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Travels with Charley in Search of America Centennial Edition John Steinbeck Books

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Travels with Charley in Search of America Centennial Edition John Steinbeck Books

What I didn't know about John Steinbeck is that he is always engaging. For twenty years he was the big man writing the Great American Novel: "Tortilla Flat"; "Of Mice and Men"; "The Grapes of Wrath". Then in 1960 he decided he needed to refill his creative tank. He needed to travel across America again (from Maine to California and back home to New York), not as a tourist, not to see the sights--but to engage with people, Americans--see what they were thinking, hear what they were talking about. Steinbeck was the kind of man who could walk into any bar or hardware store or gas station and engage with and maybe even make a friend for a moment or a lifetime of the person he encountered. To be sure, whisky often seemed a catalyst to his socializing. Certainly he was a charming man. To make it even more charming he traveled with this poodle, Charley. Steinbeck didn't give out his name, didn't want to be treated as the big writer. Thus he gathered a very honest, undistorted view of 1960 America. I also didn't know Steinbeck didn't live very long. He died in 1968 at the age of 66.


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Travels with Charley in Search of America Centennial Edition John Steinbeck Books Reviews

This has quickly become one of my favorite books. It reads like a novel, despite its classification as nonfiction. This book is charming and fun, yet beautifully written without being overly poetic. His journey and experiences are truthful, playful, and at times, raw and challenging to read. The parallels of Steinbeck's journey throughout the United States in 1960 in comparison to today's challenges in this same country are eye opening. This is a book I already want to read again after just finishing.

Some of my favorite quotes from "Travels with Charley"

"I am very fortunate in having a wife who likes being a woman, which means that she likes men, not elderly babies."

"For how can one know color in perpetual green, and what good is warmth without cold to give it sweetness"
"We value virtue but do not discuss it."

"When I went away I had died and so became fixed and unchangeable. My return caused only confusion and uneasiness. Although they could not say it, my old friends wanted me gone so that I could take my proper place in the pattern of remembrance -- and I wanted to go for the same reason. Tom Wolfe was right. You can't go home again because home has ceased to exist except in the mothballs of memory."

"I have known desert men who chose their places with quiet and slow passion, rejecting the nervousness of a watered world. These men have not changed with the exploding times except to die and be replaced by others like them. "
Mr. Steinbeck's intention of his travel with Charley, his old poodle, in Rocinante, a noble camping truck named after Don Quixote's horse, was two folds first, his innate wanderlust had grown bigger as his ages advanced. He defied the senility of mind and body as a man who could still be a manly husband to his wife and function as an able-bodied man in society; second, Mr. Steinbeck wanted to see America as he had known on a personal level and to ascertain what could define true American identity and character. What he experienced in his own eyes across the land was part rhapsody of begone days he used to remember and part treatise on American national characteristics. Mr. Steinbeck was indeed a Don Quixote in his pursuit of finding America as portrayed in his novels and as remembered in his memory. But most of all, Mr. Steinbeck was a quintessential American writer in his tough-guy demeanor smeared in the narrative who had a deep affection for his country despite its foibles and imperfections.
For a travel story written 60 years ago, it is remarkably like road trips in the US today. The story is compelling with a great partner Charley, the delightful French poodle. Descriptions are inspiring, characters along the way are appealing. It is such a real journey, so fascinating to travel along. The last chapter is so disheartening, it clearly shows this country has made no progress in the dream of democracy.
Being well aware of the recent challenges of the historical authenticity of the writings of the book, I plunged into this travelogue with the same fascination of reading Mr. Steinbeck’s other books. It presents itself as an intriguing look of America in the early 1960’s. Mr. Steinbeck reflects upon how we as Americans were beginning to change in this country, for example our speech patterns melding after “20 years of television and 40 years of radio,” only after 20 and 40 years of these inventions? He searched out the common people among the roadside diners and campsites and gave us a glimpse of the common American of this time period. You’ll be surprise how much has and has not changed over the past 65 years. A good read. I would love to make the same journey he did.
What I didn't know about John Steinbeck is that he is always engaging. For twenty years he was the big man writing the Great American Novel "Tortilla Flat"; "Of Mice and Men"; "The Grapes of Wrath". Then in 1960 he decided he needed to refill his creative tank. He needed to travel across America again (from Maine to California and back home to New York), not as a tourist, not to see the sights--but to engage with people, Americans--see what they were thinking, hear what they were talking about. Steinbeck was the kind of man who could walk into any bar or hardware store or gas station and engage with and maybe even make a friend for a moment or a lifetime of the person he encountered. To be sure, whisky often seemed a catalyst to his socializing. Certainly he was a charming man. To make it even more charming he traveled with this poodle, Charley. Steinbeck didn't give out his name, didn't want to be treated as the big writer. Thus he gathered a very honest, undistorted view of 1960 America. I also didn't know Steinbeck didn't live very long. He died in 1968 at the age of 66.