4.5 stars

For those who have read this book,
“Ftt”
I think I can end the review here. It says it all, doesn’t it?

I've seen a look in dogs' eyes, a quickly vanishing look of amazed contempt, and I am convinced that basically dogs think humans are nuts.

John Steinbeck travels through America and the by product is a profound, humorous, delightful, and at times poignant literary treat.

I saw in their eyes something I was to see over and over in every part of the nation - a burning desire to go, to move, to get under way, anyplace, away from any Here. They spoke quietly of how they wanted to go some day, to move about, free and unanchored, not toward something but away from something. I saw this look and heard this yearning everywhere in every state I visited.

It is an exploration of people and places, where Mr Steinbeck leaves trail of cattle and moose with broken hearts.

Charley is the best travel partner, who is a companion in loneliness, icebreaker when meeting new people, and best of all, he doesn’t fight over routes and playlists!

Marvelous! This will be on my best reads of 2022 list. Steinbeck is truly a wordsmith extraordinaire. I loved Charley, the gentlemanly French poodle, who gives this book a wonderful humorous fibe. I don't care if this book is not really a non-fiction travel memoir or just a partially true journal, it was a delight to read, and if ever I am brave enough to take off and travel on my own, I would attribute this book as the catalyst for such an adventure.

I read this with my Library book discussion group back in the day.

I am now bringing my review to Goodreads.

We read and discussed a lot of Steinbeck.

This one was published in 1962.

The book described a despondent Steinbeck as he trekked across the U.S. with his poodle, Charley.

What was particularly enjoyable was getting a great sense of his thoughts and emotions.

Steinbeck highlighted and discussed a variety of subjects as they appeared in different states or cities. He even talked about the environment along his trip. We were also treated to flowery descriptions of the landscapes and weather.

It was like you and I were along with him and Charley on this roadtrip.

Sometimes there might be some interesting discussions about history, or war, or politics, or community.

You and I were still sitting in the backseat being apart of that discussion. It just felt nice to be apart of these personal reflections from Steinbeck...in this way. 4.5 stars.

n  „…не хората грабват пътя, а пътят грабва тях.“n

Стайнбек взима читателя на едно приключенско пътешествие в опознаване, изучаване на Америка, едно пътуване в търсене на себе си, на човешките корени и душевни трепети. На колелата на специалния фургон, кръстен (неслучайно) от приятелите на автора „Росинант“ – името на крантата на Дон Кихот, Стайнбек се понася към своето мечтано странстване, придружаван от любимото вярно куче Чарли.
Авторът се вглежда в детайли, които другите не забелязват, показвайки ги на читателя по един особен начин, рисува живи и цветни образи в съзнанието, улавяйки всеки тон и фина емоция.

Истински приятно бе да се докосна до вълненията и впечатленията му: за корените на човека, за живота, който непрекъснато се променя, за разликата в диалектите, които изчезват, но чрез които влюбеният в словото автор успява „да чуе гласа на страната си“, до срещите му с различни хора с обикновено-необикновени мечти. Любимият Стайнбек е така чувствителен към човешките дири - харесва му да ги търси и изследва, да ги развива и пречупва през собствения си мироглед. Компания му прави и една стара позната – самотата, тази „радостна болка“. Той открива разлика дори в храната, която сякаш губи своя вкус, както и духовната такава, „уеднаквена и опакована“, недостатъчна, приличаща на обикновената.

Книга, която вълнува искрено, носеща специфичния почерк на великия и безкрайно обичан от мен Джон Стайнбек - 'срещите' с него винаги са удоволствие и литературна наслада! ❤

n   „Щастлив съм да кажа, че в борбата между действителността и романтиката действителността не винаги е по-силната.“ n

Цитати:
„Подозирам, че способността на човек да се самозалъгва е безгранична.“

„Както изглежда, най-добрият лек срещу самотата е да бъдеш сам“

„Една унила душа може да те убие по-бързо, много по-бързо от всеки микроб.“

„Има мигове, които човек цени цял живот – мигове, които ясно и дълбоко прегарят всичките му спомени.“

„И може би колкото по-неукротими са стремежите ни, толкова по-дълбока и по-древна е нашата нужда, воля и глад за непрекъснато движение.“

„Абсолютно нищо не може да се сравни с добрия човек.“

Travels with Charley: In Search of America is John Steinbeck’s account of a road trip across America that he took at the age of 58 with his “old French gentleman poodle,” Charley. They travel in a truck that Steinbeck has specially outfitted as a camper and nicknamed Rocinante, after Don Quixote’s horse. They don’t have a set itinerary. Although he has maps available, Steinbeck doesn’t like using or relying on them: “I was born lost, and take no pleasure in being found ….”

