16th book from my reading challenge with Ted.

#18 - Read a book by a Nobel winner.

I am not much of a reader of travel writing, and it had been quite a long time since I sunk my teeth into a Steinbeck project of respectable length. Why does this happen? We are in love with an author. We are enjoying their books. Then, a sudden distance comes between us that seems to invite doubt, uncertainty over whether we really ever enjoyed these works. A few pages into this one and the warmth and charm of Steinbeck was back. The warm glow and wrapping blanket feeling that many get while reading Dickens during the cold winter months… I get that when reading Steinbeck whenever. More than anything, I am repeatedly impressed by his ability to read people and depict them without resorting to caricature.

I would love to read something similar written about Canada! Nunavut may be tough going. Yukon a mystery. Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba? Vast (if you think I so much as blinked while typing out Saskatchewan, you don’t have faith in my Maple Leaf Metre). Even Ontario would be cool through the eyes of a Canadian Steinbeck. I will keep waiting.

Steinbeck was 35 when he wrote Of Mice and Men (one of my favorite novels). He was 58 when he took the trip recounted in Travels with Charley. Just a man and his dog, out on the road to explore America. It seems a fitting idea for a book from an author who, according to Wikipedia, "frequently explored the themes of fate and injustice, especially as applied to downtrodden or everyman protagonists." How appropriate for a master of American Realism to go out into the Real America and just sort of see what was what, circa 1960.

He starts by describing the ol' traveling itch, which admittedly I've never much shared. I'm more of a "let's stay in tonight" guy, rarely willing to venture out of the suburbs. But I like the Gonzo journalism of Hunter S. Thompson and this feels a lot like his road trip odyssey Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas or his cross-country ...On the Campaign Trail, but with less, well, loathing. The story from start to finish describes a neat circle, a cyclical path from home to the open road and back home again, and has a tremendously satisfying sense of wholeness. The best parts are the little pithy observations about trips and the quirky nature of dogs.

3 stars out of 5. A little bit dated and a little self-indulgent (do we need to hear how he worries his celebrity will get him recognized too easily? Or how he single-handedly saved his 22-foot boat from a hurricane?) but all in all a great celebration of the basic joy of travel: getting to know yourself by going away and meeting with others.

4.5 Stars - In some ways, this is considered Steinbeck’s crowning achievement, or perhaps more aptly, his most commercial work that’s more u I really u destroy by the masses.

A momentous, joyous ride that enables his reconnection with middle America, sees JS at his most humble, his most romantic, his most open, unguarded! Filled with many anecdotal encounters of all types, the strange, the straight and the sad! This novel is endlessly humorous - Travels is a sound reminder that sometimes, the best moments in
Life can come when we are open to being empathetic, sympathetic & come through to a cognition or a personal perspective revelation, after first viewing things with a lense of scepticism.

It’s not a bonafide literary giant like the timeless, modern/classic East of Eden, or even Grapes or Mice, but it is a bloody good read all the same, and it seems to somehow cop the least flack because of its non-fiction origin.

I usually enjoy fiction, but a mite cheated when I learn that a travelogue isn't. I'm sure some people enjoy the writing regardless of the misleading content. Steinbeck never went to some of the places in the book, he made up the folks that he never met and the hotels and resorts he and his wife stayed in are a bit more luxurious than the camper top on his GMC pick-up.

On the plus side, he did purchase a pick-up truck and add a camper top to it. His wife did have a poodle named Charley.

Dopo anni di lotta scopriamo che non siamo noi a fare il viaggio; è il viaggio che "fa" noi.

Nel 1961 John Steinbeck decide di compiere un viaggio attraverso gli Stati Uniti perché ritiene di essersi allontanato dalle persone, dagli americani e uno scrittore questo, non se lo può permettere.
E' un libro per gli irrequieti, gli amanti di Chatwin e di Kerouac e per tutti gli animi vagabondi:

Vedevo nei loro occhi qualche cosa che avrei rivisto tante volte in ogni parte del paese... un desiderio rovente di andare, di muoversi, di mettersi in cammino, dovunque, via da ogni Qui.

Questo perché Steinbeck pensa che la vita sicura, quella di tutti i giorni, in cui mangiamo cibi sottovuoto con posate sterilizzate, ci abbia succhiato anche l'entusiasmo. Di questi uomini, tristi o con poca vitalità, Steinbeck scrive non senza dolore. Ogni volta che incontra una persona anodina ne rimane anch'egli così impressionato da soffrirne per una giornata intera:

un'anima triste può ucciderti più in fretta, molto più in fretta che un germe.

