One of my favorite books. And some great advise: when driving, always travel with a fishing pole, not so much for the fish you will catch, but for the conversations you will have.

This is an interesting little book and I think a must read if you like Steinbeck and want a better understanding of the man.
Much of what is set down here from Steinbeck's road trip he took in 1960, seems hauntingly prescient. In particular, the section set in New Orleans is a stunning insight into desegregation and the deep seated issues of race that continue to plague America. If nothing else, I urge you to seek out those few pages towards the end about the Ruby Bridges desegregation crisis which Steinbeck witnessed. I knew nothing about this incident. In a handful of pages Steinbeck breaks my heart with his beautifully written observations.


Here was no spontaneous cry of anger, of insane rage. Perhaps that is what made me sick with weary nausea. Here was no principle good or bad, no direction. These blowzy women, with their little hats and their clippings, hungered for attention. They wanted to be admired. They simpered in happy, almost innocent triumph when they were applauded. Theirs was the demented cruelty of egocentric children, and somehow this made their insensate beastliness much more heart-breaking. These were not mothers, not even women. They were crazy actors playing to a crazy audience


This is much less a travelogue, than a kind of meditation with some traveling involved ( and also a dog ). It seems clear Steinbeck knew he was dying when he wrote this and he seems to be saying a goodbye to his country while trying to understand it. I found it deeply moving and melancholy. At once giving me a look at times past through Steinbecks eyes - the town of Salinas in the 1930s and how he viewed contemporary developments in the 60s. There are so many great observations in this book about lost regionality, mobile home culture, racism, musings on what it is to be American. It makes you wonder what a writer and observer of life like Steinbeck would make of the world, given its current predicaments.

Several critics have suggested large parts of this book were a kind of blended fiction and non-fiction, indeed details of the road trip are sometimes quite blurry. This is rather a trend in literature at the moment, so in that Steinbeck was ahead of his time ;). Certainly, some of the conversations seemed unlikely at best, however the insights seem genuine and based, I suspect, on years of observing and listening to people from all walks of life.

It matters little to me that this is unlikely to be a faithful retelling of a road trip as it works so well on many other levels. I read it as a kind of meditation on life as well as an insight into an author I admire. Its also a fantastic dog story, with Charlie just a continued delight to read about.

Gosh, there are so many good reviews here to read, why should I add my two cents?

While I was reading it, I found it interesting, insightful, humorous and sad. Now that is a wide range of emotions captured in a small book.

A question that always arises is: how much of this is true and how much is imagined? There is a simple answer to this. Steinbeck points out that no two people will see the same event with the same eyes. What you see depends upon who you are. This is what Steinbeck saw and experienced, and he may even have juggled the facts to fit what he wanted to have said by this book. It is said that his wife he was then married to, Elaine, was there with him for much of the trip. It was not just a trip shared by a man of 58 with his "blue" French Poodle, Charley. They were a threesome. In 1960 he traveled 10,000 miles in his converted truck, which he fondly named Rocinante after Don Quixote’s horse, across America from Sag Harbor, N.Y., to the West Coast and back to find out who were these Americans that he peopled his novels with. Who were they today, and by that I mean 1960? What makes an American an American? Is there something that binds the New Englanders with those of the Midwest and Texans and those of the Deep South? And how are people from these different areas different? He is curious about all of this and about what he values in life, be it a dog, a sparkling brook with the rings of a trout's last jump or a good drink. He sees the the garbage cluttering the ever-expanding cities and small streams. He looks at the climate of racial unrest that was building. Primarily he looks at and tries to talk to the people he meets, although he was lucky if he got even a few "yeps" out of New Englanders in the early hours. Mobile homes, and the beauty of Montana, the dry desert, a kind vet, and a bad one - they are all here. But do remember that what you see is through Steinbeck's eyes. Steinbeck died eight years later from a heart attack.

I like Steinbeck's manner of expressing himself, but I also appreciate his insights, his views and what he is thinking about.

I listened to the audiobook narrated by Peter Marinker. Very well done!

