Travels with Charley

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"I am happy to report that in the war between reality and romance, reality is not the stronger." - Rated
(4.5 stars) When John Steinbeck obeys a life-long urge to drive from coast to coast in 1960, he little anticipates the variety of the "American experience." Beginning in Maine and traveling along the northern states through Wisconsin, the Badlands, Montana, and all places in between, to Washington and Oregon, Steinbeck then decides to visit his childhood community of Salinas, in northern California. After meeting with friends there, though many have died, he then drives southward through the length of California and then eastward through the southwest desert to Texas, Louisiana, and eventually up to Virginia before returning to New York.

Carrying the reader along with him as he reconstructs this journey for publication in 1962, Steinbeck observes people and human nature, being careful not to draw conclusions about an entire area based on the individuals he meets along the way. Often it is their reactions to Charley, his aging standard poodle, which stimulates their conversations and allows Steinbeck glimpses of their thinking and ways of life. From the terminally gloomy waitress in Maine to the evil-looking mechanic in Oregon (who turns out to be the kindest and most generous of men), Steinbeck explores attitudes toward life (and strangers). Steinbeck's high school buddy (who almost comes to blows with him) shows him that you really can't go home again, and "the cheerleaders" of New Orleans, a group of white-supremacist women who taunt and scream obscenities at a tiny black girl integrating one of their schools, shows him how much work the human race still has left to do.

As he travels in his truck with a house attached to its bed (a pre-camper invention), he notes the changing landscape, the disappearance of treasured aspects of the environment, and the growth of new trends--including the increasing popularity of the mobile home and the contemporary loss of "roots." He is genuinely frightened by the Badlands, until night falls, when it becomes beautiful. He adores Montana, and he hurries through the almost blank southwestern desert where he learns something new about shooting. Though Steinbeck gets tired of travel before the end of the trip, he still manages to record signal moments which resonate with the reader.

What elevates this book especially is the glimpses it gives of Steinbeck himself, a far more upbeat man than one would expect from novels like Cannery Row, Of Mice and Men, and Grapes of Wrath. His observations of life in the early 1960s capture the country at pivotal moments of history--the time of Sen. John Kennedy and freedom rides. In this respect, Steinbeck creates a time capsule for future generations and a picture of himself that lovers of his writing will treasure. Mary Whipple

An enduring classic that is a joy to read - Rated
This is my favourite Steinbeck book. I originally read it 22 years ago whilst living in the USA. Its themes and insights are as pertinent today as they were then,and as Steinbeck saw them in '62, when this book was written.

It's easy to read, beautifully written and full of keen observations. And the relationship between the writer and his dog is an engaging one throughout.This book is often marginalised by his great fiction, but it really is a gem of a book.

My original US edition features uninspired cover art, but this Penguin classic issue is also worth buying soley for the superb cover shot of 'one man and his dog'.

Travel Along! - Rated
“Travels with Charlie” is the delightful narrative by a master story teller of his 1962 journey across America with his pet poodle, Charlie. Feeling a need to become reacquainted with America, Steinbeck purchased a custom made mobile home which he outfitted, by his own admission, to excess, before setting out on his travels. Although warned that his fame and familiarity would prevent him from maintaining his anonymity, Steinbeck was able to meet America at its own level. From sea to sea he was recognized only by friends and relatives. This anonymity permitted him to drift in and out of American society, tasting and testing, interacting and remembering. From New England to California and back to New York, we are admitted to his conversations with taciturn Yankees and French-Canadian migrant agricultural workers. Traveling west, we read of border guards, the representatives of the government bureaucracy, state specific highway designations and Steinbeck’s observations of topography. His roadside visit with an actor and his entertainment by rich friends in Texas provide a sharp contrast in outlooks and behavior of different Americans. During his return to his hometown of Salinas, California, Steinbeck learns the truth that “you can’t go back home again.” Home has changed, his friends have changed, and Steinbeck had changed. It is sad, but true.

Steinbeck dreaded the South but knew that he could not be avoided. Traveling in 1962, Steinbeck saw some of the dramatic events of the Civil Rights movement while he sampled the prevailing racial attitudes of Southerners of the day.

