Volkswagen Blues

“When you talk about the discoverers and explorers of America…I’ve got nothing in common with the people who came looking for gold and spices and a passage to Asia. I’m on the side of the people who were robbed of their lands.’'

Although La Grande Sauterelle is both Indigenous and white, she often takes “the side of the people who were robbed,” or the Indigenous. Her insight into the plight of the Indigenous people conflicts with Jack’s unquestioning esteem for the “explorers of America.” As their journey unfolds, the girl’s perspective will compel Jack to revise the understanding of North American history he gained from his francophone family and culture.

“‘I’m a writer,’ said the man.” 

As early as the first chapter, readers learn that “the man” goes by the name Jack, but the narrative frequently refers to him using the general noun “man,” which attenuates Jack’s identity as an individual. Further unsettling his identity is the revelation that “Jack Waterman” is only a pen name his brother proposed, not his real name. These terms—“the man” and “Jack”—simultaneously identify the writer and signify that he has no identity beyond how he defines himself in relation to his brother. Significantly, the writer’s real name is never disclosed.

“While La Grande Sauterelle devoured every book she could get her hands on, Jack Waterman was an anxious, parsimonious reader.” 

La Grande Sauterelle’s approach to reading reflects her approach to life: She is adventurous, intrepid, and welcoming of new, even unexpected experiences. Likewise, Jack’s circumspect engagement with books betrays his wish to avoid experiences or ideas that challenge his culturally determined world view. Because La Grande Sauterelle is open to anything new, she is well-suited to become something new—someone who transcends conventional understandings of culture and race.

“The characters know precisely where they are going and they take him along with them into a new world.” 

Just as Jack is an “anxious” reader, he is an apprehensive writer, insecure about his ability to explore and create new worlds with his own words. He longs to be his “ideal writer,” who, he here imagines, is taken over by characters that seize control of their stories. Until he recognizes that he is not inferior to the explorers of francophone history whom he idolizes, Jack will not have confidence in himself as a writer exploring “new worlds.”

“I think nature’s most beautiful when there’s nothing there—I mean, when it’s still the way it was in the beginning—but I like lights, too. I’m torn between the two and I know I always will be.” 

La Grande Sauterelle is torn between the culture of her mother’s Indigenous, Montagnais people, and that of her father’s white, francophone society. Here, she equates nature “the way it was in the beginning” with Indigenous culture, while viewing “lights” as symbolic of white culture and its manipulation of nature.

“He told the story of Étienne Brûlé. He had a special way of telling it: with many gestures, he mimed the events so that everyone could see.” 

Jack’s memories of his childhood are dominated by his brother, Théo, whose strength and derring-do he strongly associates with the legendary French explorers of North America. When Jack recalls Théo recounting the story of their mutual hero, explorer Étienne Brûlé, Théo becomes one with Brûlé in Jack’s mind. This passage highlights the role narrative plays in constructions of identity and history.

“The building looked as bright and warm as honey, and they couldn’t help thinking about the gold of the Incas and the legend of Eldorado. It was as if every dream was still possible. And for Jack, in his heart of hearts, it was as if all the heroes of his past were still heroes.” 

By the end of Chapter 6, Jack has been confronted with troubling revelations about his historical hero, Étienne Brûlé, and about his beloved brother, Théo. Gazing at Toronto’s gold-dusted Royal Bank, Jack is heartened. Like those early explorers who refused to concede that Eldorado, the city of gold, was simply a myth, Jack stubbornly clings to his faith in his heroes.

“Die Sprache ist das Haus des Seins.” 

Jack and La Grande Sauterelle’s journey takes them from their French-speaking homeland, Quebec, into the predominantly English-speaking communities of the United States. While the girl crosses the language barrier with relative ease, Jack frequently stumbles, his discomfort underscoring his attachment to francophone culture and its myths. Jack finds these German words inscribed under the Volkswagen’s sun visor. Although they appear in the narrative without translation, and thus recreate for (non-German-speaking) readers the alienating effect of a strange language, the quote by the philosopher Martin Heidegger means, “Language is the home of being.”

“‘He said, ‘My young people will never work, men who work cannot dream, and wisdom comes to us from dreams.’’” 

These are the words of an Indigenous chief, as La Grande Sauterelle remembers them. Dreams take many shapes in the novel, from the early explorers’ dreams of finding a city of gold, to the 19th-century emigrants’ dreams of finding happiness in the West. In Jack’s case, he dreams of his heroes’ infallibility and thereby gains wisdom not by realizing the truth of his dreams, but by recognizing their mistakenness.

“And that he could not do, for the simple reason that, for him, writing was not a means of expression or communication but rather a form of exploration.” 

When asked by an immigration official, Jack cannot state what his novels are about, because he writes to explore his own internal world, his own self, not to communicate with others. This exchange establishes that Jack has neglected his relations with other people, which he does not fully acknowledge until his illusions about Théo are shattered. It is also an inadvertent admission by Jack that, having explored his own self in five novels, he still cannot explain who he is, or what he is about.

“This is a rough town. You don’t go out on the street after sunset.” 

During their visit to Detroit, Jack and La Grande Sauterelle take a walk as evening falls. They notice the streets are empty and are surprised when another lone pedestrian warns them that they are not safe after dark. This intimation of the violence lurking in the dark corners of American communities—which Saul Bellow voices again in Chicago—develops the theme that violence permeates the foundation of the United States. 

“And when they found America, it was their old dream come true, and they would be free and happy.” 