Now I am going to do something naughty. I have already begun listening to Songdogs, written by Colum McCann and narrated by Paul Nugent. One shouldn't compare writing skills, but in both books a picture is drawn of a man standing there in his Wellingtons, and in both there is that stream cluttered with garbage. McCann's depiction just sings. It is gorgeous. It is stupendous. How can I not make a comparison when the same "picture" is there in both books, and yet they are not at all the same, and I know which one I prefer? I am still giving “Charley” four stars because while I was reading it I really liked it!

Visiškai kitokia Steinbecko knyga, nei iki šiol skaitytos. Šioje rašytojas pasakoja apie savo kelionę per Ameriką nameliu ant ratų, kartu su pudeliu Čarliu, kuri truko keletą mėnesių. Kelionės tikslas buvo paieškoti tikrosios Amerikos, nes suprato, kad gyvendamas tik didžiuosiuose miestuose nepažįsta savo šalies, tad apvažiavo 10000 mylių, aplankė 34 valstijas, kad tą ištaisytų. Daugiausia dėmesio skirta gamtai, pakeliui sutiktiems žmonėms, pernelyg neapsistojant ties įžymiais objektais. Nėra veiksmo, įtampos, tiesiog gražus kelionės aprašymas.

Goddamn it! I've driven coast to coast across the U.S. fives times already and yet, thanks to Travels with Charley I'm ready to go again!

During the mid-century period, discovering America and/or oneself through the medium of the road-trip came into vogue. While other prominent authors, such as Kerouac and Thompson, were publishing their own, more heralded versions, I prefer Steinbeck's. It lacks the hedonism of the others and I love him for that. And furthermore, these journals often get offtrack, forgetting the road for some favored topic that the writer expounds upon until it becomes a journey of its own and the original path fades from memory. Steinbeck veers off now and then, but it's always for a good cause and it never lasts too long.

Here's a few of my personal favorite highlights from his trip:

:) Charley. Before I began I had no idea who this Charley was, but he's a lovable guy and he made the whole thing all the more enjoyable to read.

:o I love Steinbeck's super sleuthing in the Chicago hotel room, where he adeptly pieces together a clandestine romance in a way that would impress Sherlock Holmes.

:) The book gets extra marks for a visit, description and kind words for Deer Isle, Maine, where from my grandmother's kin hail.

:O Discovering that what I thought were imagined characters - outrageously colorful characters - from his novel Tortilla Flat were actually real people.


While Grapes of Wrath will go down as a lasting work of genius, it carries with it the weight of moral baggage and an oppressive sadness. Maybe Travels with Charley is not the same sort of classic literature masterpiece that will survive the ages, but I found it to be a pure joy to read from start to finish.

Audiobook.... narrated by the wonderful Gary Sinise

Wow!!!! Okay..... I am fully satisfied!!!!!
This book calmed the anxiousness of my mind, and really moved me!

While listening to Gary Sinise read John Steinbeck’s book...(Gary’s voice was a perfect match for Steinbeck),
I was aware of how grateful this ‘book-companion’, was warming my heart....
[thanks to our Public library/overdrive].
It was just what I needed!

Steinbeck’s cross-country-road-trip-companion—[his loyal-French-immigrant- poodle] was named *Charley*.
Steinbeck & Charley set out to reconnect with people from all walks of life in America....
during the 1960’s.
Steinbeck never used his real name so he could be an ordinary old chum ( without any ‘aw’-concerns to deal with).

Given Steinbeck wrote many books about America— he was ready to explore more intimately. What better way to experience the country than with a faithful dog and a reliable working RV?

Honestly- traveling in an RV has never been my desire—but with days like these—
it’s sounds rather nice!
Also, having visited the Steinbeck museum and his house, in Salinas several times, I can easily visualize the truck, photos, and paraphernalia displays from his journey adventures.

It’s been 4 weeks of house-bound for those of us living in the SFBay area—longer and short times for others across the globe— (due to the social distancing coronavirus lifestyle), and a Nationwide road trip touched on the freedom than I can ‘almost’ remember!
I was happy to travel with Steinbeck on his adventures across America. ( and dream a little myself).

