Travels With Charley by John Steinbeck Reviewed by Steve Rudd

People don't take trips - trips take people.

It's almost impossible, in this day and age, to not have heard of John Steinbeck. First and foremost, his Of Mice And Men short story is the staple part of almost every school curriculum, while his Grapes of Wrath novel is equally as well-known. Steinbeck was born and raised in the Salinas area of California, and most of his books were set in such an area, including the beautifully captivating Pastures of Heaven. Travels With Charley is somewhat unique for the fact that he spends very little time in the Golden 'fornia State, because this book is essentially of the travel variety, which intimately recounts some of the places and faces that he encountered when he took an around-country tour of the vast United States of America back in the early Sixties - not many years before the genius died in 1968.

He said that he wanted to go and rediscover his country, to see how much it had changed since he had last travelled around the beast - and how fast it was changing and hurtling headlong into the future. And he didn't travel alone either, but far from taking his wife along for the ride, it was his pet poodle that saddled up on the passenger side. Yes, his poodle was the charming Charley of the title. I stopped where people stopped or gathered, I listened and looked and felt, and in the process had a picture of my country the accuracy of which was impaired only by my own shortcomings.

Whether John and Charley are slowly ebbing around New England in all its glory or casually cruising through North Dakota, Steinbeck is always openly honest and sincere in his writing. Long before Bill Bryson set out around the USA in much the same manner, here was Steinbeck putting his foot to the gas and gunning around the country, closely observing what it is to be an American, and to what extent the nature of people and places vary over time and space.

Sure, Steinbeck doesn't burn back and forth and back again across the States with the crazily overwhelming intensity that Kerouac did when he was On The Road, but Steinbeck's revelations are just as profoundly exciting and engrossing. Still, towards the end of John's journey, it seems that all he wants to do is get back home. The United States at large are too huge to feel like home. Home, as far as he is passionately concerned, is literally where the heart is, and thus once he finally arrives back outside his house and parks up his truck - that he named Rocinante for the trip, after Don Quixote's horse - for the last time, he seems the most content.

Through his Travels With Charley, John Steinbeck genuinely proved that he was fantastic at writing not only fiction but non-fiction too. God bless him, and his eternally humane soul. ISBN 0-14-11-8610-0 (first published in 1962/ PENGUIN) www.penguinclassics.com

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