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Loading... Travels with Charley: In Search of America (1962)by John Steinbeck
  
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I'm in love with Steinbeck still. And again. (  ) rebwaring | Aug 14, 2023 |  Steinbeck was long one of my favorite authors. This road trip memoir didn't pretend to be stories, but still held my interest. ( ) mykl-s | Aug 4, 2023 | What is America like? And what makes an American American? In 1960 John Steinbeck set out to find answers to these questions by traveling through his country. He had a truck custom-made so that he could sleep and cook in it and was independent on the road. So as not to travel alone he took his dog Charley with him on a journey that would eventually take him through 38 states before he arrived at home again. As an allusion to Don Quixote, Cervantes' knight-errant, he called his truck the Rocinante. As he says himself, Steinbeck's intention for taking this trip was to listen to his fellow Americans, see what they are like, what opinions they have about their country and current issues. While he found some of that on the road, oftentimes people were not too talkative at all, especially considering the upcoming presidential election between Kennedy and Nixon. There is a lot to say about the impressions that Steinbeck shares, both about the United States of America and the act of traveling itself. For instance, the feeling that right before you start traveling your bed feels the most comfortable and you are actually questioning on why to leave at all, is something that I can really relate to. You spend all this time planning a trip and really looking forward to eventually leaving - Steinbeck diligently packed his Rocinante and took much more with him than he needed, something that many of us are also familiar with - only to have second thoughts right when it is time to leave. Once you overcome those second thoughts the journey can be delightful. Starting out in New York City, Steinbeck wanted to go west, but he started going east and then north up the coast until the northernmost point of Maine. Only then did he slowly make his way west. Eventually he arrives 'home', in Monterey, California, where he grew up and where many of his novels are set. When he sees his home, he sees many differences and finds it altogether changed from what he remembered, concluding that you should never return home expecting it to have remained the same over all those years. Rather, you should just keep the fond memories you have. Taking a closer look at how the book is written, I find Steinbeck's writing to be just as perfect as in his fictional works. His descriptions of nature, landscapes and surroundings are superb and really add to his experiences on the journey. The encounters with strangers that the author describes make for a vivid portrayal of the journey and the time it was written in. I find his experience in New Orleans and his commentary on watching the so-called "Cheerleaders" insult a black girl going to school highly remarkable. When Steinbeck is asked shortly after seeing this whether he was traveling for pleasure, he simply answers: "I was until today." Quite frequently Steinbeck compares human behavior and interaction with the behavior of his dog and comes away with the conclusion that many things would be a lot easier if people were not constantly fighting each other for something they do not want to have anyway, if people listened to each other more, if opinion and facts were not as blurred in the media as they have become. Especially this last observation could not be more accurate today, when ever more frequently personal opinion becomes fact through sheer repetition and sharing. Overall, I really enjoyed Travels With Charley immensely. 5 stars for an insightful and witty travelogue. (  )1  OscarWilde87 | Jun 25, 2023 | I don’t have much to say about this short work. I admired many of Steinbeck’s perspectives, and I was impressed with some of his insights that seem apt in relation to the historic events since his trip. However, I think high school me would have been more impressed with his writing and found his perspectives new and novel. At time of writing, I felt this was an average, though interesting, travelogue. Side note: I really dislike machismo in books and there was a bit of that which got on my nerves. It’s softer than most machismo of the era but it was enough to irk me. (  ) psalva | Jun 1, 2023 | This is Steinbeck's book, written in 1962, about travelling across the US in the company of his French poodle, Charley. Some parts of the book drag, or seem dated, but others are funny and seem topical today. The end of the book, where he travels to Louisiana and observes the reaction to school desegregation, is one of the strongest parts of the book. ( ) banjo123 | Apr 9, 2023 |
Steinbeck’s book-length account of his journey, “Travels With Charley: In Search of America,” published in 1962, was generally well reviewed and became a best-seller. It remains in print, regarded by some as a classic of American travel writing. Almost from the beginning, though, a few readers pointed out that many of the conversations in the book had a stagey, wooden quality, not unlike the dialogue in Steinbeck’s fiction. Early on in the book, for example, Steinbeck has a New England farmer talking in folksy terms about Nikita S. Khrushchev’s shoe-pounding (or -brandishing, depending on whom you ask) speech at the United Nations weeks before Khrushchev actually visited the United Nations. A particularly unlikely encounter occurs at a campsite near Alice, N.D., where a Shakespearean actor, mistaking Steinbeck for a fellow thespian, greets him with a sweeping bow, saying, “I see you are of the profession,” and then proceeds to talk about John Gielgud. Even Steinbeck’s son John said he was convinced that his father never talked to many of the people he wrote about, and added, “He just sat in his camper and wrote all that [expletive].” Belongs to Publisher SeriesCOLECÇÃO DOIS MUNDOS (Livros do Brasil) — 6 more Is contained inCannery Row | East of Eden | Grapes of Wrath | Of Mice and Men | The Pearl | Travels with Charley by John Steinbeck Setinbeck Hardcover Collection: Tortilla Flat, The Winter of Our Discontent, East of Eden, The Grapes of Wrath, Travels with Charley, & The Long Valley by John Steinbeck InspiredHas as a student's study guideDistinctionsNotable Lists
Biography & Autobiography.
History.
Travel.
Nonfiction.
HTML:An intimate journey across and in search of America, as told by one of its most beloved writers, in a deluxe centennial edition In September 1960, John Steinbeck embarked on a journey across America. He felt that he might have lost touch with the country, with its speech, the smell of its grass and trees, its color and quality of light, the pulse of its people. To reassure himself, he set out on a voyage of rediscovery of the American identity, accompanied by a distinguished French poodle named Charley; and riding in a three-quarter-ton pickup truck named Rocinante. His course took him through almost forty states: northward from Long Island to Maine; through the Midwest to Chicago; onward by way of Minnesota, North Dakota, Montana (with which he fell in love), and Idaho to Seattle, south to San Francisco and his birthplace, Salinas; eastward through the Mojave, New Mexico, Arizona, to the vast hospitality of Texas, to New Orleans and a shocking drama of desegregation; finally, on the last leg, through Alabama, Virginia, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey to New York. Travels with Charley in Search of America is an intimate look at one of America's most beloved writers in the later years of his life??a self-portrait of a man who never wrote an explicit autobiography. Written during a time of upheaval and racial tension in the South??which Steinbeck witnessed firsthand??Travels with Charley is a stunning evocation of America on the eve of a tumultuous decade. This Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition also features French flaps and deckle-edged paper. For more than sixty-five years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,500 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning tra No library descriptions found. |
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 Google Books — Loading...GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)818.5203Literature English (North America) Authors, American and American miscellany 20th Century 1900-1945 DiariesLC ClassificationRatingAverage: (4)
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Steinbeckathon 2012: Travels with Charley
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