John Steinbeck : Travels with Charley and Later Novels 1947-1962

I've been dipping into this excellent extended travel essay off and on for several months. Today I reached the end of the trip. I enjoyed it quite a lot. I loved his tale of taking Charley into the forest of giant sequoias, and waiting to see the dog's reaction to such magnificent trees. He expected the dog to think "Ah...it's heaven!" Well, Charley couldn't see the treetops and wouldn't look up, so he didn't recognize them as trees at all, and wandered off to find a shrub against which to lift his leg. It made me remember all the joys of discovering Steinbeck back in my teenage years, on the upstairs porch of our house, where I read him among the branches of what I thought then were huge pine trees. (Well, they were taller than the show more house...come on.) December 2009 show less

I found Steinbeck: Travels with Charley and Later Novels 1947—1962 to be nothing short of a marvelous book in multiple ways. Most important, naturally, is the content, four Steinbeck novels that I had never read (or heard of) plus Steinbeck's observations on people he encountered, on the land, and on himself as couched in his travelogue “Travels with Charley in Search of America.” The non-Steinbeck content is also incredibly good, especially the meticulous “Notes” section which explains in fine detail vocabulary, references, and passages in the text whose significance may not be immediately apparent to the general reader. Equally instructive is the “Chronology” section, which lists the highlights of Steinbeck's life year show more by year and is invaluable for every reader who has never studied a biography of the man.

Secondarily to the content, the book's physical presentation is far beyond any possible reproach. The pages are slightly thin but not fragile, and they are beautifully white. The font is sharp and amazingly readable to my myopic eyes. The hardcover binding is durable. There's even a ribbon bound in to mark one's place when the need for sleep overcomes even the strong desire to continue reading for at least one more chapter. Finally, I did not notice a single typographical, grammatical, or orthographical error anywhere in the 990 pages of the book, something I cannot say for several newly published books I have read of late.

Just a few impressions relative to the contents: “The Wayward Bus” reminds the reader that Steinbeck had an erudite vocabulary when he chose to use it. One will not find lust in the description of Pimples but will certainly encounter concupiscence, nor will one read about baby shoes and kewpie dolls dangling from a rearview mirror but will surely read about the penates there. Steinbeck's method of describing people is singularly effective because he does not describe them; they take shape in the reader's mind through their actions and words. Poor little plain and uneducated Norma fantasizes about Clark Gable's falling in love with her and she overhears a word which she instantly incorporates into her speech because it is an impressive word which will make her sound more worthy of a movie star's interest. The word is, of course, completely incongruous in the company of Norma's other language: “It wouldn't discommode me none.” Norma's hair, incidentally, has marceled ends, which tells us something of her appearance as well as refreshing the reader's focus on the time period of the story—and, yes, this was another word that sent me to my dictionary, but Steinbeck chooses his vocabulary purposefully, and skipping over some unrecognized word or phrase will cost the reader valuable understanding of the character.

“Burning Bright” offers a fascinating approach to story-telling. As the narrative progresses through three parts, each part uses a totally different setting—a circus, the sea, and a farm—for the continuation of the story. While this may not be unique, it is the first and so far only time I've encountered this technique, which I found rather intriguing. The presentation is also unusual inasmuch as it can be read as a novel or as a play.

“Sweet Thursday,” the third novel in this wondrous book, is something of a continuation of Cannery Row, and again the characters do not need an author's description, for they reveal themselves through their own actions and speech. I love this snatch of conversation that quickly paints a sharp picture of two of the characters:
Suzy asked, “You Mexican?”
“American. My old man was Mexican.”
“Can you talk that spick talk?”
“Sure.”
“Polly-voo?”
“That ain't the same kind,” said the Patrón.
Suzy's attempt to use part of a question in French (which she surely would never be capable of spelling) in a conversation about Spanish tells us pretty much all we need to know of her education and, from that, her socio-economic standing and so on. Speaking of language, I love the name of the band—Espaldas Mojadas—once I looked it up since my command of Spanish is fairly nonexistent.

