Review: Travels With Charley by John Steinbeck

 

 I've decided to read more Classics in 2022, and I picked Steinbeck's Travels With Charley as my first.  

Over the years as I've looked for books I might like about traveling, or books by Steinbeck I might find approachable (having been ruined in high school by The Pearl and The Red Pony) this book has come up.  

Travels with Charley follows John Steinbeck's adventures traveling cross country with his large Poodle Charley. Steinbeck imbues Charley with a great deal of character and wisdom.  The dog graces the landscape with his musings, leaving notes for future canine travelers.  Despite his gentle nature, Charley is an excellent watchdog.

Steinbeck asked that a camper be custom built for his trip.  He wanted the comforts of a ships cabin.  While I was reading the book, I had a picture of the Rocinante being relatively small inside, so I had trouble at one point picturing nine people aboard, conversing and having drinks.

As it turns out, the camper was huge, and the truck itself is very large as well.

I was astounded at the beginning of the story at the amount of clothing and food and tools and other supplies Steinbeck packed.  If you camp you try to keep the weight down, but he had no such thoughts, so it seemed.  Then, astonishingly, when he was first on the road he stopped someplace and seemed to pick up every kind of booze available.  To be sure, as he traveled, that alcohol was well parceled out, leading to many pleasant conversations in unlikely places.

Steinbeck's writing style here is conversational, as if you're sitting right across from him listening to his tale.

There's a dreamy style to some of the description:

"The customers were folded over their coffee cups like ferns".

He speaks of the urge to just go, and  be moving somewhere, anywhere along the road.  Many many times he saw the envy people had of him, of their own wish to be able to just climb in and take a road somewhere.

He prefers to travel the side roads and old highways, which are filled with towns and shops and interesting people.

He worries about "superhighways"  "When we get these thruways across the whole country, as we will and must, it will be possible to drive from New York to California without seeing a single thing."

There's the beauty of road trips, right, taking all the old roads where you can, and seeing how people live and work.  As soon as you take a section of freeway, your mind just shuts down, there's nothing to see at all.  You may get there faster, but it's as if you haven't been anywhere.

There's a map of his route along the north of the country, and back through the southern half. 

Highly recommended for a winter's read, or anytime the open road calls you.