Travels with Charley
Ratings76
Average rating4.1
Travels with Charley is enjoyable, although definitely not as satisfying as his novels. His narrative voice is amiable and humorous. The book comes alive when he chats with the people he encounters, but his commentary about the US is lackluster. Charley the poodle dog is an excellent sidekick!
A slow, ambling journey accompanied by a slow, ambling introspection. The writing is as exploratory as Steinbeck views the world around him. Would not recommend for those looking for a quick read. Would recommend for those wishing to analyse what it was like to see America uninterrupted back in the day. You might notice that some things haven't changed a bit between then and now.
What a delightful surprise of a book — a surprise in that I found it on my parents' bookshelf, which I scavenged when I realized I forgot my kindle on a trip home. My parents have a full set of Steinbeck's, including East of Eden and Mice of Men, which I read years back, and Winters of Our Discontent, which didn't quite fit the mood I'm going for. So this book was the last remaining option. Having just gotten a dog myself, I felt drawn to Steinbeck's memoir of driving across America in a trailer with his poodle, Charley.
The book seems to have a serious question: what is America? Which spawns more serious questions about roots, race, politics, urbanization, etc. But the tone, save for a few moments of exquisitely beautiful writing, and a bit of painful experience, was one of lightness with a good helping of dry wit. I didn't expect to chuckle so much. Reading this book, I felt itchy to write in the way great writers make me itch, and also made a list of the states I have yet to visit with renewed vigor to do so. But most importantly, the book was so fun because it was like taking the trip with Steinbeck and his dog without having to travel at all.
I'm told my paternal grandfather, who passed when I was a mere six months old, didn't read much but this was his favorite book. It probably would not have been on my radar if it weren't for this, though I am a sucker for road and travel writing, and find myself opining for it even more in the current pandemic-world we live in.
I'm fully aware Travels with Charley is almost entirely if not all a fabrication. The piss-in-your-cornflakes types can't quite suck all of the enjoyment out of this book for me, partially because Steinbeck states in the book several times he may have embellished or changed facts, and because you can absolutely 100% tell just by reading through it that it's a very curated selection of motley characters and events that anyone who's done a few road trips would know isn't realistic. The true reality of road trips is that they are often full of junk food, long stretches of boring nothingness, and occasionally punctuated by magical scenery or an event here or there.
Even still, I found Steinbeck's cast of characters endearing, for the most part. His philosophical musings and asides to the reader were interesting and resonated with me, even if they weren't novel. I found myself wishing I were in Rocinante with Juanito and Charley, kicking back on the steps with a piping hot plastic cup of coffee, maybe watching a river roll on by us. It's exactly this type of romanticized old-America, that despite it's glaring hypocrisy and occasional cold disposition, exposes the soul of the nation, that at heart compassion and friendliness are the most American qualities, and serves as a hopeful and enjoyable salve for my chapped soul in these tough times.
I picked up this book reluctantly in a second-hand bookstore in Ojai, CA. I say reluctantly because I wasn't in the mood for a memoir or non-fiction. But I was on a Steinbeck bender.
I'm so glad I did pick it up. This has skyrocketed into my Top 10 list. I don't know if it's because I'm on a cross-America roadtrip of my own, or because I wished Charley was my travel buddy, or because Steinbeck just writes in a way that resonates so strongly, with humor and honest assessment.
I loved it. I already look forward to reading it again.
Steinbeck plays the original Bill Bryson here, with fewer witty asides and a few more sweeping observations about America – “generalities”, he calls them. Writing at a time (1962) we look back on now as simple and stable, he drives a big loop around the country with a camper on his pickup and a poodle in the passenger seat.
I really liked the range of people whose stories he tells, and the characterization of Charley the poodle. Especially interesting are the parts where Steinbeck passes through your home states (praises flinty, forthright New Englanders; nostalgic, but gracefully self-aware about it, for the California of his youth).
Did he embellish some details and reconstruct some dialogue? Yep. Does it take away from the book? Not at all. A warm and wise chronicler of the country and its people.
I really like Steinbeck's writing style, and this “travelogue” about his 10,000-mile road trip around the U.S. is right up my alley.