Steinbeck, dunque, ci permette di viaggiare attraverso il cuore degli statunitensi del 1961. I dialoghi con i diversi avventori sono la parte più interessante del libro, perché il suo non era un viaggio per cercare la solitudine nella natura e ritrovare se stesso, bensì la ricerca di un dialogo con le persone per vedere se stesso, attraverso le loro esperienze:

le sottili sfumature dei sentimenti, delle reazioni, sono risultato di comunicazione, e senza tale comunicazione tendono a sparire. Un uomo senza nulla da dire non ha parole.

La solitudine, secondo l'autore, rende i sentimenti muti. Le parole sono frutto di ricerca di un senso, di una spiegazione ed è in questa ricerca che si fanno le scoperte più interessanti.
Ed ecco che è il viaggio a fare noi, a cambiarci, nella contemplazione e nell'ascolto di ciò che ci circonda, non solo partendo verso mete ignote, ma non abituandoci all'abituale, non addormentandoci nel già visto, così come il personaggio cieco in un racconto di Carver insegna a vedere una cattedrale a chi la vista la possiede dalla nascita, così Steinbeck, senza alcuna retorica sveglia un po' di sensi intorpiditi per dirci:

Ci sono tanti mondi, quante sono le giornate.

Sarebbe davvero bello riuscire a pensarlo ogni giorno...

Няма “лечение” на копнежа за приключения, нито възраст. Жаждата за пътешествия не отминава нито със зрелостта, нито с ангажираността. Тя е просто там и дебне възможност да се прояви.

Стайнбек е един от любимите ми автори, а това пътешествие с него из Щатите, ме развълнува истински. САЩ е страна, която съчетава в себе си колоритни и разнообразни култури; изпъстрена е с народопсихология, специфична за всеки щат. Докосването до различни нрави и човешки възприятия, характерни за отделни местности и щати, бе голямо богатство за мен. Почувствах ритъма, красотата, уникалността на всяко едно кътче, следвайки стъпките на Стайнбек, но най- вече душевността на хората във всеки един регион. Точно върху това се съсредоточава Стайнбек, не толкова върху природните забележителности, а върху човешкия манталитет и култура.

Тази книга е едно прекрасно приключение!

Journeys are always exploring new and old surroundings. Steinbeck with his French Poodle Charley travel from his home in New York across America. In his camper Rocinante. He visits Maine, Yellowstone, South Dakota, San Francisco, New Orleans and many other places. His observations are enlightening to the kindness of strangers to the incredible racism in New Orleans and his thoughts of what it might mean to the US.

He uses the dog as a conversation device with his thoughts about the technological advanced and also the throw away everything packaged society and wastefulness. The travelogue took place in 1960 with conversations with strangers at breakfast diners and the wanderlust of those strangers who wanted to travel as well. His insight that Americans live in fear and the striving for something indefinable.

His return to Seattle and the changes there as well as his hometown Salinas where he quotes Thomas Wolfe’s book You Can’t Go Home Again. The changes making it no longer home. The visit to the giant Redwoods was evoking, the thanksgiving orgy of wealthy people in Texas and the decision not to shoot two coyotes in the Mojave desert all are episodes of the way he has changed over his life in perspectives.

In the end the journey becomes an endurance where he just wants to get home. In the final pages he gets lost in his hometown an analogy of America in being directionless even with all its modern technology and advances.

Some commentators say the book is fiction but I like to think Steinbeck blended it with fiction and non-fiction.

I loved this book, one of my all time favorites! In 1960 John Steinbeck went on a journey across America with his dog, Charley.
There is a beautiful quote on almost every page. John Steinbeck was a poet.
Here are some of the quotes I highlighted.

"I don't know how it is in the other seasons, the summers may reek and rock with heat, the winters may groan with dismal cold, but when I saw it for the first time in early October, the air was rich with butter-colored sunlight, not fuzzy but crisp and clear so that every frost-gay tree was set off, the rising hills were not compounded, but alone and separate."

"And the night, far from being frightful, was lovely beyond thought, for the stars were close, and although there was no moon the starlight made a silver glow in the sky. The air cut the nostrils with dry frost. And for pure pleasure I collected a pile of dry dead cedar branches and built a small fire just to smell the perfume of the burning wood and to hear the excited crackle of the branches."

"The night was very cold and dry, and the stars were cut glass."

"I do know this - the big and mysterious America is bigger than I thought. And more mysterious."

