|
|
Summary
In Travels
with Charley: In Search of America, John Steinbeck takes the
reader on a journey, not just through America,
but through a man’s soul. In order to rediscover a country he no
longer identified with, and to reexamine his relationship with the
land and its people, Steinbeck embarked on a road trip across the
United States
in September of 1960. With his health waning, there were doubts that he could even complete
the trip. With only a custom-made pick-up truck named
“Rocinante" in honor of Don Quixote's
horse, and his faithful companion Charley, a standard French Poodle,
he departed Sag Harbor in search of the America he had lost.
Travels with Charley recounts the adventures
that he had on this trip. Steinbeck’s
wife, Elaine, suggested the title of the book after Robert Lewis
Stevenson’s Travels with a
Donkey, one of Steinbeck’s favorite books.
As
Steinbeck traveled through the different regions of the United States, first New England, and then the Midwest, he noted with interest the differences in
how the people communicated with strangers.
But he was disturbed that the variations in local speech
patterns were disappearing. During
this trip, Steinbeck closely observed people, talked and listened
to them, and recorded each day’s events late in the evening.
Charley was the perfect companion, a great listener and a
terrific conversation piece. Steinbeck
preferred the back roads and the country towns in order to encounter
the real heart and soul of America.
After
a disappointing visit to his native Monterey, where he was overwhelmed with recollections of what had been, he headed
Texas to visit his wife’s family. After Texas, Steinbeck visited New Orleans where he witnessed an ugly incident of racism
at a school that had recently been integrated.
After almost 4 months on the road, he returned to Sag Harbor, relieved to be home.
Travels
with Charley is a sort of Bildungsroman except that the
hero is not a young person developing into a mature person, but
a disenchanted older individual trying to find his place in a society
he no longer recognizes. As in a Bildungsroman,
the hero, Steinbeck, leaves the safety of his home for an uncertain,
possibly hostile environment in order to attain the knowledge and
personal growth needed to find a meaningful existence in society.
What he encountered
on this journey was greed, waste, and racism, things which upset
him deeply. He appreciated
the natural environment and resented it being consumed by industrial
growth and overpopulation. Steinbeck
was not able to recapture the America of his youth, but he did prove to himself
that he still had the strength and resourcefulness to be on his
own. At 58 years of age, he rediscovered a faith
in himself.
Christina Crocker
East Meadow Public Library
|
|
