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Book Reviews-Anna Cooke
The great American author, John Steinbeck had a French Poodle named Charley. The dog was born in Paris and supposedly responded only to commands in French. His full name was Charles le Chien.
In 1960, suffering from a
lack of inspiration and a case of writer’s block which he blamed for being out of touch with America, Steinbeck set out on a cross-country road trip. And Charley was his traveling com- panion. Travels with Charley, In Search of America was first published in 1962. Recently, the book caught
my attention at The Oxford Exchange in Downtown Tampa. Maybe it was the Buddy Brew Cappuccino I had just treated myself to, or the charm of the bookstore itself that prompted me to linger.
That tiny paperback stopped me in my tracks. It had been on my reading
list years ago, but with a stack of new book releases piling up for reading and reviewing, it disappeared off my radar.
“Charley is a tall dog. As he sat in the seat beside me, his head was almost as high as mine. He put his nose
close to my ear and said “Ftt.” He is the only dog I ever knew who could pronounce the consonant F.
This is because his front teeth are crooked, a tragedy
which keeps him out of dog shows. The word “Ftt” usu- ally means he would like to salute a bush or a tree. From Travels with Charely in Search of America by John Steinbeck
Published by The Macmillan Company, 1962. The premise of the book, traveling across the country with
no one else but a dog sounds like fun for anyone who feels stuck in neutral with their day to day lives. The fact that Steinbeck did so in a quarter-ton pickup truck retrofitted with a little house, brings the story to life. In fact the truck, named Rocinante after Don Quixote’s horse, becomes one of the characters in Travels with Charley. Preparing for the journey, he delays departing due to an
impending storm - Hurricane Donna bearing down on his Sag Harbor hometown. His description of the pounding his beloved
66 THE NEW BARKER Rocinante, the truck.
twenty-two foot cabin boat, the Fayre Eleyne takes during the storm is heartbreakingly beautiful. Steinbeck was 58 when he set out on this journey. The urge
to always be someplace else plagued him since he was very young. “I was assured that maturity would cure this itch,” he writes. “When years described me as mature, the remedy prescribed was middle age. In middle age I was assured that greater age would calm my fever and now that I am fifty-eight perhaps senility will do the job. When the virus of restlessness begins to take possession of a wayward man, and the road away from Here seems broad and straight and sweet, the victim must first find in himself a good and sufficient reason for going.” According to the author’s oldest son, the real reason for the trip was that Steinbeck knew he was dying and wanted to see his country one last time. Steinbeck’s writing in this book is at times biting, but more often it conveys personal and thoughtful observa- tions. If nothing else, I came away from reading this book with a better understanding into my husband of more than 30 years. It opened my heart, and made him even more
John Steinbeck and Charley.
endearing to me than ever before. Steinbeck’s description of the America he was encountering –
the places, its people and their politics – still resonate today. In fact, profoundly the book reveals that we aren’t much different as a society than we were 51 years ago.
He describes the dearth
of boxes, cartons and bins that everything comes in – the packaging “we love so much.” And he is disdainful that the “mountains of things we all throw away are much greater than the things we use.” And, “I hope we may
not be overwhelmed one day by peoples not too proud or too lazy or too soft to bend to the earth and pick up the things we eat.” It’s a good thing Charley is along for the ride to provide
some comic relief for Steinbeck and his reader, and that, he does well. “Charley, if you can’t manage any better grammar than that with your tail, maybe it’s a good thing you can’t talk,” said Steinbeck upon presenting a cake to Charley for his birthday.U
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