Literary accounts of tramping, bumming and hoboing - Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community

oliver9184 · 06-19-2010, 05:24 PM

So far I know The Autobiography of a Super-Tramp by W H Davies and Down and Out in Paris and London by George Orwell.

Who can recommend me some more great tramp reads?

Those two examples are from the first half of the 20th Century but I'm interested in authentic and readable accounts from any period.

Baraka_Guru · 06-19-2010, 05:49 PM

When I saw the thread title, I immediately thought of Thomas De Quincey's autobiography Confessions of an English Opium-Eater (1821).

It reads much like Nabokov's Lolita in terms of the challenge of whether you should trust the narrator.

Jetée · 06-19-2010, 05:49 PM

Are you looking for a book/novel medium, something by which you can hold in your hands and lazily enjoy reading, or do you not mind a documentary-esque type of film (not necessarily a "feature") as well?

I can probably rummage you up a few examples, but the thing that is getting me tripped up is that "literary" part; are you looking to want to read a transcript of recalled events from someone famous, who was also once-downtrodden, or does the person in question's accounts have to be someone who is actually famous for being a poor nobody, and then turned into a renowned "literary" (otherwise can always be recognized as an author by occupation)?

While I'd still love to hear any elaboration you could offer, I'll leave this little account of a teenage vagabond:

Colton Harris-Moore, the barefoot boy bandit, outfoxes sheriffs

(ah, it seems you need to register and/or subscribe to view the original context of the News Story. I'll just the original text article in its entirety.)

Quote:

In the forests and remote islands around Seattle, police are setting traps for a barefoot teenage outlaw who has eluded them for nearly two years.

Police say 18-year-old Colton Harris-Moore, whose escapades are turning him into a folk legend, is a one-man crime wave, responsible for 50 burglaries as well as stealing light aircraft, which he taught himself to fly from video games, and several speedboats.

He lives in the woods, shuns shoes and catches his own food. His only technological aid is a pair of thermal-imaging goggles to hunt at night and his weakness is pizzas, which he asks to be delivered at the edge of the woods.

For some Harris-Moore is a modern Butch Cassidy: a surprisingly agile 6ft 5in cat burglar who thanks his victims by leaving them notes and cheeky photographs of himself, which have sold for £300 on eBay.

Thousands subscribe to his Facebook page and his image appears on T-shirts with the logo “Fly, Colton, Fly!”. Local rock groups have penned songs about him.

Hollywood producers have lodged lucrative film deals with his family and offered to pay for lawyers if he gives himself up.

Raised in a caravan on Camano Island, an isolated community in the Puget Sound, Harris-Moore started living wild at the age of seven. He would break into holiday homes, steal blankets and food and vanish into the woods for days.

In April 2008, after being sent to a juvenile detention centre, he complained that the beds were too short for his lanky frame and went on the run.

Police believe he fled to Canada and then, a few weeks ago, came back across the border to Idaho where he stole a Cessna 182 and flew to Seattle. He crash-landed in a forest clearing and walked away with cuts and bruises.

Since then he has been accused of stealing other planes for hops around the islands in the Puget Sound, including another Cessna belonging to a disc jockey who vented his frustration on radio, saying: “He still doesn’t know how to land a plane in one piece.”

He evaded a police pursuit by crashing a Mercedes-Benz into a roadside gas storage tank, using the explosion as a diversion to escape back into the woods where, he says, he feels like a Native American.

This was followed by the largest manhunt in recent memory. Three dozen sheriffs, aided by specialist armed units and an FBI helicopter, fanned out across Camano Island but failed to capture him. “We saw him, we think, but it’s like he disappeared in front of our eyes,” said one sheriff.

His luck may be about to run out. During a recent sweep a rifle shot was fired at police, raising his status to “armed and dangerous”. His mother, Pamela Kohler, now fears that even if he did not fire the shot he will be held responsible.

Kohler said she was proud her son had stolen the aircraft because he had never had a flying lesson in his life. “I was going to send him to flight school, but I guess I don’t have to,” she said. “I’d tell him the next time he took a plane: wear a parachute and practise your landing.

“If he shot that gun, it was really stupid. I don’t expect him to come out of the woods alive.”

Courtesy of The Sunday Times.

oliver9184 · 06-20-2010, 03:19 AM

Thanks Baraka I'm going to check out your suggestion, I expect something as old as 1825 should be online somewhere.

And thanks Jetée for that interesting article. I hope that kid doesn't end up getting shot. I was meaning books when I first wrote the post but any documentary films would also be of interest - especially historical ones. There must be a few depression-era ones. I think what I meant by 'literary' was that the account, book or work would be generally considered a work of literature, have been published by a known publisher and be somewhat well-known.

Even if the author wasn't actually homeless the whole time but was pretty close to that lifestyle - e.g. Charles Bukowski. And even if the account wasn't autobiographical but was related by someone else who was close to them but not actually living that life - e.g. Clarence Rook's Hooligan Nights. This can include books about hobo types who may have been illiterate but were interesting enough characters or had interesting enough lives that books were written about them.

06-19-2010, 05:24 PM	#1 (permalink)
oliver9184 Psycho	Literary accounts of tramping, bumming and hoboing So far I know The Autobiography of a Super-Tramp by W H Davies and Down and Out in Paris and London by George Orwell. Who can recommend me some more great tramp reads? Those two examples are from the first half of the 20th Century but I'm interested in authentic and readable accounts from any period.

06-19-2010, 05:49 PM	#2 (permalink)
Baraka_Guru warrior bodhisattva Super Moderator Location: East-central Canada	When I saw the thread title, I immediately thought of Thomas De Quincey's autobiography Confessions of an English Opium-Eater (1821). It reads much like Nabokov's Lolita in terms of the challenge of whether you should trust the narrator. __________________ Knowing that death is certain and that the time of death is uncertain, what's the most important thing? —Bhikkhuni Pema Chödrön Humankind cannot bear very much reality. —From "Burnt Norton," Four Quartets (1936), T. S. Eliot Last edited by Baraka_Guru; 06-19-2010 at 05:51 PM..

06-20-2010, 03:19 AM	#4 (permalink)
oliver9184 Psycho	Thanks Baraka I'm going to check out your suggestion, I expect something as old as 1825 should be online somewhere. And thanks Jetée for that interesting article. I hope that kid doesn't end up getting shot. I was meaning books when I first wrote the post but any documentary films would also be of interest - especially historical ones. There must be a few depression-era ones. I think what I meant by 'literary' was that the account, book or work would be generally considered a work of literature, have been published by a known publisher and be somewhat well-known. Even if the author wasn't actually homeless the whole time but was pretty close to that lifestyle - e.g. Charles Bukowski. And even if the account wasn't autobiographical but was related by someone else who was close to them but not actually living that life - e.g. Clarence Rook's Hooligan Nights. This can include books about hobo types who may have been illiterate but were interesting enough characters or had interesting enough lives that books were written about them.