'La- Di -Da '- by Tim Hutton. A travel memoir and rite of passage.
'La- Di -Da '- by Tim Hutton. A travel memoir and rite of passage.
This is the story of a hitchhiking journey around Australia in the early 1980’s, which traces the author’s faltering attempts to grow out of a privileged adolescence into adulthood. Following the highs and lows of a hitchhiker’s life, it tells of the people met along the way, and raises questions about travel, relationships, sex, masculinity, class, and white entitlement.
An unintentional rite of passage, it is an account of a slow awakening into this ‘big, beautiful, messed up world’ and an unknowing quest into what it takes to belong here.
Time may have moved on but our lives are surprisingly circular, and many of the underlying challenges of the journey remain as relevant today as they were then.
In a certain light, ‘La-Di-Da’ feels more like a song than a word, and even though it sounds playful, it has an edge to it, a particular sharpness. Used in the 19th century to refer to ‘a ‘dandy,’ ‘a fop, or ‘a swell,’ it is still used to describe someone who is ‘posh, pretentious, arrogant, entitled,’ or ‘stuck up.’