The fourth novel, “The Winter of Our Discontent,” is, to me, the depiction of a good man who slowly descends into evil through the pressures of the world that surrounds him. Ironically, one of his victims was among the motivators who had urged him to “look out for number one.” Our protagonist's soul is not totally blackened, however, for his guilt over what he has done leads him nearly to his own destruction. Whether or not his redemption is convincing I leave to other readers; to me, it weakens the theme. Knowing that there are those (perhaps many) who will fervently disagree with some (or maybe even all) of my ruminations, I particularly like these sentences from Chapter V: “[A] story has as many versions as it has readers. Everyone takes what he wants or can from it and thus changes it to his measure.” This, of course, echoes Edmund Wilson's observation that "No two people ever read the same book."

I find that I have mixed feelings about the final part of the book, “Travels with Charley.” For the most part, Steinbeck's description of his travel through the country is enlivened by wonderful humor, especially in the references to Charley le Chien (“Charley the dog” for readers not conversant with French). Near the end of his travelogue, however, as he drives through parts of the Deep South and witnesses extreme and hateful racial bigotry at work, Steinbeck's humor vanishes and the narrative becomes deadly serious. Perhaps Steinbeck has also become tired of his trip, and that fatigue becomes evident in his writing. The three people with whom he converses during his passage through the South are also too conveniently typed to appear real. To meet consecutively a Southern liberal who has given up trying to change the prejudices of the region, then an old Black man who is the victim of those prejudices, and finally a white racial bigot is too contrived, and these persons must be considered to be Steinbeck's creations, representing their respective types. True, others who populate this travelogue may be similar creations, but, if so, it is not so readily apparent to the reader. Except for these final pages, though, I found “Travels with Charley” an unusually amusing read and enjoyed it immensely.

I suspect that many readers are familiar with Steinbeck's widely known novels—The Grapes of Wrath, Cannery Row, East of Eden, Of Mice and Men, Tortilla Flat and so on. If so, the later novels collected in this single volume are outstanding follow-ons and stack up quite well among their better-known brethren. If not, these will be fine introductions to Steinbeck's writing and may well inspire readers to profit from some of his other works. In either case, Steinbeck: Travels with Charley and Later Novels 1947—1962 is a valuable addition to one's personal library and well worth the hours of readers' finite lifetimes that will be devoted to reading it from cover to cover. show less

I've been dipping into this excellent extended travel essay off and on for several months. Today I reached the end of the trip. I enjoyed it quite a lot. I loved his tale of taking Charley into the forest of giant sequoias, and waiting to see the dog's reaction to such magnificent trees. He expected the dog to think "Ah...it's heaven!" Well, Charley couldn't see the treetops and wouldn't look up, so he didn't recognize them as trees at all, and wandered off to find a shrub against which to lift his leg. It made me remember all the joys of discovering Steinbeck back in my teenage years, on the upstairs porch of our house, where I read him among the branches of what I thought then were huge pine trees. (Well, they were taller than the show more house...come on.) December 2009 show less

When the virus of restlessness begins to take possession of a wayward man, and the road away from Here seems broad and straight and sweet, the victim must first find in himself a good and sufficient reason for going. This to the practical bum is not difficult. He has a built-in garden of reasons to choose from….”

In 1960, John Steinbeck took off on a journey around the United States in his tailor-made camper, Rocinante. “…. because my planned trip had aroused some satiric remarks among my friends, I named it Rocinante, which you will remember was the name of Don Quixote’s horse.” Why such a trip? There were, according to Steinbeck, two reasons: his self-proclaimed bumdom, and his profession as a writer. “I, an American show more writer, writing about America, was working from memory, and the memory is at best a faulty, warpy reservoir. I had not heard the speech of America, smelled the grass and trees and sewage, seen its hills and water, its color and quality of light. I knew the changes only from books and newspapers. But more than this, I had not felt the country for twenty-five years. In short, I was writing of something I did not know about, and it seems to me that in a so-called writer this is criminal. …”

