Travels With Charley: In Search of America (1962)
By John Steinbeck
In late September 1960 John Steinbeck and a French Poodle named Charley loaded a vehicle called “Rocinante” with a sizable amount of liquor and went on a road trip to discover America. Two years later the account was published to wild success. I happened to find a copy (which I later gave to a friend) of a first edition of the book at the local St. Vincent de Paul Thrift Store about twenty-five years ago.
Steinbeck kindly informed the reader that Rocinante (a custom built green GMC camper, a handsome thing) was the name of Don Quixote’s horse by saying “as you know, Rocinante is…” But if you have just learned that, do not feel bad. I didn’t know, either–but it did get me to finally read that masterpiece a year later at the age of forty-something (which is a far better age to meet a classic than is, say, fourteen).
Charley was ten and one of those gregarious, highly intelligent Standard Poodles who was as big as a moderately sized Gazelle. Charley was also from France and did not understand much English (or so was his excuse).
Steinbeck was closing in on sixty and had recently faced his mortality via heart problems. He died at the age of sixty-six (my age today), not long after receiving the Nobel Prize, about eight years after the road trip. Instead of removing the things in life that pleased him (a high fat diet, smoking, the liquor store, etc), he decided that his wife had married a man and not an elderly baby. So he chose chancing going out doing stuff he’d rather do than staying home waiting for death to come for him in a civilized manner. Steinbeck didn’t say how his wife felt about him vanishing for a few months, but she didn’t stop him, either.
There was something about starting the trip in early autumn in New England that gives it a fairie like quality that I cannot explain, but I can tell of it. It was like the start of a quest and although I am certain that Mr. Stenbeck intended it to feel that way, I must congratulate his ghost on both the choice and execution.
It is not my objective to pad this with materials culled from Wikipedia (except such used to confirm forgotten facts). But I will say that Steinbeck was a hell of a great writer and I sometimes get angry at people who accuse him of being a Hemingway clone. He had the spare style, but, damn it, he had his own voice and I find that as more time goes by that the critical aristocracy that often damned him with faint praise has not been able to push their germ forward on the subject.
Regardless, this is a good book and his look at America just prior to the election of JFK is a historical document worth reading.
literally stories 
Leila, I’m with you: that critical aristocracy’s comment is absurd, and your excellent essay makes me want to read the book again. Steinbeck was a great writer. My father knew his widow.
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Hi
That is so cool! And I truly appreciate it!
Leila
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Leila, I agree. In middle school one of my teachers recommended the book, and I recall it had a big effect on me. I liked it because it was easy for a kid to comprehend, and at the time, that was important to me.
Barry
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Hi Barry
I think .iddle school is a great age to meet Steinbeck. I was twelve when I read Of Mice and Men, and it had a big effect on me.
Thank you for the comment!
Leila.
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Really intereseting essay. I haven’t read any Steinbeck – I quite enjoyed the bit of Hemingway I have read but anyway your admiration for the book is very obvious. I may well put it on my reading list. Thanks for this. dd
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Thank you Diane!
It really is a good book. Charley was the star and I am sure he knew it. He was ten at the time and had his problems, but he was a game fellow through and through.
Leila
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I agree that Steinbeck was so much more than a Hemingway clone. How anyone who’s read Grapes of Wrath, Of Mice and Men, The Pearl … is beyond me. Good essay and well-deserved plaudits for a great writer.
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Hi David
All with your here. Even after decades J still recall his description of the odious doctor in The Pearl and the guy who sort of forced himself to commit suicide in Cannery Row. Wonderful stuff…Leila
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Hi Leila,
Like a lot of my childhood I’m repelled by certain things due to my childhood!
Steinbeck is one. Once again I was forced to read something that due to me being a pathetic rebel, I rebelled against! ‘Of Mice And Men’ was an assignment that we had to give an oral presentation on. Coincidentally this was around the time that my dad had made more home brew than he could keep tabs on. Long story short, I had only a few dozen pages to read but the home-brew beckoned as I was terminally bored by the rest of it. I drank a lot and passed out. The next day the teacher asked me about the symbolism of the end. I winged it. I didn’t know that there were rabbits and I never mentioned them. I was asked if I read the end of it and I have never been a liar so I said, ‘No.’ I failed and cursed Mr Steinbeck for boring me so much that I had chosen the Devil’s Brew over getting a pass mark.