After taking a somewhat meandering northern route across the country, with many stops along the way, Steinbeck reaches Yellowstone National Park. He says he has little interest in seeing it, or any other national park for that matter. In his opinion, “we enclose and celebrate the freaks of our nation and of our civilization. Yellowstone National Park is no more representative of America than is Disneyland.” Yet he does decide to take a look at Yellowstone. He muses that maybe he’s afraid that his neighbors might say he’s crazy if he tells them he was so close to Yellowstone but didn’t go. “Again it might have been the American tendency in travel. One goes, not so much to see but to tell afterward.” As my many photos from trips I’ve taken will attest, there’s some truth in that.

Steinbeck saw plenty in the course of his journey. And I for one am very glad that he wrote this book to tell what he saw (even if some of it, as has been reported, may have been invented). His descriptions of the country through which he travels are marvelous, and his conversations with people he meets along the way reveal a lot about Americans. (He claims that as different as Americans are from one another, we are all more alike than we are different.) His “conversations” with Charley the poodle reveal a lot about Steinbeck himself and are often thought-provoking.

Steinbeck observes that his account of America is true only for himself: “I feel that there are too many realities. What I set down here is true until someone else passes that way and rearranges the world in his own style. … For this reason I cannot commend this account as an America that you will find. So much there is to see, but our morning eyes describe a different world than do our afternoon eyes, and surely our wearied evening eyes can report only a weary evening world.”

So Steinbeck’s America may not be my America, or your America, or the America. Certainly much has changed in the 60 years since Steinbeck’s journey. But it was a great pleasure for me to travel with Steinbeck and Charley through the America that he saw and described. I recommend that you take the journey too.

(When one of my book groups decided to read Travels with Charley, I wasn’t particularly looking forward to it. A book about a man, even John Steinbeck, talking to a poodle as he traveled across the country didn’t sound like something I would enjoy. But I was more than pleasantly surprised. I totally enjoyed the book. Breaking from my usual habit, I decided to listen to it in the audiobook version narrated by Gary Sinise. I think Sinise captured Steinbeck’s voice perfectly, and his reading added a lot to my enjoyment.)

A great writer takes a trip across America, a deeply divided America. Most people didn't want to talk about the Presidential election or the racial divide across the south. This book is as important today as it was in the 60's, it's really a shame that so many of the problems are still here, along with the intolerance.

Mi approccio senpre con una certa diffidenza ai racconti di viaggio, poichè, in diverse occasioni, ne sono rimasto deluso. Il resoconto di Steinbeck circa il suo viaggio alla scoperta dell'America è invece un racconto vivo, pulsante, scorrevole e mai noioso, dove si pone l'accento più sul lato umano e di scoperta (anche di auto-scoperta) insito nel viaggio, dove si scopre un paese fatto di contraddizioni, storia, uomini, donne e battaglie, di nostalgia per l'antico che ha imparato a convivere con progresso e modernità. Assolutamente da leggere per gli amanti dell'autore.

Filled by a desire to see his country one more time, John Steinbeck has a truck modified to be a camper. Named Rocinante, after Don Quixote's horse, and equipping it with guns, books and other essential items, not forgetting Charley his dog, he sets off on his journey.

His 10,000 mile journey takes him on a circular route around the country, starting in the north east, he travels across to the Pacific, down to California, along to Texas and the deep south and back up to New York. On his trip he writes about the things that he see, and the people he encounters. All the while he sees with the eye of an author, noting where those parts of the country still held to long developed habits and other parts that had changed since his last visit. But mostly he wanted to immerse himself in his country once again.