Ah, John Steinbeck.
Travels with Charley is the thirteenth work by Steinbeck that I have had the pleasure to read. Part travelogue and part rant, Travels with Charley is a very conversational piece. It is strengthened by Steinbeck's wit and insight. No matter what he is talking about, Steinbeck is able to pull his readers in and make them interested. I'm by no means a dog person—and definitely not a poodle person—but Steinbeck's words about Charley, and his conversations with Charley (yes, Charley talks once or twice), make me love Charley. I want to hug a dog because of this book. And I will.
Perhaps I'm adding my own hopes, but past all of Steinbeck's sensational insight and humor, I see a story of sadness. It feels as though Steinbeck is saying goodbye. He was in the twilight of life at the time of his travels. When he returns to the place he grew up he finds that many of his friends and associates have died. Goodbye Salinas. Goodbye America.
Steinbeck is at his best the first half of his journey. From New York to his hometown of Salinas, California, every word Steinbeck lays down is golden. He is humorous, philosophical, and genuine (though his story may not have been as we'll discuss in a moment). The second half Steinbeck has run out of steam. He rushes through the South and back to NY in a daze.
Maybe this departure of self and project is because Steinbeck was sickened by what he saw from the moment he reached Salinas and as he continued throughout the South. Salinas was no longer his home. Then he encountered elitism in Texas (which he took part in) and bigotry in Louisiana.
Or it could be he was struggling with his project—a fictionalization of a journey spent largely in the company of his wife and friends throughout America's hotels. Yes, Steinbeck's account in Travels with Charley was exaggerated (if you couldn't tell already). It's not surprising to me. The conversations Steinbeck shares with these people seem too perfect. I wonder if he met any of them. And if he did, he certainly was changing their words around. Plus, this is Steinbeck we're talking about here; despite the popular myth, Steinbeck was far from a realist, he liked to blur lines between fact and fiction.
For me, it doesn't matter in the least. Yes, I would've appreciated knowing that some of these wonderful characters in Travels with Charley were real, that genuine people actually walked the streets of America, but I know what Steinbeck knew, that they're out there somewhere. Just because he didn't give them rides in his truck in the fall of 1960 doesn't mean they weren't out there somewhere. It doesn't mean Steinbeck hadn't met them at sometime in his life. Or at least wished he had.
People put too much stock in fact or fiction. They've done plenty of damage to contemporary literature, so they've moved back in time, looking for the fiction that masqueraded as non-fiction of our fathers' and grandfathers' eras. Yes, you can do all the research you want and learn that it would've been impossible for Steinbeck to travel some of the distances he claimed to have traveled in a day, or learn that he actually spent the days conspiring with politicians. It doesn't matter. Because in the end, Steinbeck is still insightful and Travels with Charley is still a damn good book.
Steinbeck wanted to see his country, his home, one last time. He wanted to chronicle the nation's people and the times. He wanted to provide the world with insight into a people and offer hope to future generations standing on the threshold of a difficult time. Regardless how he went about it, he was successful with each of his goals.
Goodbye America. Goodbye Charley.
Goodbye John.
Steinbeck really captures the paradoxical complexity and simplicity of Americans and America in this book. I don't understand how travelogues today manage to make it at all; I feel like Bill Bryson - who is vastly overrated - can't even compare to the heart and wisdom in this book.
First read: I started this book with tremendous
expectations, I admit. But there is
something terribly disappointing about
reading a book by an author you admire
in which he laments the difficulties
of driving in heavy traffic and
complains about pollution. I
hoped for more intimacy between
Steinbeck and the American people,
I think.
Second read: Reading Blue Highways for the last two weeks somehow led me to pick up a copy of Travels with Charley.
It reads like a contemporary travelogue. Steinbeck laments the the pollution and human encroachment of wilderness that he finds wherever he travels. If I'd not been told this had been written by Steinbeck, I'd never have guessed it was his child.
I liked the book and I didn't like the book. He seems to run into the scruffiest of people, people who have run down to their last dollar, who are down on their luck and down on life.
No happy people, John? No cheery optimists?