbilt

How We Drive is the companion blog to Tom Vanderbilt’s New York Times bestselling book, Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do (and What It Says About Us), published by Alfred A. Knopf in the U.S. and Canada, Penguin in the U.K, and in languages other than English by a number of other fine publishers worldwide.

Please send tips, news, research papers, links, photos (bad road signs, outrageous bumper stickers, spectacularly awful acts of driving or parking or anything traffic-related), or ideas for my Slate.com Transport column to me at: info@howwedrive.com.

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