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Summary Of The Novel 'Every Trip Is A Quest'

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“Every Trip Is a Quest (Except When It’s Not)”, chapter one of the novel How to Read Literature Like a Professor by Thomas C. Foster, discusses the presence of quests and their importance in literature. Foster uses both hypothetical examples as well as examples from literature to provide cases in which quests are present and significant. Kip, a hypothetical example of daily life, is a normal high school student that is out to buy some Wonder Bread for his mother. He is confronted by a rich kid driving a nice car accompanied by Kip’s crush. Although this may seem like an extremely ordinary scene in high school, Kip’s adventure out to the grocery store is a quest of a sorts; the stroll out to the store fulfills all of the requirements of a quest. …show more content…

The author emphasizes the difference between stated and real reasons for a “quest”, as he mentions that the stated reason is somewhat of an excuse, disregarded by the reader in favor of the real reason. In addition, Foster asserts that “The real reason for a quest is always self-knowledge” (Foster 3). Foster’s assertion reasons that a quester will go on a quest for the stated reason, but will actually embark on a journey to discover oneself. He also uses the novel Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon as an example of literature; the novel apparently has a quester (a young woman), a destination (Southern California), a stated reason for the quest (designation as the executor of the will of a wealthy man), challenges (culture shock), and the real reason to go (self-discovery). In addition to Pynchon’s novel, the quest sagas Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and Faerie Queen by Edmund Spencer are given as cases of literatures with journeys that are

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The book has every part of the five significant things for a quest (a) quester- Edgar, (b) place to go- Starchild colony, (C) stated reason to go there- escape punishment for the death of Dr. Papineau, (d) challenges and trials en route- inexperience, hunger, or the possibility of being caught, and (e) real reason to go there- get away from Claude. The quest of the novel Demdemyanos 2 also fits perfectly into Foster’s purpose for a quest and his characterization of typical quester. Edgar is an inexperienced and immature teenager who descends on a journey and along the way he finds himself, his views, as well as his values changing, a prime example of this is when he begins to miss Almondine he starts to realize that he was in the wrong position when got angry at her for lying next to Claude, Wroblewski states “ Now Almondine occupied his thoughts... Perhaps she would have forgotten his crimes, for which he wanted more than anything to atone.

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Though verifying that this works for every work of literature is impossible, finding novels that coincide with this definition is much easier, a good example being The Hummingbird’s Daughter by Luis Alberto Urrea. In this text, Luis Alberto Urrea makes identifying the quester as Teresita quite easy. The title of the book is one of the biggest hints. Using Foster’s simple definition of a quester, “a person who goes on a quest”, it

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