My dip into the fiction of John Steinbeck turned into a journey, with East of Eden, Cannery Row, Tortilla Flat, The Winter of Our Discontent, The Grapes of Wrath and Sweet Thursday. It seemed appropriate to end my tour on Travels with Charley, the author's memoir of a circuitous road trip of the United States he began in September 1960 with his French poodle, Charley.

Steinbeck's account begins at his home on Long Island, New York. Getting on in years, he realizes he's been writing about a country he hasn't actually seen in a quarter century. To remedy this, Steinbeck obtains a customized three-quarter ton pickup truck with a camper on top. Its features include a double bed, stove, refrigerator and chemical toilet. Steinbeck dubs the truck "Rocinante" after Don Quixote's horse and after weeks of planning, pries himself away from his wife, checks for stowaways and heads northeast for Maine.

So as not to distress anyone with the truth behind his rambling, Steinbeck racks a shotgun, two rifles and a couple of fishing rods in Rocinante, " ... for it is my experience that if a man is going hunting or fishing his purpose is understood and even applauded." He notes a certain look in the eyes of those he talks to about his trip, whether neighbors or strangers, and the longing they express to join him, to break free, go somewhere, anywhere, as long as it's not here.

Many have retraced Steinbeck's famous route, which passes through New England, Michigan, Illinois, Montana, the West Coast, the Southwest, Texas and New Orleans. Travels with Charley is not a comprehensive study of those areas and anyone expecting chapters to have the sizzle of a travel magazine article might be disappointed, although as a Texan, I found Steinbeck's account of the mystique of the Lone Star State to be on the money and worthy of reprint in Texas Monthly.

The journey has some ups and downs for me as a reader. His visit to off-season Maine, where a motor court's management office is completely deserted when Steinbeck arrives and completely empty when he pulls out of the parking lot the next morning, has the eerie distance of a Stephen King short story. On the other hand, Steinbeck's return to his hometown of Monterey seems cast with characters from Tortilla Flat or some other book.

Steinbeck's trip culminates in New Orleans, where he witnesses vile protests outside a desegregated school. The racist asides thrown in Steinbeck's direction from one white man to another are sickening, but what's even more revealing is the body language of a black man the author insists on giving a ride, briefly, before the passenger decides he's safer walking the roadside than riding with a white man with New York plates asking questions about the civil rights movement.

One of the revelations of Travels with Charley is how little the news cycle of the United States has really changed in fifty years. Substitute disillusionment toward FDR for disillusionment toward Obama. Substitute Russians for Al Qaeda. Substitute the debate between Kennedy/ Nixon with any political horse race going on today. Congestion, pollution, inflation are on the rise. The simplicity of our childhoods seems to be on the wane. None of this is novel to our time at all.

My love for this book, however bumpy the account, is the spell it placed over me. Who hasn't wanted to lease a truck, stock up on supplies, call the dog and light out for the road? I would never follow the route that Steinbeck chose, and I think that those who've retracted his journey in an attempt to fact check truth from fiction are missing the point. Steinbeck makes a statement for resisting the comforts of what he refers to as "a professional sick person" and living out what life you have in a rocking chair. When we surrender our curiosity, we mind as well surrender our life.

Loved 85% of this. About as good as a travelogue through the US in 1960 could be. Famous author (received Nobel two years after these travels) of some of the greatest American novels of the mid-20th century on the road in a decked-out truck named for Don Quixote's horse, loaded with fishing gear and hunting rifles (as alibi when asked what he's up to) and some booze and books and bedding, accompanied by a blue French-speaking poodle. Right from the beginning, it takes off as he saves his boat as a hurricane hits the Long Island Sound. Totally active, engaging, flowing, propelled writing. And then he's off, complaining of traffic and cities always-encroaching outward until he finds what he's searching for, a glimpse of endangered, usually rural, regionally peculiar (in the sense of a representative of the particular) scenic America, first to the north, Vermont, to Maine, then across to New York state to Michigan to Chicago for an undescribed respite with the wife (incredible stretch forensically reconstructing the previous occupant's activities in a hotel room), up to Wisconsin and then west to the Badlands. As he moves west it really takes off when encountering bears at or near Yellowstone (Charley goes nuts), and then rapturous description of California sequoias, melancholic recognition of changes around his hometown of Salinas, which we know from East of Eden, and down to Monterrey, which we know from Cannery Row, and then across the Mojave, where he decides not to kill a coyote and then believes he's responsible for its life (great moment). Some time with rich rancher friends in Texas all wearing worn denim and then to New Orleans to observe protestors against desegregation, the so-called "Cheerleaders," middle-aged women screaming obscenities at a little black girl escorted by police into a formerly all-white school. More than twenty times someone in the South makes a joke about misperceiving Charley as a [racial epithet redacted] -- these scenes and the related analysis are so affecting and ethically presented, insightful, empathetic all around yet angered, and self-questioning, the sort of thing that might sit like a cherry atop a lifetime of work deserving the Nobel. He had thought all Americans of all races in all regions shared something more common in their American-ness with one another than culturally disparate citizens of other countries, but by the end he's not so sure, sensing divisions still so apparent seventy-three years later. Loved 85% of it but there's maybe 15% worth of dialogue with randos encountered on the road, little visits and chats, also some bits about for example trailer parks/mobile homes wherein the significance seemed to me less apparent and my interest waned and my reading pace accelerated accordingly. But generally I'm comfortable calling myself a huge Steinbeck fan -- formally, in terms of the posture of his prose and clarity and choices of his perception, he seems right down the middle, totally accessible, yet somewhat skewed or surprising at times, as expected of an artist of his caliber. Probably the writer against whom other writers can be gauged as more or less conventional or experimental. Content-wise, he's a natural champion of the underdog, the underclass, as long as they have a functioning moral compass and some dignity and something particular about them and try to be good. Ultimately, the sort of book I feel like my conservative, midwestern, nevertheless New Yorker-reading father-in-law may have read and loved, or would love if I gave my copy to him -- we'll see when the in-laws visit in a few weeks. Wish I'd read this long ago.

