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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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