Dave Egger's You Shall Know Our Velocity

A look into the the mythical native people from the book

Focused on the travels of two americans, YSKOV is a journey of both the world and the self. Hand and Will consistently express hopes that another culture will shed light on their own life. There are so many things that push them forward, but at the heart of most of it all is discovery. The idea that discovering something new will somehow make them grow or uncover something in them that was previously unknown or unnamed. They want to find a culture that exceeds the normal and law abiding, but do not find it either because these people are not real or don't live up to their billing.

There are three mythical cultures discussed in YSKOV, and they meet up with none of them. When flying into Morocco, they ask about the Blue Men, hoping to find a band of fierce fighters. In Estonia, they search for the Liv, a band of peaceful lake people that promise to show a balance in the cold land that seems to unnerve Hand and Will. They also talk about the Mountain People that stubbornly insisted they could fly and move about with terrible speed, and not surprisingly are drawn to them because of the similarities in their own whirlwind trip.

The Blue Men
Terror and ferocity. The legend imagines a band of people who have survived since the days of 1,001 nights. They are audacious enough to paint themselves in blue. Nobody would do this in the modern dessert, but they do and they shatter the predictability of the modern world with their terrible love of costumes and ancient ferocity. It is a gift they give to the world, the idea that childhood terror and pointless violence are still alive somewhere in a desolate canyon of Morocco. This idea only trails Hand and Will for a few minutes before the men telling the story burst out in laughter. It is enough though.

The Liv
Alive in the frozen tundra of Estonia, these people represent a nativeness that Hand and Will don't find in the rest of the country. As they drive, the similarities to an illinois winter landscape are too much for them. The punk hitchhiker they pick up is too american to feel comfortable around. The Liv are the antidote to this. It's presumed they don't care about Hand and Will, which somehow makes them all the more appealing. They are hard to find, even more appealing. Nothing truly good is easy to find.

The Flying Mountain People
There are many particulars about these people. First, they were burdened down by the accumulated lives of all their ancestors. This is history weighing you down. Then, in order to shake this weight, they decided to fly and they study the birds. Their research comes down to a few lessons. You need to be fearless to fly. You need to be persistent. So they go around jumping off hills. It's fitting for Hand and Will. A little bit too much so, but Hand and Will are escaping history. They are not quite fearlessly jumping off cliffs, but they so want to be. In the same way, they will disappear and the only thing left will be a hastily scrawled message.