Amelia, Revisited

One of the obvious but difficult to answer questions that all the great adventurers of the world pose for the rest of us is, “What drives them to do that?” Are the great explorers and adventurers braver than most? Or more foolish? Driven by ambition for fame? Or internal satisfaction? Even the adventurers themselves sometimes have a hard time answering the question, especially ones who aren’t predisposed to introspection. Or who didn’t live long enough to reflect with time and maturity on what their reasons and motivations might have been.

Amelia Earhart, it seems, could fit into both of those categories.
I’ve always resisted the general public’s adoration of Earhart, partly because I know of so many other extraordinary women pilots from that era who were every bit as adventurous or brave, and in some cases more skilled, but who weren’t married to consummate publicists with the funds to back their careers, images, or record-setting flights. Louise Thaden, Barbara London, Nancy Love, Beryl Markham … there were any number of them, all equally worthy of adoration, respect, and praise. The attention showered exclusively on Earhart seemed a bit unfair, overdone, and certainly not the entire picture of women in aviation in the 1920s and 30s.

But the public’s fascination with Amelia, and her romantically unsolved disappearance over the Pacific on her unsuccessful 1937 world flight, continues. Yet another movie about her (titled Amelia), starring Hillary Swank, is coming out at the end of October. And the movie’s upcoming release is prompting re-release of several books about Earhart, as well as numerous other articles, like Judith Thurman’s “Missing Woman” in this week’s New Yorker.

I found Thurman’s piece particularly intriguing because it reminded me that while Earhart may not have been more daring or talented than her contemporaries, she is still a fascinating study as an adventurer. And after reading the haigiography-free picture Thurman paints of Earhart, I was left with the thought that her unfinished world flight might actually be a fully appropriate coda to a life full of unfinished beginnings.

What drives an adventurer to take on world quests? Well, if Thurman’s sources are correct, in Amelia’s case it was a complex combination of a restless desire to be unfettered by any long commitment or normal life, a need to prove her singularity, a hunger for fame, and an almost flippant love of all things daring. Lindbergh wrote long, introspective essays on the appeal and process of flight; Earhart liked to summarize that she flew “for the fun of it.” And while she may have worked with her husband to carefully craft her image and stay in the spotlight as “distinctive,” she also, very authentically and passionately, did not want to be limited or defined by her gender, and she worked very hard to carve out her own space in the world in an era where it was very difficult for a woman to do that.

Earhart quit finishing school, quit college, quit all kinds of jobs, refused to stay faithful to her husband, and was always restlessly seeking the next adventure, the next piece of excitement, and the next horizon. She also lied about her age and feared getting old.

The Amelia Earhart in Thurman’s article may not be the easy heroine of popular myth. But what emerges from the pages is a portrait of a far more complex, and interesting, adventurer. And a story that actually provides some insight as to why she took on the world … and perhaps even why she didn’t succeed. Regardless of how, when, or exactly where she actually died.
Worth checking out.