mschlat's review against another edition
3.0
My wife picked this up and said "It's [a:Harvey Pekar|5125|Harvey Pekar|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1278951274p2/5125.jpg] gone horribly, horribly wrong." My evaluation isn't that harsh, but I can see where she's coming from. This is meant to be a story about David Collier and family taking a rail trip across Canada, but it's interspersed with Collier's anecdotes about growing up, historical tales of the towns they pass through, and even the occasional dig/regret about Collier's former publisher, Drawn & Quarterly.
The problem is that Collier is exhaustingly didactic. It's like the infodump you get from a dense Pekar piece, except that it almost never stops and jumps from topic to topic seemingly randomly. Trust me, there are good bits (I'm a big fan of how Collier's military background informs his thinking and particularly his packing), but you need to be willing to wade through a lot. (I will concede that you might get a lot more out of this if you are Canadian.) My other issue is the linework, which features extensive shading and crosshatching. The art is almost as dense as the story-telling.
Basically, unless you're a big fan of Collier, Canadian history, or Canadian rail, I would give this a pass.
The problem is that Collier is exhaustingly didactic. It's like the infodump you get from a dense Pekar piece, except that it almost never stops and jumps from topic to topic seemingly randomly. Trust me, there are good bits (I'm a big fan of how Collier's military background informs his thinking and particularly his packing), but you need to be willing to wade through a lot. (I will concede that you might get a lot more out of this if you are Canadian.) My other issue is the linework, which features extensive shading and crosshatching. The art is almost as dense as the story-telling.
Basically, unless you're a big fan of Collier, Canadian history, or Canadian rail, I would give this a pass.
brookeireland's review against another edition
medium-paced
2.0
Content Warnings
Moderate: Fatphobia
Minor: Racial slurs, Xenophobia, Sexism, and Pedophilia
awoodward's review against another edition
5.0
I'm a big fan of Colliers work and he can be an acquired taste. There was the sual Collier mix of real life mixed with interesting historical facts. The part where he was camping in his old publishers back yard had me in tears of laughter! There's something about the quality of the trip that i think not many people would experience these days, a kind of seat of your pants bare bones experience, that although difficult must have also been rewarding.
The pace of the book could have benefited from being broken up a bit more. Intersperse pages with larger panels to give the reader a sense of place. but other than that, classic Collier.
The pace of the book could have benefited from being broken up a bit more. Intersperse pages with larger panels to give the reader a sense of place. but other than that, classic Collier.
pantsyreads's review against another edition
2.0
As I've mentioned before, I'm a sucker for travelogues. Normally, I like to read them to discover places I've never been, or would like to go. [b:Morton|34227792|Morton A Cross-Country Rail Journey|David Collier|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1488471599s/34227792.jpg|55281543] on the other hand is all about my home country Canada. Collier's memoir details how he and his family travelled through much of Canada via train travel. I admittedly haven't travelled much in my home and native land (I live in Ontario and the only other provinces I've visited are Quebec and Alberta), so I was excited to dive in.
While Collier's memoir does involve a lot of travel, it didn't read much like a travelogue. Instead, what I got were the random and meandering musings of a middle-aged man who makes shallow statements that try to be deep.
Some of the anecdotes in here are fun - for example, Collier details how sleeper trains are designed (they look like bunk beds) - but then he would ruin it with his random judgements, like mentioning how some passengers are too obese for the top bunk of the sleep compartment. This led into a short musing on the obesity epidemic the world is in, and ughhh, I just don't care??? I really wish some of those asides had been left out.
I also wish we had gotten to know Collier's family a bit more. He's travelling with his wife and son, and while they do have dialogue, you never get to know them as people. There are some mentions of how Collier and his wife met, but not much else. I understand that the focus here was supposed to be travel, but even that all felt like an aside.
My expectations sadly made this book a miss for me. Where I was expecting an exciting travelogue of my home country, what I got instead was a narrative that had train travel, but was mainly about Collier's thoughts and feelings. Not terrible, but not what I had in mind when I picked this up.
While Collier's memoir does involve a lot of travel, it didn't read much like a travelogue. Instead, what I got were the random and meandering musings of a middle-aged man who makes shallow statements that try to be deep.
Some of the anecdotes in here are fun - for example, Collier details how sleeper trains are designed (they look like bunk beds) - but then he would ruin it with his random judgements, like mentioning how some passengers are too obese for the top bunk of the sleep compartment. This led into a short musing on the obesity epidemic the world is in, and ughhh, I just don't care??? I really wish some of those asides had been left out.
I also wish we had gotten to know Collier's family a bit more. He's travelling with his wife and son, and while they do have dialogue, you never get to know them as people. There are some mentions of how Collier and his wife met, but not much else. I understand that the focus here was supposed to be travel, but even that all felt like an aside.
My expectations sadly made this book a miss for me. Where I was expecting an exciting travelogue of my home country, what I got instead was a narrative that had train travel, but was mainly about Collier's thoughts and feelings. Not terrible, but not what I had in mind when I picked this up.
glitterandtwang's review against another edition
3.0
Collier chronicles a cross-Canada trip he and his family attempt to take by way of the railroad, including all the pitfalls and detours that happen along the way. It's a fun read, though the conclusion feels a little abrupt - I suppose that's the problem with travelogues, though?
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