The Oregon Trail
The two traveling companions who are the protagonists of the story follow the Oregon Trail and a book titled The Oregon Trail Revisited becomes of central significance. The imagery here is distinctly and profoundly ironic. The Oregon Trail has over time taken on a mythic status as the road leading to the taming of the wild frontier and the civilization of wilderness where the buffalo roamed. Along the way, history is revisited from the perspective of the future looking backward, lending legendary white heroes of the wild west like Buffalo Bill a much less heroic aspect.
Books
The Oregon Trail Revisited is not the only literature of significance in the story. The legend of El Dorado is referenced with specific mention of The Golden Dream. La Grand Sauterelle is a compulsive library book thief who reveals the high status that books have to her specifically by virtue of the fact that she always mails the stolen book back to the library when she’s done. And, of course, one of the most famous book stores in American history briefly becomes the setting of the story when Jack and his companion show up at Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s legendary City Lights in San Francisco. All this imagery fuels La Grand Sauterell’s philosophy that no single book is compete unto itself; it can only be understood within the context of its relationship to other books.
Chop Suey
Chop suey is the name finally given to the cat that is traveling with the two protagonists. Chop suey is, of course, infamous for being a popular dish at Chinese restaurants in America despite not being actual Chinese cuisine, having been invented in America. It is a dish comprised mainly of leftover ingredients tossed together and its lack of a distinct ethnicity while assuming one connected with the American melting pot experience transforms the presence of the cat into imagery that keeps connecting with the blended cultural reality of North America, both Canadian and American.
“The Volks”
One of the examples connected to chop suey is, of course, the van (or minibus) itself. Its origin was in Germany and like so many Americans, it crossed the Atlantic to find a home. Jack’s preferred term for referencing his vehicle is neither van nor minibus nor even VW for that matter, but “the Volks.” This affection term translated into English means “the people.” And if the novel is about nothing else, it is about the people of all nationalities and origin—both indigenous and immigrant—who have made North America the unique place in the world that it is; a vast region populated not by generations of Poles or Russians or Chinese or Ethiopians but populated simply by generations of people.