Once I had left school and was working I decided to give him another chance and I read ‘Tortilla Flat’.
I would love to say that I was enlightened, enjoyed it and sought out more of his work but the only thing I sought out was more home-brew!
The next night I demolished ‘The Spear’ by James Herbert!!
But everyone to their own!!!!!!
Excellent essay for anyone who doesn’t need home-brew to enjoy!!
All joking aside – Excellent as always!!
Hugh
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Hi Hugh
All is fair. What a boring world it would be if we liked the same thing!
Still, this one is non fiction, does not contain a drop of sentimentality and it might surprise you if you get a chance to read it.
I always adore you for your honesty!
Leila
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Re-reading is a favourite pastime of mine. Like you, I came to Steinbeck early and loved his stuff. Great post: now inspired to re-read Travels with Charley and Cannery Row bw mick
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Hi Mick
I only meant to scan through Charley once I found it in my collection, but with little exception I re read nearly the whole thing. I was fortunate to find a first print of it at a Thrift Store, something like 25 years ago. It is loaded with pictures and extra forwards, and I do not think I paid even a fiver for it.
Thank you!
Leila
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Leila,
What a delight!
Steinbeck changed my life when I saw, then read, “East of Edin” as a teen. Not so much changed me, but opened me up to who I already becoming, at least in miniature. Then, of course, “Adventures with Charley” and the ease with which he wrote it and the easy with which I read it.
Not having dogs or cats in our Brooklyn apartments, gave the street animals a special, if somewhat removed luster. I’d sneak cats and dogs in if I knew the landlord and my parents weren’t around. I think I would have taken Charley with me on my road trip as well, instead of Mrs. Steinback, no offense. An animal has a certain perspective closer to God and the planet Earth than another person could possibly provide. — Gerry
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Hi Gerry
I have always believed that it must be near impossible to keep a pet or own a car in NYC.
Looking back over this book I forgot what good company Charley must have been on the road.
Thank you!
Leila
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LA
What a wonderful text to resurrect!
I utterly agree with you: Steinbeck was not a trash writer, nor a hack writer; he was a great writer. Anyone who wrote The Grapes of Wrath and Of Mice and Men cannot, rightly, be called anything but a great writer. All those critics who took pot shots at him during his own time didn’t understand him, that’s all. He had his faults but all writers have their faults, and usually, the greater the writer, the greater the faults, too. More than that, he was not just a great writer, he was also a GOOD WRITER. His genuine sympathy and empathy for the outsiders and underdogs of this world is (almost) beyond compare.
I think of him as making a fourth with Hemingway, Fitzgerald and Faulkner. In some ways, John is the best of them all.
And I have to admit that Charley has literal literary descendants in Boo, Bandit and Colonel. His book is one of their faves, along with The Call of the Wild.
DON QUIXOTE is a great book. Picasso’s black-and-white cartoon of the Don, Sancho, Rocinante, and Dapple says it all. There is much repetition in this first and greatest of all novels ever, but it’s also one of those books where you can dip in anywhere and take it up there. The reader needn’t feel bad about skipping here and there. Don’t worry about slogging through beginning to end, dip in anywhere and the magic will find you IF you are awake.
The most important parts of the book are the Don, Sancho, Rocinante, Dapple (Sancho’s donkey) and Dulcinea. The greatest and most realistic friendship in literature is between Sancho and the Don! Their conversations are utterly amazing…
You have a wonderful way of writing about books, starting with your ability to select the ones that are worth writing about!
Dale
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Hi Dale
Indeed, I cannot make a list of great writers. The way I see it when a writer reaches a certain level, she or he can look Will and the Great Russians in the eye and see mutual respect.
Anyone who could create both Jim Casey and Ma Joad has my vote (“Grapes” is one of the greatest books ever, yet brilliant Tom Joad, no disrespect is the third greatest character in the novel).
All my best to you, yours and The Pack,
Leila
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