I really enjoyed reading this book. Even though it is thought that the some of the conversations that he recounts were either fictionalised, or a certain amount of licence was exercised in their creation, it could also be that he wanted to protect the identity of those folks. The moment when he travels, America is on the cusp of immense social change, desegregation in the deep south is one of the events he documents, and in his writing you sense this.

But what mostly comes across is a man seeing for the last time the country he loves deeply, meeting its people and immersing himself in it.

I printed once more on my eyes, south, west, and north, and then we hurried away from the permanent and changeless past where my mother is always shooting a wildcat and my father is always burning his name with his love.

i have been reading this book forever. and i realize that coming from me, that means a week or two. but this book has existed, albeit in the back of my mind and in some form or another, since december or january. normally that would be repulsive to me, but i don't think this book should be read in even a week. i think it should be read in snippets over time. it feels most like a voyage that way, at least for me.

i don't feel qualified to even rate this book. i honestly can't believe i finished it.

i love steinbeck--he's up there with fitzgerald for me: an author i adore, an author whose breadth of work i will likely never read, as i selected each as a favorite after a couple of novels. and yes, this work contained those classic steinbeck irritations: the old man superiority to change and to the young; the ignorance of women--somehow his characteristic flat female characters exist, or fail to, even in nonfiction; the quiet racism that refuses to recognize itself.

yet this was a book about travel, about America, in the sharp, simple, philosophical voice i love. i marked this up over and over with an orange highlighter and blue Post-It scraps. steinbeck may have come to know america like few--maybe no one--have, and i feel fortunate to have seen a changing country through his eyes.

i suppose i must give this 5 stars, though i'm tempted to give it 4. but reading this was as much a labor of love as writing it must have been, and it isn't a work i'll soon forget.

Há quem diga que esta viagem tem algo de ficção; em minha opinião, «se non è vero, è ben trovato.»
Afeiçoei-me a John Steinbeck e ao seu cão Charley durante esta viagem pelos Estados Unidos. As paisagens deslumbraram-me, os usos e costumes surpreenderam-me e o racismo chocou-me bem como a dificuldade de integrar os Negros numa sociedade na qual mesmo alguns brancos não se sentiam satisfeitos; falta de meios e directrizes para a assimilação.
Às razões que Steinbeck refere para esta longa viagem, eu acresentaria duas mais: uma despedida e um auto-desafio. Saíu de casa para aprender e (re)conhecer o país que tão bem retratou nos seus romances.
Arrependeu-se da odisseia? Talvez não, mas pareceu feliz por regressar a casa, a Nova Iorque, perdendo-se nas ruas da cidade onde morava, tal como se perdeu tantas vezes nas estradas do seu país; como romancista, Steinbeck recorreu a esta metáfora de uma América perdida e concluiu que a sua viagem tinha começado muito tempo antes de ter partido e terminado antes de voltar sem aviso prévio, despedida ou referência na extremidade do estado de Virgínia. Há viagens que continuam muito tempo depois de terem cessado no tempo e no espaço: neste caso, pareceu-me não ter sido o caso embora haja uma conclusão: não há um Americano mas vários Americanos, tudo era novo, e talvez fosse bom, mas não era nada do que ele tinha conhecido.

Residindo eu num país onde a população se aglomera nas cidades costeiras do Porto e Lisboa, deixando o interior despovoado, considerei o sistema de casas móveis uma opção excelente tanto a nível de estilo de vida como de oportunidades profissionais. Outro facto que chamou a minha atenção: a desenraização que também sinto depois de, muitos anos fora, ter retornado à cidade onde nasci. Steinbeck nasceu em Salinas, Califónia, onde a sua família tinha um pequeno rancho, e passou os seus anos de formação em S. Francisco, enquanto outros estavam a ser a Geração Perdida em Paris. Na sua terra natal só havia estranhos, o lugar mudara, e, ele não mudara com ela o que o confundiu, encolarizou e falseou a sua memória. E aí subindo a Fremomt´s Peak, o ponto mais alto, despede-se do velho rancho da fome, o antigo rancho da sua família, com o sentimento que o passado é permanente e mutável.

