The wayward bus

I don’t want to flog John Steinbeck incessantly but, having written about his travel books,  I wanted to try his fiction; preferably something easy, nothing too heavy going or wrathful. So I turned to The Wayward Bus. I liked the title, with its hint of troubled travelling. And it reminded me of my first tentative attempt at writing a blog, The girl on the 227 bus. (That’s enough references to my other writings – I won’t mention them again; promise).

This is a story of a beaten up bus, its passengers and driver, and their short but ill-fated journey. It’s a study in character, but Steinbeck draws the reader in, so you start to take sides, to develop likes and dislikes – just as in real life. There’s Alice, Juan Chicoy’s wife, crass and foul tempered, as worn out as the bus itself. Kit the apprentice mechanic, nicknamed for his acne, longing to be known by his real name; he could hardly be more different. Waiting for the bus is Mr Pritchard, a business man, out of his depth when not surrounded by his corporate cronies, the antithesis of Steinbeck himself. Norma the skivvy spends her days in phantasy, dreaming of Clark Gable, until warm hearted Camille, the stripper, introduces her to the ways of the world.

The Wayward Bus was written more than sixty years ago, and I wondered at the outset how it would stand up today. How much has changed along the back roads of America? My experience of the United States is limited to tourist trips, clattering along on Amtrak and riding the occasional bus, driving faltering rental cars from Super 8 to Motel 6. So I’m not the best judge. But obviously there’s been progress of sorts. I’ve never seen a bus as battered as Juan’s. The diners along the highway are all polished aluminium and paragons of hygiene, even though the calorific content hasn’t changed much. Maybe the scruffy, down at heel joints are still there, hidden in the quarters of town where nervous tourists never tread. Perhaps I’ve just looked in the wrong places.

What hasn’t changed is human nature. Alice choking back the rage in her throat because she knows what it can lead to. Well, who hasn’t been there? Pritchard, secure only in the cosy folds of the like minded; exactly the criticism levelled at politicians today, certainly on this side of the Atlantic.
This book has been compared to Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, and comparisons with The Prologue are obvious; a parade of characters revealing their inner selves as they set off on a journey. But that’s where the comparison ends. With Steinbeck, the pen pictures are there, but the characters are developed through the unravelling of the drama. And drama there is, with the swollen river threatening destruction to the bridge, the coach and its passengers

Above all, this is a book about emotions – anger, resentment, frustration, lust, amusement and hope. If the bashed up bus is wayward, then more so the characters. By the end, some of them have gone right off the rails.

Next time you take a bus, you’ll look askance at your fellow passengers. Behind those impassive faces, who knows what they’re really thinking?