His trip started after Labor Day and he was accompanied by his loyal and faithful companion, a large French poodle named Charley. Charley was to provide companionship and protection, but more than that, “… an exotic like Charley, is a bond between strangers.” And indeed he was. Steinbeck also lured interesting characters into Rocinante with some down-to-earth hospitality helped along with strong coffee and even stronger booze. Some of the people he meets along the way are French Canadians who come down to harvest potatoes; an old-fashioned thespian; a boy in Colorado who dreams of being a hairdresser much to his father’s chagrin. There is the occasional rendezvous with his wife and a Thanksgiving spent with some wealthy friends in Texas. His trip back to his native California was especially interesting to me as I have visited Steinbeck’s native Salinas, California and the Sequoia National Forest. His writing about the giant Redwoods was particularly moving.

Steinbeck’s stories on the road are interesting, entertaining and educational. He reflects on the changes he sees in the country along the way: new-fangled roads (freeways), where you can pass through a city without ever really seeing the city; the (what I call) plasticizing of American road-side eateries (plastic silverware, butter and jelly served in little plastic packets, etc.); the homogenizing of the American dialect through TV. It’s not that Steinbeck stands back and calls these things bad necessarily, but stands back and wonders if they’ll prove to be beneficial or detrimental changes over the long haul. In 1960, when these changes are really starting to take hold, it’s too soon to tell.

One of the changes happening around this time was the desegregation of schools in the South. “… the incident most reported in the newspapers was the matriculation of a couple of tiny Negro children in a New Orleans school. …. I had seen photographs in the papers every day and motion pictures on the television screen. What made the newsmen love the story was a group of stout middle-aged women, who, by some curious definition of the word ‘mother,’ gathered every day to scream invectives at children. Further, a small group of them had become so expert that they were known as the Cheerleaders, and a crowd gathered every day to enjoy and to applaud their performance. This strange drama seemed so improbable that I felt I had to see it. …” So he drives to New Orleans to witness the “Cheerleaders” scream their filth at the“… littlest Negro girl you ever saw…” The whole thing “…. Made me sick with weary nausea.” This part of the book made me sit up and pay attention since I had never heard of such a thing happening. As a mother, I can’t even imagine such a thing as grown women spewing filth at a first-grader! Steinbeck seems to head home in a hurry after witnessing this spectacle. Or, maybe he was just travel weary:

“This journey had been like a full dinner of many courses, set before a starving man. At first he tries to eat all of everything, but as the meal progresses he finds he must forgo some things to keep his appetite and his taste buds functioning.”

As much as I thoroughly enjoyed [Travels with Charley] there were times I felt that the speech of certain characters he meets along the way were just a little too intellectual and artsy to be believed. (I believe another reviewer here had said something along similar lines.) I don’t think Steinbeck made things up; I think he may have simply embellished certain situations. Poetic license, I suppose. That tiny complaint aside, [Travels with Charley] is an interesting time-capsule of the United States at the beginning of a decade that would prove one of the most interesting, exciting, and tumultuous in our culture. It’s a definite must for Steinbeck fans and probably something that armchair travelers, wannabe time travelers, and dog lovers would definitely appreciate.

Highly recommended. show less

Dec 2010: Travels with Charley, 5 of 5 stars. Bill Bryson, et al can't hold a candle to Steinbeck. How low our expectations have become, this is how high they could be. Note to eighth grade American English teachers: if you want your students to learn about their country, their country's history, their people and the land no matter where in the country you are, where the nation is at right now and how we got here, AND become fond of John Steinbeck, give them Travels with Charley and trust that they'll go to Grapes of Wrath on their own when they're ready. This was in every aspect and detail what goodreads says 5 stars should mean: amazing.

Oct 2007: The Wayward Bus, 3 0f 5 stars (review here: http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/25564504 )