Early into my reading of Travels with Charley, I stopped to fix the point in time John traversed our country with a dog by his side. Published in 1962. It's not that the time of writing truly matters, or changes the nature of what is told. A town and a city will change in appearance or size (as Steinbeck would encounter as he enters into his birthplace of Salinas, CA). Demographics definitely change as people move or wander – also something duly noted here during his travels: Like the total strangers who would gaze upon Mr Steinbeck's traveling camper and say the words, “I sure wish I could go with you”. America is a nation of wanderlust. People who want to move or simply traverse the country, whether it be permanent, or two week vacation. Maybe they do it to encounter each State that is a little (or a lot) different from the one next to it, or because it has something else to offer that can't be quantified. Or it's just become the nature of the whole. By traveling we see what we have not seen.
That is hardly an American trait. Those invisible boundaries that divide our states have not changed in the sixty years since this book was conceived. Twice, he and his dog cross the Continental Divide, once going and once coming back, each crossing very different in look (one being in the north, the other in the south), but they have not changed since then either. Only the roads that crosses them have changed.

I'd initially fixated on the time of Steinbeck's travel because of his unexpected humor. I laughed within the first chapter, as he describes the hurricane that would send him off from New York. His comical look at the nature of people, things and how he sees them is a great attribute to this book. Obviously, his humor had been there all along. It had not magically developed sometime after the writing of The Grapes of Wrath. Same man, two different books, but now I know him better.

These humorous traits, found in the first half of his travels, are replaced by melancholy and displeasure as he bends out of California turning east and south. The racial unrest of 1960 shouldn't have been unexpected by me, but it was. Steinbeck's own thoughts are clearly conveyed through graceful wording and so are those of a few other people he encounters on his homeward leg (on both sides of the argument). It is as valuable today as it was then.

A nice way to travel 1960s America again is to hop into a camper truck with John Steinbeck and his dog, Charley. Plagued by a chronic disease and probably feeling like it was now or never, Mr. Steinbeck hit the road from his home in Sag Harbor and traveled across the states and back again, making astute observations as he went and sharing a bit of the flavor of America in this moment of great upheaval and change.

I was afraid this might be boring, like watching someone else’s home movies (no matter how stunning the scenery, we just don’t want to see you posed in front of it over and over again). I should have had no fear, since this was not your everyday traveler, this was John Steinbeck. His powers of observation are acute and he knows how to render them into a free-flowing conversation with his reader. I felt he was pretty even-handed in his observations as well, even though his trek through the 1960s south made me cringe with shame. He notes that as an outsider his encounters might not be a true representation of the people, and I think he is right because he intentionally sought out the ugliest kind of setting to observe them in, but then he didn’t make up the setting or the people he saw, they were there and, while not speaking for everyone, they certainly spoke for far too many.

One of my favorite parts of the book was his visit to his own home turf around Salinas, California. As he prepared to leave, he says, ”I printed it 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 know this feeling all too well. You can hardly visit the place of your youth with a clear and unprejudiced eye, for the past is always there coloring it a much rosier color than it actually is. That is alright, that is part of life. We are meant to feel it.

I am glad I finally got around to making this trip with one of my favorite authors. It made me feel that I would have liked the man as much as I like his work.