What was so fascinating to me was reading about this great author’s awareness of needing to replenish his own ‘America-appreciation-tank’.
I mean — isn’t that something many of us American’s are itching to do ourselves these days? Refill our American-appreciation-tanks?

Steinbeck was one of the greatest American authors.
His writing was masterful and eloquent.
”Travels With Charley in Search of America.... crossing state lines...was absolutely witty & wonderful...
...fabulous descriptions & imagery from New York to California and back again.....
....unforgettable charming funny and grumping characters!
The dialogue was hilarious at times -
It was also heartbreaking when faced with racial issues in the South.

While hibernating here at home in my own little world .... during these tempestuous - and down right scary unsettling times, I was reminded that we ‘are’ UNITED states.

Steinbeck said it clearly:
“I admire all nations and hate all governments”.

In 1960, when John Steinbeck was 58 years old, ill with the heart disease which was to kill him eight years later and rather discontented with life, he decided to embark on a road trip around the United States in a fitted-out pick-up truck, accompanied by his standard French poodle, Charley. Steinbeck’s plan was to re-connect with the America which had informed his fiction and to assess how much it had changed over the years.

This book is the result of that trip: part memoir, part travelogue, part philosophical treatise … and part fiction. Just how much of the narrative is fiction rather than fact has been the subject of investigation and discussion in recent years, much of it instigated by the work of journalist Bill Steigerwald, who recreated Steinbeck’s trip and exposed what he argues to be the fallacies in the narrative. This article in the New York Times summarises Steigerwald’s findings and typing Steigerwald’s name into any reliable search engine will locate a range of Steigerwald’s writings on the issue, as well as some responses to his position on the book.

While I've read Steigerwald’s conclusions about Steinbeck’s journey with interest, it matters little to me that the work has been edited in such a way as to make it look like Steinbeck and Charley were travelling alone almost all the time, whereas Steinbeck’s original manuscript (held at the Morgan Library & Museum in New York City) shows that Steinbeck’s wife Elaine was with him for much of the time and that he probably spent more than half the nights he was away sleeping in hotels rather than in the truck. Likewise, it matters little to me that Steinbeck’s reported conversations with people he meets on the way are fiction rather than reportage.

In relation to this, the fact that Steinbeck preserved and then donated his manuscript indicates that he was not concerned that readers might discover that there was more (or possibly less) to the journey than appears in the book. Further, the narrative itself is full of disclaimers. Steinbeck does not claim that the book is a day-by-day, diary-style account of his journey. Rather, what he conveys is a range of impressions on a number of topics, some insights into issues he considered important and some at times painful self-reflection, all conveyed in Steinbeck’s powerful yet accessible prose. On some matters Steinbeck was ahead of his time. For example, what he wrote about the destruction of the environment and the overuse of packaging products (“The mountain of things we throw away are much greater than the things we use.”), expressed what I doubt was a matter of widespread public concern as early as 1960.

Other parts of the narrative are much more personal. Steinbeck’s encounter with old Latino drinking buddies in a bar in Monterey is particularly poignant. As Steinbeck’s friend tries to persuade the New York resident to come “home”, Steinbeck names all of their friends who have died and concludes that Thomas Wolfe was right: “You can't go home again because home has ceased to exist except in the mothballs of memory."

Possibly the most powerful incident in the book is Steinbeck’s witnessing of the “cheerleaders” in New Orleans – a group of women who stood across the street from William Frantz Elementary school and yelled obscenities at Ruby Bridges - the first black child to attend the all-white school - and at the few white parents who did not comply with the white boycott of the school. Ruby, who had started at the school only a week or two before Steinbeck was in New Orleans, was escorted to school by federal marshalls. Her ordeal is recorded in this painting by Norman Rockwell.

Shortly after witnessing the behaviour of the cheerleaders, Steinbeck decided to cut his journey short and head straight back to New York City. The narrative gives the strong impression that the incident left him heart-sick and distressed.

