Barbara’s Pick
July, 2015
Travels with Charley
John Steinbeck
Another dog-related review from me! Do you sense a theme? (Really, I do read other kinds of books.)
For many of us, The Grapes of Wrath was required reading in school, but John Steinbeck wrote many more stories, books, plays, and magazine articles. In the last years of his life, he felt he’d lost touch with the America he had written about for so long, so he devised a route to take him across most of the United States—and he chose as his traveling companion his 10-year-old French poodle, Charley. Steinbeck knew Charley would help him talk to the strangers he would encounter in his months on the road and referred to him as his “mind-reading dog.” After outfitting a truck with a special camper and loading it with any and everything he might need or want, off the two adventurers went.
Steinbeck’s lean, elegant writing is a pleasure to read, but this is not a buddy story with happiness everywhere. Steinbeck bemoans the progression of industry, the encroachment of pollution in the cities, and the overdevelopment of wilderness. It’s considered a period piece for good reason, as several anecdotes reference the spread of mobile home parks and the issue of segregation.
All in all, if you are nostalgic for the early 1960s and you like a good yarn, this book is a relatively quick read and will have you laughing out loud in spots. Happy summer reading!