This novel continues the story of Eugene Gant after he leaves his home town. He goes north to study at Harvard, hoping to become a playwright, and then crosses the Atlantic to travel in England and France. Along the way he meets teachers, fellow students and strangers, and is driven by a fierce appetite for books, experience and understanding. The book is loosely structured and richly poetic, mixing comic episodes with long passages of longing and reflection. It explores a young artist's search for purpose, and for a sense of his own country, as he becomes aware of how far he has travelled from home.
Quotes
America... It is a fabulous country, the only fabulous country; it is the only place where miracles not only happen, but where they happen all the time.
In New York the opportunities for learning, and acquiring a culture that shall not come out of the ruins, but belong to life, are probably greater than anywhere else in the world.
Who owns the earth? Did we want the earth that we should wander on it? Did we need the earth that we were never still upon it? Whoever needs the earth shall have the earth: he shall be still upon it, he shall rest within a little place, he shall dwell in one small room for ever.