At the start, Steinbeck was looking to become reacquainted with America. I was hoping that the would finish with some wise conclusions gleaned from his experience. He did conclude that Americans were more united as Americans than they were divided as residents of different regions. He is amazed to find the degree to which diverse immigrant groups have amalgamated into a new nationality in less than two centuries. I passed this on to a distant cousin in France with whom I have been discussing themes in American and French history. Beyond this, we are left to draw our own conclusions from the facts reported.

I wonder how many of the people to whom Steinbeck referred have read and recognized themselves in this book. How many of us, who did not meet Steinbeck, see ourselves or our acquaintances reflected in its pages?

This a a hard book to put down, so don’t try. Pick it up, free your mind and enjoy “Travels with Charlie.”

Acutely Observed - Rated
Don't you just hate it when you get to the end of a truely engrossing book? I certainly do, and feel even more frustrated when you reach the end of a journey with a writer who has somehow transcended the writer/reader relationship and become part of your close circle of, if not friends, then at least acquaintances.

This book does this for me. John Steinbeck admits that his reason for undertaking this journey, some 4 decades ago, were a mixed curiosity for his own land, his desire to fight back against the aging process and to shrink into anonimity.

At every stage of his journey you get a fine grasp of the many varied and valid viewpoints he takes. Yet seldom do you get a feeling of opinionation, as you do with some modern travel writers. Even at his most troubled (when he encounters racism at its most vile) Steinbeck does not preach, just records his deep unease, and counters his experience with a series of encounters that show that he realises that the problem is more complicated than black and white and that any answer will be a long time coming.
That the book is forty years old is troubling and comforting. It is troubling that some of the thiings encountered are still very much an issue - racism, pollution etc. The comfort comes from the knowledge that great writing endures. I heartil;y recommend this for the style of the prose alone. I think you, too, will enjoy your time travelling with Mr Steinbeck.

And Charley? As a self proclaimed hater of all domestic animals - Charley is oddly engaging.

"Fttt" and the Comments of his Human Companion - Rated
Steinbeck clearly thought at the time he was writing The Winter of Our Discontent (1961) that America was in the middle of a serious moral and ethical crises, that the traditions and values this country was founded upon were no longer looked upon as serious guidelines for American behavior. The trip across America detailed in this book was undertaken at least in part as an attempt by Steinbeck to determine if this evaluation of the state of America was valid, if when Americans were approached as individuals, face-to-face, some other picture might emerge.

To facilitate his investigation, Steinbeck brought along his poodle Charley, as companion and ice-breaker, and packed up a camper truck with everything he thought he might need in his travels (probably too much, as he ruefully admits at one point), and proceed to travel across the states in a large circle, from New York to Maine to Illinois to Washington, California, Texas, and the Deep South.
As we travel along with him, we are treated to a rather incredible display of the sheer writing talent that Steinbeck possessed, as the people he meets along the way are described accurately and so very concisely, sometimes in just a couple of paragraphs, to where these people come alive to the reader, to where the reader can say "I know someone just like that".

But perhaps more importantly, the book is spattered throughout with Steinbeck's acute observations and opinions on everything from antiques, the virtues of small towns, the value of manual labor, the homogenizing of American language and cuisine due to the influence of radio and television, the beginnings of the interstate system and its influence on everything along its routes, hunters, trash, and many other items, all carefully supported by his actual observations along the road. There are a few comments expressed by Charley here, too (typically a "Fttt" and a sniff). And although this book was written forty years ago, much of what Steinbeck wrote then is still very valid today. Whether this represents a good thing or not, that there has been so little change in some very basic elements of American society in the intervening years, must be decided and thought upon by the reader.

It seems that many writers of stature eventually write some form of 'travel' book. This is one of the best of this genre, due to both Steinbeck's great powers of observation and his ability to distill what he sees to something that is recognizable, distinctive, that resonates with the reader's own experiences. This is not his greatest book - that distinction belongs to his great fiction works of The Grapes of Wrath, The Pearl, East of Eden, The Winter of Our Discontent. But it is a very satisfying look at a great writer and his outlook on the America of his day.