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4.07 AVERAGE
4.07 AVERAGE
adventurous
emotional
funny
hopeful
informative
inspiring
lighthearted
reflective
relaxing
sad
tense
fast-paced
Travels with Charley
Steinbeck is quickly eclipsing Hemingway's pedestal as my favorite writer. Perhaps it is Steinbeck's flowery language filled with earthy compassion for northern California, or perhaps it's the often simplistic yet symbolical philosophy of which he endows his characters and personified landscapes.
This is apparent in Travels with Charley where Steinbeck goes “In Search of America” in which he travels coast to coast in a modified truck with what can basically be considered as a tiny home on the back, which he befittingly christened as Rocinante after Don Quixote's faithful steed. In hindsight this may have been because Steinbeck saw himself like Quixote; in search of a quest simply to satiate that itch, the “urge to be someplace else” that he felt when he was young but everyone in his life had told him that a mature age would cure. Having found that this wasn’t the case he packs what he can and together with Charley a french poodle embarks on a journey across a country of which Steinbeck felt he had become estranged.
I felt that reading this book was essential for the road trip that Eloise and I would make to San Francisco, our favorite city. As Steinbeck quickly notes in the first chapter “A journey is a person in itself; no two are alike. And all plans, safeguards, policing, and coercion are fruitless. We find after years of struggle that we do not take a trip; a trip takes us” a notion that became apparent as the day finally came. In part this is what makes traveling with her so invigorating, you truly never know what the road will hurl at you, heavy rain, pebbles, sticks, a tumbleweed, a coyote crossing the mojave desert? Why not.
Ultimately Steinbeck finds that “finding” America is very nearly impossible, it is an entity, ever changing, undefinable. It was an incredibly fun book to read, Steinbeck's soft humor never failed to make me smirk and when he finally made it to San Francisco and Salinas it left me with a satisfaction that Eloise and I had trekked quite possibly the same roads that Steinbeck wrote so eloquently about. It’s a book that I hope to read again as Eloise and I hopefully make a cross country trip across the U.S.
“Once a journey is designed, equipped, and put in process; a new factor enters and takes over. A trip, a safari, an exploration, is an entity, different from all other journeys.
It has personality, temperament, individuality, and uniqueness.
A journey is a person in itself; no two are alike. And all plans, safeguards, policing, and coercion are fruitless. We find after years of struggle that we do not take a trip; a trip takes us. Tour masters, schedules, reservations, brass-bound and inevitable, dash themselves to wreckage on the personality of the trip. Only when this is recognized can the blown-in-the-glass bum relax and go along with it.
Only then do the frustrations fall away. In this a journey is like marriage. The certain way to be wrong is to think you control it. I feel better now, having said this, although only those who have experienced it will understand it.”
“A sad soul can kill you quicker, far quicker, than a germ.”
“What good is the warmth of summer, without the cold of winter to give it sweetness.”
“I was born lost and take no pleasure in being found.”
“I wonder why progress looks so much like destruction.”
“We value virtue but do not discuss it. The honest bookkeeper, the faithful wife, the earnest scholar get little of our attention compared to the embezzler, the tramp, the cheat.” “I suppose our capacity for self-delusion is boundless.”
“I’m in love with Montana. For other states I have admiration, respect, recognition, even some affection. But with Montana it is love. And it’s difficult to analyze love when you’re in it.”
“The redwoods, once seen, leave a mark or create a vision that stays with you always. No one has ever successfully painted or photographed a redwood tree. The feeling they produce is not transferable. From them comes silence and awe. It's not only their unbelievable stature, nor the color which seems to shift and vary under your eyes, no, they are not like any trees we know, they are ambassadors from another time.”
This has to be one of my favorite passages of the book, i really wish we could've stopped to witness the redwoods.
adventurous
funny
hopeful
inspiring
fast-paced
adventurous
funny
lighthearted
reflective
medium-paced
adventurous
lighthearted
reflective
medium-paced
adventurous
funny
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
adventurous
informative
reflective
medium-paced
adventurous
reflective
medium-paced
Imagine getting in a truck equipped with a camper on the back and traveling through America with John Steinbeck and his dog Charley. Imagine watching him interact with people he met along the way (without knowing who he was) and hearing his thoughts as he drove. If this sounds appealing, this book is for you. It certainly was for me. I could not stop listening. Steinbeck makes it easy by writing in a clear style, as if he were talking to a friend who came along for the ride. He demonstrates ahead of his time insight on issues that are still relevant today: communication, foreign affairs, ecology, and racism. Even though this book was written in the early 60s it’s as timely today as it was then. His witnessing of the “cheerleaders” at the beginning of school integration in New Orleans is haunting.
I have never traveled the country yet alone traveled by camper north and south west and east, but after reading this classic road journal I can say I honestly am lost in Brooklyn. Sometimes I felt as if he had to make due with his imagination to relay his message and he conveyed his writing expertise as only a true master could. I loved this book but don't have any reference to compare too. It was an eye opening and thoughtful book on life, since I'm also, 58 and now I have something to do with the rest of my days. It's read more great books.
I had forgotten Steinbeck's sense of humor. A friend recommended it, for which I am thankful.