Citação: « Não se pode voltar para o lar porque o lar deixou de existir, exceto nas bolas de naftalina da memória.»

dude, steinbeck is so much better than kerouac.

and i know that is a totally obvious statement, but if i want to read a story about a man traveling across america and describing his findings, it is going to be a man with a varied vocabulary, a keen eye for detail, and some powers of interpreting his experiences. john, i am listening...

this is my first nonfiction from steinbeck, and i am impressed with how conversational it reads. he has a real skill in making his experiences near-visible to the reader,in both his physical descriptions and his musings about what an "american" is. i feel like he would be a fantastic road-trip companion, and i envy charley.

and that is another thing. when it comes to dogs, i am completely breed-ist. there are dogs that i love, and then there are dogs i think should be banned from breeding, so i don't have to see them ever again. poodles are among these breeds. they are the silliest of all dogs, and how a man's man like steinbeck could travel across the country with one of them baffles me.

this is not a dog, it is an aberration:



but, for steinbeck's sake, i can read about a poodle for a little while, and it is sweet how they bond with each other. but i still think they are ugly and not "real" dogs.

steinbeck misses out on an investment opportunity:

if i were a good businessman, and cared a tittle for my unborn great-grandchildren, which i do not, i would gather all the junk and the wrecked automobiles, comb the city dumps, and pile these gleanings in mountains and spray the whole thing with that stuff the navy uses to mothball ships. at the end of a hundred years my descendants would be permitted to open this treasure trove and would be the antique kings of the world. if the battered, cracked, and broken stuff our ancestors tried to get rid of now brings so much money, think what a 1954 oldsmobile, or a 1960 toastmaster will bring - and a vintage waring mixer - lord, the possibilities are endless! things we have to pay to have hauled away could bring fortunes.

of course he is being facetious here, but i for one would kill for some vintage appliances - in another life - in a better apartment - i would have a fantastic kitchen filled with these old timey kitchen things, and i curse steinbeck for not giving a tittle.

steinbeck does not get sucked into revisionist nostalgia:

even while i protest the assembly-line production of our food, our songs, our language, and eventually our souls, i know that it was a rare home that baked good bread in the old days. mother's cooking was with rare exceptions poor, that good unpasteurized milk touched only by flies and bits of manure crawled with bacteria, the healthy old-time life was riddled with aches, sudden death from unknown causes, and that sweet local speech i mourn was the child of illiteracy and ignorance. it is the nature of a man as he grows older, a small bridge in time, to protest against change, particularly change for the better. but it is true that we have exchanged corpulence for starvation, and either one will kill us.

i am so glad my real-world book club finally chose something i can review on here instead of just a short story or an essay or a poem...and this time, i will have something to add! they are all european intellectual types, with their tales of berlin and ukraine and their war stories (as both witness and participant) and i just sit there and drink my wine and play the role of "very good young listener". thank you, steinbeck for giving america some street cred and fodder for booktalks!

come to my blog!

"Traveling with Charlie in search of America" took. already knowing that he is extraordinarily good, he is a Master and he knows how to play my soul strings so that they sound in unison with his word. What is a "Journey"? This is a collection of essays, road impressions from a lonely journey of a writer who is under sixty and has serious heart problems (not a word is mentioned in the book about this, it's from another source) across America in a pickup truck equipped for road housing, in the company of a poodle named Charlie.

In a calm, respectful, independent manner, this is very similar to Vladimir Pozner's "One-Story America" and "Tour de France". With the difference that in addition to Urgant in the satellites, a crowd of people from the film crew followed him, and Steinbeck rode alone. And my admiration for a man who decided on such a journey, being very middle-aged, well-known, well-off and having no other prerequisites than the need to breathe fresh energy into his, stagnant in a well-fed stall, Pegasus - my admiration is immeasurable.

Looking ahead, "Journey" became a super-bestseller and led the lists for a short time (until it was pushed by another book). However, it coincided with the award of the literary Nobel, so I would not be surprised if the reason was not the merits of the book, but the inevitable surge of interest. But the book is a miracle, how good it is and reading it was a pleasure from beginning to end. I, nourished by the milk of King's novels, was interested in a look at the state of Maine from the outside and the amazing discovery was that it exactly coincided with what I read about the state and its inhabitants in King. Although I didn't know anything about potatoes for three and a half decades of love for the Master's books. Well, about the fact that Maine is such an American Belarus and that seasonal Canadians illegally cross the border during the collection, which the customs looks through their fingers.

