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4.07 AVERAGE
4.07 AVERAGE
I love Steinbeck and I melted into his words as I always do....but I didn't like it as much as I thought I would....as usual I guess I wanted more.
reflective
slow-paced
I loved everything about this book, from Steinbeck's descriptions of his dog to the fact that my book still smells like my grandmother's house (old book/salt water smell, in case you were wondering). I've always thought it'd be wonderful to travel the entire country, and now I think it'd be even better to do so with a dog. But first I need a dog.
Travels with Charley is a memoir of a road trip that John Steinbeck takes with his dog, Charley, to discover America. Along the way, he interacts with various characters and makes both political and societal observations that are as true today as they were back in 1960. When John Steinbeck visits the desegregation of schools in New Orleans, with the jeering crowds and protesters, I couldn't help but think that despite what many people think, this is how America has always been. It filled me with sadness, especially in light of recent events in Charlottesville, Virginia.
I love travel and really enjoyed the rhythm of the prose and all of the short stories, that in the end, make up the journey. I feel he really captured the essence of taking a trip, and how every small experience by itself, while seemingly insignificant at the time, adds up to some type of change that happens within you.
I love travel and really enjoyed the rhythm of the prose and all of the short stories, that in the end, make up the journey. I feel he really captured the essence of taking a trip, and how every small experience by itself, while seemingly insignificant at the time, adds up to some type of change that happens within you.
I've read quite a bit of Steinbeck, and I can't believe it took me this long to get around to Travels with Charley. I loved this book so much. Steinbeck's style here is at once relaxed and grandiose, freed from all the usual formal structures of his writing but full of beautifully crafted sentences and artful turns of phrase from that place of poetry in his soul. It is a warm, funny, thoughtful, completely disarming book that makes me pine for a Rocinante of my own. I already can't wait to read it again someday.
I thought I would enjoy this book because of the subject and the fact that it has received many good reviews here. Instead, I had a hard time concentrating on it. I just didn't think much of it was all that interesting. It didn't live up to my expectations either. He was "In Search of America" and talked about taking the smaller roads to see the country better, but I think he spent as much time talking about and to his dog as he spent describing what he saw and talking to people he met. And he kept mentioning things from his past and who he knew that lived somewhere he passed and things like that. It was distracting. It didn't even seem to me like HE enjoyed the trip all that much.
adventurous
informative
reflective
medium-paced
funny
informative
fast-paced