Tracks

Tracks

In the essay "Tracks", author Ian Frazier discusses the influence that tracks have on him since childhood. Ian Frazier is a ‘track-oholic' and he shares with the reader some of the more meaningful tracks that he has observed and what they have meant to him. He is obsessed with tracks because to him they represent "a place where the fantastic and the mundane coincide." He has observed tracks everywhere he has lived, from New York City to small town Montana. Tracks and sometimes lack of tracks spark his imagination and are the fuel that keeps it going. One look at them sends him off on another fantasy adventure. Tracks are essential to him on a personal level and to his work as an author. Most people can probably relate to his analogy of the mundane leading to the fantastic, although they might not relate it to tracks, per se, but to something more personal.

He feels that tracks "let you approach the fantastic by way of the mundane." Tracks are simple, tangible objects that hint to him of something much more wonderful. They are a reminder of the past, implying what used to be, but allowing the imagination to fill in the rest of the story without the restrictions of rules or reality. They are a window into your imagination, allowing you to view something spectacular and possibly dangerous, but from a safe distance. The author mentions tracks as being marks, existing independent of time. Some tracks are gone in an instant, a moment, or maybe even last for years.

Some of the world's greatest things leave no tracks at all. Frazier doesn't quite think this is fair. It robs you of the chance to use your imagination. You can only see the events unfold as they are happening in real time and without any deviation provided by the imagination. Once they are over there is nothing left to remind you of them. One such example of this is given by the author of the peregrine falcon. I think he makes a good point that I can certainly relate to. The sight of a...

Similar Essays