That first road trip resulted in his first major book, 1939’s The Grapes of Wrath. As he prepped his RV - nicknamed Rocinante, after Don Quixote’s horse - he recalled a similar trip he had taken in 1936, when he rigged a used bakery delivery truck, left his home near Monterey, California, and headed to the San Joaquin Valley to report on the desperate migrant farm workers flooding the region. But it’s a fun, easy read and it will help future writers develop their use of language and the building blocks of a good story.In September 1960, John Steinbeck decided to hitch a trailer to a pickup truck, leave his home in New York, and take a road trip around the United States. So is the book life-changing? No, it’s not.
Is it a life-changing journey? No, it’s not. Without giving too much of the plot away, the journey throws Steinbeck several curveballs and he experiences things that were unexpected for him – and thus are also unexpected for the reader.
It also makes it an amazing read for dog owners, like myself, because you can recognize the reactions of Charley and it makes you want to grab your pet and cuddle him.
That makes this travelogue original – it’s not just what Steinbeck is feeling, but it’s about what the dog is feeling and what this might mean. The journey is described by landscapes and people and the reaction of his dog Charley to both of those. As a traveller myself, those chapters felt like he had looked inside my soul and put my thoughts into words that are far beyond my talent. Highlights are the first few chapters, where Steinbeck explains not just his love for travel, but the need he feels for travel. The plot is fairly simply a man and his dog take a home on wheels and drive around America to satisfy the wanderlust of the man. No one can tell a story like that man and that’s what made the book great. It is a great read, but that’s because Steinbeck is so ridiculously talented with story telling. Life is not a fairy tale and Travels with Charleydid not make me fall in love with the travel-writing genre.
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