Aspen to America: We’re a Major Literary Destination!
Travel Blog • Eva Holland • 05.28.09 | 4:59 PM ET
When most people think of Aspen, Colorado, I doubt if the words “literary pilgrimage” pop all that promptly into their heads. But that’s going to change—at least if Aspen.com’s Brandon Wenerd has anything to say about it.
In a feisty blog post, he writes:
For decades, devoted bookworms and “Dead Poet Society” [sic] quoting high school English teachers have flocked to Hemingway’s Key West, Tennessee William’s [sic] New Orleans, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s New York, Steinbeck’s Monterey, Ginsberg’s and Kerouac’s San Francisco, Faulkner’s Mississippi, and Robert Frost’s New England on their summer vacations ... Yet, for whatever reason, well-read literati and travel list arbiters have never ranked Aspen, Colorado on the lists of great American literary destinations.
“Nonetheless,” he goes on, “the river of literary tradition and cultural significance in our quirky mountain community of 6,000 runs wide and deep—perhaps just as deep as any significant college town chockablock with erudite scholars, a research library, and bookish intellectuals with bombastic vocabularies.”
Ooh. Them’s fighting words—though he’ll want to get Tennessee Williams’ name right to really compete with all those erudite scholars. Wenerd backs his claim with an overview of the town’s literary heritage—perhaps most notably, Hunter S. Thompson’s longstanding association with the area—and a selection of 10 books marking Aspen’s territory on the American literary map. It’s an eye-opening list; I’ll admit my free-association, when I hear the word “Aspen,” starts and ends with “skiing.” I’ll see the town a little differently now.
Are you convinced? Is Aspen America’s most underrated literary destination? Are there any other overlooked bookish hot spots?