Jack maintains that people have always dreamed of finding paradise, and this old dream fueled the European explorers’ “discovery” of America. The dream of paradise thus transformed into the dream of America, which has disappointed expectations again and again but nevertheless retains its power to varying degrees. Indeed, Jack himself is drawn to the power of the dream, but after exploring America, he understands that he cannot “discover” happiness: He must create it for himself.

“The woman seemed very young; she wore a black dress and a hat of an incredibly bright red; the expression on her face was infinitely gentle, and that gentleness blended with the light that pervaded the entire painting.” 

Jack is enthralled by Renoir’s painting On the Terrace and sits before it at the museum, spellbound, for three hours. His complete surrender to the gentleness he perceives supports La Grande Sauterelle’s assertion, later, that he is a gentle person. Jack protests that she mistakes his weakness for gentleness, but in doing so, he measures himself against the “manly” qualities of his heroes, which do not include gentleness. Instead of recognizing himself as gentle, Jack can only see himself as lacking his heroes’ strength.

“‘Ordinary people,’ the captain replied.” 

During a steamboat excursion, the captain speaks about the 19th-century pioneers who traveled the Oregon Trail, and later, Jack asks what sort of people these pioneers were. Because his conception of explorers is synonymous with the daring, heroic “voyageurs” immortalized by francophone historiography, Jack is surprised by the captain’s answer: ordinary people. Jack will ultimately realize that his heroes are only ordinary people as well.

“As long as cats are on their own territory they manage fine. But when they have no territory?”

La Grande Sauterelle’s cat always explores on his own and always returns. During their stopover near Kansas City, however, she notices the cat has been away longer than usual. She and Jack wonder if the cat retains its excellent sense of direction outside his own territory, and this question applies to them as well. While Jack often becomes lost, La Grande Sauterelle always knows where she is, which signifies her greater self-awareness but also her comfort in diverse territories or cultures. The cat proves himself similar to the girl when he eventually returns.

“He gave her time to explain herself and at length she said, ‘When we’re on the road I’m very happy.’” 

When Jack first meets La Grande Sauterelle, she is “on the road,” and here, she acknowledges that she is happiest when she is exploring new territories. This distinguishes her from Jack, who has spent his life clinging to his francophone culture, and is also a metaphor for her mixed-race identity, which vacillates between different cultures, never settling comfortably into one.

“ONE WORD IS WORTH A THOUSAND PICTURES.”

La Grande Sauterelle tapes this revision of the familiar adage to the Volkswagen dashboard. Not only does it recall the postmodern argument that no word has a final, finite meaning, but it also promotes the idea that writing and reading are vehicles for exploring rich, expansive territories.

“It’s late June. Since we left Independence, Missouri, we’ve travelled between thirty and forty kilometres per day; we haven’t had any trouble, aside from the rivers to cross, the heat, dust, storms.” 

Jack reads The Oregon Trail Revisited as he and the girl drive along the trail themselves. Here, he isn’t reading the text aloud, but joining his voice and views with it, as if he, too, is one of the emigrants. This marks a turning point for Jack, as he is identifying with pioneering explorers who are not heroic—just ordinary people.

“YES! RIGHT HERE, RIGHT NOW, RIGHT ON THE CONTINENTAL DIVIDE!” 

Jack is flustered when La Grande Sauterelle decides they should have sex by the roadside to commemorate their arrival at the Continental Divide. For her, their sexual union would symbolically refigure the site as a point of convergence between two continents, not one of division. Their attempt to couple goes awry, and shortly thereafter, the girl expresses despair that she will never reconcile the two races that constitute her.

“We’ve travelled two-thirds of the way across America, following a trail that’s so slight…so slight and so incredible that if we told people nobody’d believe us.” 

These words, spoken by La Grande Sauterelle, cast her and Jack’s journey in the form of a narrative, and an unbelievable one. Although their expedition to find Théo does not involve feats of strength and bravery like those legendary expeditions of the early French explorers, it nevertheless translates into an incredible, uniquely personal narrative. As such, it is a narrative that affords Jack a more accurate understanding of himself than that which he surmised from grand narratives of historic heroes.

“As she was working in the sun, he made a sort of awning for her with the flannel blanket.” 

As this passage unfolds, conventional gender roles are reversed. La Grande Sauterelle, the mechanic, diagnoses the Volkswagen’s engine trouble and fixes it, while Jack acts as her assistant, shading her from the hot sun and dabbing her face with cool water as she works. Jack has a gentle, helpful nature, but because his cultural heroes model manhood as the exercise of power and leadership, he considers himself deficient.

“‘It’s made half of steel and half of dreams,’ said Jack.” 

Jack is here referring to the Golden Gate Bridge, but he might just as well be speaking of Théo, or the early French explorers, or America itself. Indeed, in the spirit of postmodernism, Volkswagen Blues explores the power of narrative to forge reality, or at least “half” of it (allowing that the other half is made of something more durable, like steel). As Jack learns, it is therefore vital to interrogate master or grand narratives that exclude or even inhibit diverse voices and stories.

“In the girl’s worried gaze he saw the same image that the word creeping had suggested to him: a man crawling along the earth like an insect.” 

When Jack finally finds Théo, he is not the towering hero Jack remembered from long ago, or perhaps had simply created from deeply entrenched heroic narratives. To the contrary, Théo’s mind and body are so compromised by “creeping paralysis” that he has no personal agency. For Jack, the identity he had imposed on his brother suddenly collapses, and Théo is left with no significant identity at all, like an insect crawling the earth.