"In a very basic way, a prominent landmark such as Mt. Holyoke tells you where you are. They let you know that you're not the first person in a place"
About this Quote
A mountain as a GPS coordinate is only half the point. Kidder is after the quieter relief that comes from realizing your life is happening on top of other lives. Mt. Holyoke, in his framing, is a landmark not because it’s dramatic, but because it’s reliable: it stands there doing the unflashy cultural work of orientation. The first sentence sounds almost utilitarian, the kind of thing you’d say to a lost hiker. Then he swivels to the deeper payoff: a landmark “lets you know” you’re not first. That shift is the whole trick. Place becomes a rebuke to the modern fantasy of originality.
The subtext is anti-frontier, anti-startup, anti-main-character. In an American culture trained to treat “newness” as moral superiority, Kidder suggests the opposite: that being late to the scene is comforting, even ethical. A prominent feature is a reminder that others have navigated here before you, named things, built routes, made mistakes, left stories. It punctures isolation without needing sentimentality.
Context matters: Kidder’s nonfiction tends to honor the textures of ordinary work and ordinary communities. A landmark operates the same way his reporting does - it anchors human experience in something stubbornly external, something that outlasts our private dramas. Mt. Holyoke isn’t just scenery; it’s a public memory device. It locates you geographically, then corrects you existentially: you’re here, but you’re not alone, and you never were.
The subtext is anti-frontier, anti-startup, anti-main-character. In an American culture trained to treat “newness” as moral superiority, Kidder suggests the opposite: that being late to the scene is comforting, even ethical. A prominent feature is a reminder that others have navigated here before you, named things, built routes, made mistakes, left stories. It punctures isolation without needing sentimentality.
Context matters: Kidder’s nonfiction tends to honor the textures of ordinary work and ordinary communities. A landmark operates the same way his reporting does - it anchors human experience in something stubbornly external, something that outlasts our private dramas. Mt. Holyoke isn’t just scenery; it’s a public memory device. It locates you geographically, then corrects you existentially: you’re here, but you’re not alone, and you never were.
Quote Details
| Topic | Mountain |
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