Он был первым англоязычным писателем, которого взялась читать в оригинале. Хотя, если совсем точно, то была адаптация по методу Ильи Франка. Потому и выбрала "О мышах и людях" С одной стороны, признанный мастер; с другой, повесть небольшая по объему и как-нибудь уж осилю; но главное - адаптированное издание. Взять и начать читать на иностранном - как нырять на глубину: если перевод можно сравнить с батискафом, обеспечивающим безопасное погружение, хотя без непосредственного контакта; а просто чтение - с ощущениями ныряльщика, не имеющего между собой и средой ничего, кроме плавок; то адаптация - это легкий скафандр: ты еще не совсем в среде и не можешь почувствовать ее кожей, но уже двигаешься внутри свободно, выбираешь направление взгляда, можешь увидеть в разы больше. чем в перископ.
Итак, я выбрала тогда, четыре года назад "Мышей и людей", маялась, как водится, две трети от книги (радость - да. но и большой труд, преодоление, переламывание стереотипов), но в момент, когда Джордж рассказывает об их с Ленни мечте, о ферме, где в очаге горит огонь, испытала потрясение - особый род читательского катарсиса, полное отождествление с героем; просто стала им. И это было даже не нырять с аквалангом, а стать рыбой - ради таких мгновений волшебства преображения мы и читаем. И я полюбила Стейнбека.
Потому "Путешествие с Чарли в поисках Америки" брала. уже зная - он хорош необычайно, он Мастер и он умеет так играть на моих душевных струнах, чтобы звучали в унисон с его словом. Что такое "Путешествие"? Это сборник эссэ, дорожные впечатления от одинокого путешествия писателя, которому под шестьдесят и у него серьезные проблемы с сердцем (в книге об этом ни словом не упоминается, это из другого источника) через всю Америку на грузовичке-пикапе, оборудованном под дорожное жилье, в обществе пуделя по имени Чарли.
Спокойной, уважительной, независимой манерой это очень похоже на "Одноэтажную Америку" и "Тур де Франс" Владимира Познера. С той разницей, что кроме Урганта в спутниках, за ним колесила толпа народу из съемочной группы, а Стейнбек ехал один. И мое восхищение человеком, решившимся на такое путешествие, будучи весьма немолодым, известным, обеспеченным и не имеющим других предпосылок, кроме необходимости вдохнуть свежие силы в своего, застоявшегося в сытом стойле, Пегаса - мое восхищение безмерно.
Забегая вперед, "Путешествие" стало супербестселлером и лидировало недолгое время в списках (пока не было потеснено другой книгой). Однако по времени это совпало с присуждением литературного Нобеля, потому не удивлюсь, если причиной не достоинства книги, а неизбежный всплеск интереса. Но книга чудо, как хороша и читать ее было наслаждением от начала и до конца. Мне, вскормленной молоком кинговых романов, интересен был взгляд на штат Мэн со стороны и удивительным открытием стало, что он в точности совпал с тем, что читала о штате и его жителях у Кинга. Хотя о картошке ничего не знала за три с половиной десятка лет любви к книгам Мастера. Ну, о том, что Мэн - это такая американская Белоруссия и что через границу нелегально переходят канадцы-сезонники во время сбора, на что таможня смотрит сквозь пальцы.
Хорошо, ярко, остроумно но без злобы все. Читаешь, как едешь сам-третий с двумя путешественниками. Меняется пейзаж, сменяют друг друга времена года и климатические пояса. Меняется ментальность, в чем-то оставаясь общей, американской, в чем-то азительно отличаясь от штата к штату. Страшно, больно и непонятно в Нью-Орлеане, однако, по сути, Стейнбек ворохнул осинное гнездо, которое и не думает еще успокаиваться. И сколько еще будет всего в Америке с расовыми проблемами. Хорошо, что наша имперская экспансия двигалась иным путем.
Чудесная книга, почитайте - она того стоит.