A couple of weeks ago I wrote about John Steinbeck’s account of his foray into the Soviet Union, in A Russian Journal. Having seen what he thought of the USSR, I wondered what he would make of his homeland. So I turned to Travels with Charley.
After spending ten years living in Europe, Steinbeck returned to the United States and, in an effort to re-connect with the land and its people, set off on a three months road trip in a state of the art campervan, accompanied by his French poodle, Charley. Starting in New York, he travels to Seattle, then down to California and home via Texas and New Orleans.
The result is an uneven book. By the half way point in the text he has reached no further than Chicago. Then follows a rush to the west, reflections on the California of his youth, and finally his thoughts about Texas and racial segregation in the deep South. Descriptions of scenery is sparse to say the least. He marvels at the richness of Wisconsin and, in the failing light of evening, sees the Bad Lands of North Dakota as the Good Lands. But red tape bars him from Niagara and he hardly gets to see Yellowstone. Charley is spooked by the roadside bears and he beats a rapid retreat.
As Steinbeck discovers, travelling in a campervan is a solitary experience. You only get to meet people when you come to a halt. So, although he has his encounters – with truckers, mobile home dwellers, Canuk potato pickers – for much of the time he has only himself, and the irrepressible Charley, for company. Not that this can prevent his descriptive genius from shining through. He ‘whitened his sepulchre’ to attend a church service led by a hell and brimstone preacher, gets into a tangle with customs officials when attempting to enter Canada, and brushes with a monosyllabic state trooper in Maine.
Usually he reserves judgement on the people he meets, but his patience is tested to the limit by his experience of racial hatred in New Orleans; first the taxi driver who blames everything on the Jews for stirring things up, and the women who line up to hurl abuse at the children arriving for school. Finally he loses his cool with a man to whom he has given a lift, and he unceremoniously kicks him out of his van. Steinbeck has reached the end of his tether, and he is glad to head for home.
In the course of his travels, Steinbeck gets to reflect on the experiencing of visiting places. What one person will see from one perspective, another person will see quite differently. As for revisiting your past, you can experience it only through the spectrum of memory. In travelling with Steinbeck, we get to see the country through his eyes. What we get is hardly a comprehensive guide, but there’s rarely a dull moment.
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