Travels with Charley is a revisit with an old friend. I first read the book in high school--actually, probably the summer after my senior year. And, really, it was the first Steinbeck that I had read--I don't count acting in a cutting from "Of Mice and Men" or racing through "The Pearl" in less than an hour as the final exam in a speed reading course that I took. I also remember desperately wanting a pickup truck with a camper on it so I could travel around the country. It was probably the first travel book that I read, and it made me want to get out and explore. Later would come "A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers" and John Graves' "Goodbye to a River." Then I traded my dreams of a pickup for dreams of a canoe. I didn't get either.
One of the highlights of our visit to the John Steinbeck Museum in Salinas a few years back (which really isn't all that much of a museum) was actually seeing Steinbeck's actual truck, Rocinante, on the floor. It seemed smaller in person, especially compared to some of the mondo cab over campers that now ply our national highways. And that brings up the question of how much time Steinbeck actually spent in Rocinante.
What called to me and seemed so fresh and inviting over 40 years ago seemed a bit dated this go around. Listening to the book was enjoyable for both Sara and me, but it just didn't have the special qualities that have made reading and listening to Steinbeck's fiction so enjoyable. I'm not sure why. Is it a kind of nostalgic yearning for the past (even the past of the Joad family) over a more contemporary time? Or does it have to do more with characterization? Do the characters come up too fast and are gone too quickly to be developed in the detail to make them come alive? There are a number of poignant scenes in the book, such as when he revisits his old boyhood friend Johnny Garcia in the Monterrey bar, or when he spends the night with a father and son feuding about the future, or meeting the Shakespearean actor who channels John Gielgud, or sharing drinks with the Canadian migrant workers picking apples. The memories that stuck most with me over the past 40 years, besides Rocinante, are Charley getting sick, and Steinbeck's tossing the racist hitchhiker out of the truck. I had not remembered much of "the cheerleaders" in New Orleans, but its clear that that scene and the lead up to it almost serve as the climax of the book. Charley stole the show for me this time around, as I'm sure he did 40 years ago, with his "pfffft" commentary on Steinbeck's thoughts, his areas of exploration around the different campsites, his going apeshit over the bears in Yellowstone, etc. etc.
So, did Steinbeck find America? Probably not. There is, of course, the whole brouhaha of how much of the book is a reliable recollection of his trip. Did he really just sit in the camper and make most of it up, as his son avers? Did he really spend a lot more time sleeping in hotels with his wife than he lets on? Does any of it really matter?
Then there's the whole realization that I'm older than Steinbeck was when he went on the trip. Shit! Steinbeck felt himself to be dying and wanted to get out and see the country and the people one more time. And it turned out to be his last work. And to realize that maybe he really didn't have the energy or the focus to pull the book together like he wanted. Part of the comedy of the book is his not having decent urban survival skills when he hits the big cities. Or setting out to search for America but finding himself getting bored and driving straight through to exhaustion. "Ah, the hell with it," I hear him saying, sometimes, and wanting to shut it down. Is that where I'm headed, too?
So, if I look at "Travels with Charley" too closely, I say, OK, it's not great literature. It's not "A Week on the Concord and the Merrimack" for the Cold War generation, and it's probably not as good as "Goodbye to a River," written about the same time. But it is John Steinbeck, and it has the powers of description, of metaphoric language, of story telling, that sets him apart. No, it's not anywhere near his best work, but it is still so incomparably well written to make it a good time.
Author: Steinbeck, John
Date Published: 1962
Length: 7 hr 58 min
Narrator: Sinise, Gary
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