Travels with Charley

by John Steinbeck | Literature & Fiction |
ISBN: 078874478x Global Overview for this book
Registered by Firegirl of Tucson, Arizona USA on 12/8/2007
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4 journalers for this copy...
Journal Entry 1 by Firegirl from Tucson, Arizona USA on Saturday, December 8, 2007
From back cover: In 1960, when he was almost 60 years old, John Steinbeck set out to rediscover his native land. Accompanied only by a French poodle named CHarley, he traveled the length and breadth of the United States. He outfought a hurricane in New York and drank cognac in Maine with a family of migrant farm workers. He renewed old acquaintances in California and attended a modern witches' sabbath in New Orleans. He saw things which stirred his anger and things which made him swell with pride.

Journal Entry 2 by Firegirl at Annandale, Virginia USA on Monday, November 2, 2015

Released 8 yrs ago (11/2/2015 UTC) at Annandale, Virginia USA

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Sending to Germany as part of a Holiday Ornament exchange package.

Journal Entry 3 by wingchawosowing at Heusenstamm, Hessen Germany on Thursday, December 3, 2015
Thanks a lot!

Today it was the first day to look through the whole content. The lovely dream catcher is hanging on a small bundle of pine branches. It looks so cute!

I read some books of Steinbeck when we travelled trough California and got in touch with Canery Road.

Journal Entry 4 by wingchawosowing at Heusenstamm, Hessen Germany on Monday, January 4, 2016

Released 8 yrs ago (1/4/2016 UTC) at Heusenstamm, Hessen Germany

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... found at somebody's wishlist!

Happy reading, literajunkie!

Journal Entry 5 by litrajunkie at Ebermannstadt, Bayern Germany on Thursday, January 7, 2016
What is better than a RABCK? Receiving a book that has been lingering on your wishlist for years - as a surprise in a surprise (stowaway in another RABCK). On Tuesday, I received "Der Passfälscher" and after opening the envelope (I wanted to listen to it immediately in my car), I found this jewel: paperback edition from the 3rd printing in 1963.

John Steinbeck is one of my favorite authors, I've visited his hometown Salinas, CA as well as Monterey's Cannery Row. William Least Heat-Moon's "Blue Highways: A Journey into America" is my all-time favorite travel narrative and I think/hope/wish that this book will be as good, if not better. While leafing through the first pages I stumbled upon this little scene that made my anticipation grow still more:

---quote---
At the first lighted roadside restaurant I pulled in and took my seat at a counter. The customers were folded over their coffee cups like ferns. A normal conversation is as follows:
WAITRESS: "Same?"
CUSTOMER: "Yep."
WAITRESS: "Cold enough for you?"
CUSTOMER: "Yep."
(Ten minutes.)
WAITRESS: "Refill?"
CUSTOMER: "Yep."
This is a really talkative customer. Some reduce it to "Burp" and others do not answer at all. An early morning waitress in New England leads a lonely life, but I soon learned that if I tried to inject life and gaiety into her job with a blithe remark she dropped her eyes and answered "Yep" or "Umph." Still, I did feel that there was some kind of communication, but I can't say what it was.
---unquote---

My Steinbeck Library

Journal Entry 6 by litrajunkie at Pretzfeld, Bayern Germany on Monday, February 15, 2016
This book is a true Steinbeck. I love the power of his mature prose. As for the travel narrative, I'm ambivalent. Steinbeck covers hundreds of miles without telling the reader anything about the landscape, the people he met (if any) or other details of the road.

Sometimes - like in the Sequoia forests of his native California or while observing a black child being led to school under protection in New Orleans, LA (remember, this was before the breakthrough for civil rights under Johnson) - the author just uses a certain place as an anchor to muse about problems of his time (protection of the environment, civil rights).

On other occasions, he delivers lyrical descriptions of nature's beauty, with all the poetic power at the command of a laureate of the Nobel Prize in Literature. He takes us back to the time when his hometown was just a forge in a swamp or tells us about his encounter with Sinclair Lewis, another Nobel Prize winner. Lewis' hometown (Sauk Centre, MN) is part of the itinerary. Steinbeck also visits his friends in Monterey, CA but finds out quickly that the days of Cannery Row or Tortilla Flat are over - at least for him, who does no longer belong.

The book also contains some unresolved (and maybe unresolvable?) contradictions, eg. on p. 26 he describes how every American city is ringed by waste and trash, the old method of the Indians (ie. traveling on when there's too much refuse around the camp) is no longer available to us: "I do wonder whether there will come a time when we can no longer afford our wastefulness." Two pages later he praises the "[...] many modern designs for easy living. On my boat I had discovered the aluminum, disposable cooking utensils, frying pans and deep dishes. You fry a fish and throw the pan overboard. I was well equipped with these things ." Another example is the so-called "American identity" which he describes rather early in the book. However, how does this explain the bitter racial feuds in the Deep South? Maybe one has to be white to develop this peculiar feeling of "American-ness" and it is not (was not in the 1960s?) available to non-caucasian citizens?

Steinbeck abhors racism and is disgusted by racists. His personal experience with the Cooper family - back then the only African-Americans in Salinas, CA - is vividly described in the following sentences: "When I heard, for example, that Negroes were an inferior race, I thought the authority was misinformed. When I heard that Negroes were dirty I remembered Mrs. Cooper's shining kitchen. Lazy? The drone and clop of Mr. Cooper's horse-drawn dray in the street outside used to awaken us in the dawn. Dishonest? Mr. Cooper was one of the very few Salinians who never let a debt cross the fifteenth of the month."

Probably the author just wants to confront us with the inevitable paradoxes of life and the - at least yet - unresolvable differences within the human species. Like all of us, he does not have an answer or a solution, but at least he makes us aware of these things so that we may overcome them.

The book was a great read and I will let this copy continue its journey - maybe I'll buy another one for my permanent collection.

Journal Entry 7 by litrajunkie at Bamberg, Bayern Germany on Monday, February 15, 2016

Released 8 yrs ago (2/15/2016 UTC) at Bamberg, Bayern Germany

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RABCK for a retired colleague who's planning to discover the US in an RV.

Journal Entry 8 by wingAnonymousFinderwing at Rota, Cádiz Spain on Saturday, March 12, 2016
Costa Ballena

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