Overall, whatever may be this book’s shortcomings as a piece of travel reportage, it's a moving and engaging piece of writing. Steinbeck had become rather a cranky old man by the time he embarked on the journey, and was an even crankier old man by time he finished it. He was certainly no longer the novelist at the peak of his powers. But there’s still passion, warmth and humour in his words and plenty for the reader who loves Steinbeck’s writing to engage with. And there's Charley. Charley is wonderful.

I enjoyed this one, although I’m certain I would have gotten more from the book if I hadn’t had to read it piecemeal over two weeks. Ah well, such is life.

On traveling through New Hampshire…

n  “The climate changed quickly to cold and the trees burst into color, the reds and yellow you can’t believe. It isn’t only color but a glowing, as though the leaves gobbled the light of the autumn sun and then released it slowly. There’s a quality of fire in these colors.”n

My feelings exactly, Mr. Steinbeck.

In rilettura con LIT il bookclub della @McMusa

Gli Stati Uniti [non] sono uno stato mentale

Ha quasi sessant'anni, John Steinbeck, quando decide di viaggiare attraverso gli Stati Uniti in lungo e in largo, da costa a costa, da Nord a Sud, da Est a Ovest, a bordo di Ronzinante, la casa-mobile approntata per l'occasione, e in compagnia di Charley, il suo cane barbone piuttosto attempato e malato di prostatite.
Perché si accorge, dopo essere stato per decenni la voce dell'America, di non conoscere più il suo paese, di (de)scriverlo ormai da tempo restando comodamente seduto in poltrona.
E allora parte dalla sua casa di Sag Harbor, alle porte di New York, intenzionato a spingersi fino negli angoli più remoti, deciso a tastare il polso di una nazione che forse è tale solo sulla carta ma che porta i segni di fratture non solo dell'epoca secessionista, ma anche provocate dalla confusione politica e sociale degli anni Sessanta, spinto a soddisfare curiosità che si porta dentro da sempre, come incontrare i Canuck del Canada, i raccoglitori di patate del Maine, e intenzionato a soddisfare incredibili curiosità turistiche, come quella di guardare finalmente con i suoi occhi le Cascate del Niagara, «perché ora, almeno, quando mi domandano se ho visto le cascate del Niagara io posso rispondere, senza mentire, di sì.»
E gli Stati Uniti che incontriamo insieme a lui sono ben lontani da quelli convenzionali, da quelli descritti nei reportage di viaggio o nei depliant turistici; gli Stati Uniti di Steinbeck sono introversi come i motel 'tutta plastica' che incontra lungo la strada, chiassosi come le feste texane, filosofi come Monsieur "Ci Gît che incontra a New Orleans, razzisti come il biondo autostoppista che (s)carica a Jackson, speranzosi come il ragazzo nero che accompagna a Montgomery, silenziosi come il deserto di Mojave.



Viaggia in lungo in largo, John Steinbeck, e io lo seguo curiosa, affascinata, rapita, mentre macina non solo chilometri, ma secoli di storia e letteratura, scienza e geografia; ed è bello viaggiare con lui, borbottone paterno irrequieto nostalgico, eppure sempre incredibilmente moderno, un passo avanti, come si dice da noi, per ritrovarsi a scoprire il viaggiatore e lo scrittore, e attraverso lui incontrare l'uomo, e gli uomini, l'Umanità.
Gli Stati Uniti di Steinbeck sono divisi, multirazziali, ciascuno stato con una sua propria differente identità, ma sono comunque un unico popolo, alla fine un unico stato.
Ci sono vari momenti di emozione, ciascuno lettore troverà il suo, quello più adatto al suo sentire; io ho ritrovato con piacere la figura di Samuel Hamilton, il nonno materno, tra i protagonisti de «La valle dell'Eden», con curiosità la città di Fargo (chiedendomi se è grazie a Steinbeck che anche i fratelli Coen hanno deciso di girare 'proprio lì' uno dei loro film più belli) e la ricerca per Sauk Centre della lapide di Sinclair Lewis, lasciato solo da vivo e ricordato da morto, a indicare che «Il solo scrittore buono era uno scrittore morto», così come ho trovato molto bella la descrizione del Texas, «Il Texas [che] è uno stato mentale. Il Texas [che] è un'ossessione. Soprattutto, e in tutti i sensi, il Texas [che] è una nazione.»
Un po' come gli Stati Uniti.

