Almost Insanity

John Irving's short story Almost in Iowa was, of course, incredible. He utilizes an anthropomorphic view of the automobile to make a critical statement about the often paradoxical manner in which we tend to treat these objects, these essential elements of our lives. In many ways we are entrances with their power, both as commodity items and as a force powerful enough to transform our relation to the world.
Irving speaks with immense respect to his car. He is concerned, compassionate and wary of saying too much (p 84). He cares for the car as if it were a living beast while simultaneously treating places as if they were mere figments of imagination or concepts better to be left undisturbed. “Vermont” seems to hold a nearly mystical place in his mind, while they slunk by Toledo “like an unmentionable anticlimax,” (p 84).
I found this particularly fascinating in two ways. First, I admire anyone who challenges the anthropocentric paradigm, because it is so easy to blindly except that this is the nature of reality. It sure seems as though we are endowed with superior cognitive capacities and therefore a more accurate and complete concept of the world, but we can't know this. And it's fun to challenge this paradigm from time to time.
Secondly, I found Irving's writing was able to capture the feeling of being on the road. When one drives for that long, one's mind (and subsequently the paradigm it holds) is inevitably befuddled. One may grow to see the car, their only companion, as the most relevant thing in the world. Also, after an extensive period of sleepless, solitary driving one may come to see the car as an actual being, while the world outside grows increasingly foreign. For Irving, the world outside becomes increasingly suspect as he wonders what those fourteen exits posing as Sandusky could possibly be. “God, what was Sandusky? (p 84). Good question.