Travels with Charley

First read: I started this book with tremendous
expectations, I admit. But there is
something terribly disappointing about
reading a book by an author you admire
in which he laments the difficulties
of driving in heavy traffic and
complains about pollution. I
hoped for more intimacy between
Steinbeck and the American people,
I think.




Second read: Reading Blue Highways for the last two weeks somehow led me to pick up a copy of Travels with Charley.

It reads like a contemporary travelogue. Steinbeck laments the the pollution and human encroachment of wilderness that he finds wherever he travels. If I'd not been told this had been written by Steinbeck, I'd never have guessed it was his child.

I liked the book and I didn't like the book. He seems to run into the scruffiest of people, people who have run down to their last dollar, who are down on their luck and down on life.
No happy people, John? No cheery optimists?