The cartography of childhood
Map of The Shire from The Mirror of Galadriel
People read stories of adventure—and write them—because they have themselves been adventurers. Childhood is, or has been, or ought to be, the great original adventure, a tale of privation, courage, constant vigilance, danger, and sometimes calamity. For the most part the young adventurer sets forth equipped only with the fragmentary map—marked here there be tygers and mean kid with air rifle—that he or she has been able to construct out of a patchwork of personal misfortune, bedtime reading, and the accumulated local lore of the neighborhood children.
Michael Chabon, Manhood for Amateurs: The Cartography of Childhood, in NYRB.
Answers to questions you might be asking, unless you wandered onto this site purely by accident >>>
July 16th, 2009 at 17:32
I’ve never thought about how free we were to walk around when we children, yet it’s true. In those days, it seemed unthinkable that anyone would deliberately harm a child.
When Martial Law was declared, without my parents’ knowledge, I rode my bike from Pasay to Lawton, and didn’t encounter any vehicles on Taft Avenue. I turned back when I saw the tanks, why tempt the Fates?