«Dal principio alla fine io non trovai estranei. Se li avessi trovati, forse sarei riuscito a parlarne con maggiore obiettività. Ma questa è la mia gente, e questo è il mio paese. Se trovai cose da criticare, da deplorare, erano cose, tendenze, presenti anche in me. Se dovessi confezionare una conclusione inattaccabile e immacolata, direi così: Nonostante la nostra enorme portata geografica, nonostante il nostro campanilismo, nonostante tutte le nostre progenie intrecciate e tratte da ogni parte del mondo etnico, noi siamo una nazione, una progenie nuova. Gli americani sono molto più americani di quanto non siano settentrionali, meridionali, occidentali od orientali. E i discendenti degli inglesi, degli irlandesi, degli italiani, degli ebrei, dei tedeschi, dei polacchi, sono sostanzialmente americani. Questa non è una trombonata patriottica; è un fatto, un fatto attentamente osservato. Il cinese di California, l'irlandese di Boston, il tedesco del Wisconsin, sì, e il negro dell'Alabama, hanno più cose che li uniscono di quante possano dividerli. E questo è tanto più notevole in quanto è successo alla svelta. E' un fatto che gli americani di tutte le parti e di tutte le estrazioni razziali sono più simili fra loro di quanto un inglese è simile a un gallese, uno del Lancashire a un londinese, uno scozzese di montagna a uno scozzese di vallata. Sbalordisce il fatto che questo sia accaduto in duecento anni, e anzi in larga misura negli ultimi cinquanta. L'identità americana è un fatto preciso e dimostrabile.»

Un po' di link: il viaggio, un bel blog con alcune foto e, naturalmente, le voci fuori dal coro.



John Steinbeck e Charley

Although I read this book just last year, it was a delight to read again. I think I was struck by different aspects of the book the second time around. This time I realized just how much time Steinbeck spent describing his experiences of racism in the South. I imagine this caused some waves back in the early 1960's when the book was published, before the passage of the Civil Rights Act. But we should expect nothing less from Steinbeck, the champion of the oppressed, and chronicler of the lives of the most marginalized in American society.
Steinbeck attempted to discover what an American is, and debates whether he succeeded. I think that in many ways this short volume does reveal a lot of what America is - including our flaws. I love that his favorite state was Montana, a place I haven't visited. I know two people from Montana and they are unique in their ways, and some of my favorite people. Steinbeck put Montana on my "must visit" list. He skims over many regions with little to say, and some readers are unhappy about this. However, the genius of this book are this things he gets right. In a couple of paragraphs, as he describes the encroaching decay of downtown Seattle, he describes the cycle of urban decay (I'd argue in many ways deliberate), suburban sprawl, and the redevelopment of urban centers with frightening accuracy. And he did this 50 years ago!
I got my copy of the book from the library. With its library binding, the cover was in good shape but the innards were well-read, and many pages torn. I had to wait 10 days for a copy although there were several available. I didn't mind the wait nor the condition of the book because they told me that more than 50 years after publication, this book is still widely read. Yes, it may be required on high school reading lists, but I believe it deserves to be a classic.

Man, this book came so exactly at the right time in my life. I think I was about thirteen or fourteen. I went back to the ancestral home in Illinois, and my cousins were getting rid of some books. One of them was Travels With Charley. I read it while we were driving back home. I think I made my family's life a living hell by comparing them constantly to Steinbeck and Charlie's trip across the country. Oh, well. Sometimes the families of readers have to suffer.

Just as the title says, Steinbeck set off to find out out about his country. What he found is that there are just as many differences as there are similarities. Most interesting to me was the fact that nothing much has changed since 1960. All the things he complained about are still problems today, 63 years later.

Steinbeck was a great writer, Charley was a great dog, and Rocinante was a great home away from home. There was a lot of philosophizing, thinking, and conversations with people he met along the way. I enjoyed being able to share it.