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The Water Planet: A River Runs Through Us Goodbye
to a River
As a theme for the Common Experience, the
subject of water has particular relevance for our university. The unique,
spring-fed San Marcos River that runs through campus is a constant visual
reminder of the many dimensions and roles that water plays in our lives.
The nexus of the Common Experience parallels this literal flow: it fosters
students' confluent thinking where discovery in one area will lead them
to discovery in another. This year's selection, Goodbye to a River, is
the story of John Graves' 1957 canoe journey down the Brazos River. The
book is part history, part memoir, and part travellogue. Goodbye to
a River, like many Texas narratives, uses the journey for structure,
and the journey takes on symbolic significance as well. This journey is
a personal process, a trip to recover a wanderer’s sense of history
and place. By returning to places that have meaning, the persona-narrator
demonstrates how one regains a rootedness that gives life meaning. Graves explores themes and emotions that evolve from the
relationship between humans and the natural world in the context of his
trip down the Brazos River: how places have meaning, responsibility, solitude
and community, innocence and experience, good and evil, humanity and inhumanity,
conservation. Arguably the central theme in much of Graves’ work
concerns how humans relate to and find value in nature. The relationship
between humans and nature, particularly the significance of rivers, offers
a relevant, challenging, and inspiring theme for the Common Experience. For detailed information on Goodbye to a River,
click here. |
