Book 15: Finished.

I really, really liked Travels with Charley. It wasn’t that it was the best thing I have ever read, but it ranks pretty high as one of the most inspirational. I think that if I would have read this at a different time I could have felt differently. I mean, the book spoke to me in the moment, and it was meant to be read when I read it.

(I believe in fate, don’t you?)

There were many passages I loved, some for their quirkiness and some because they were breathtakingly beautiful. Here are a few I loved:

In speaking to an actor about his craft Steinbeck says, “So it went on—a profession older than writing and one that will probably survive when the written word has disappeared. And all the sterile wonders of movies and television will fail to wipe it out—a living man in communication with a living audience. But how did he live? Who were his companions? What was his hidden life? He was right. His exit whetted the questions,” (151).

On being a restless American, “Driving the big highway near Toledo I had a conversation with Charley on the subject of roots. He listened but he didn’t reply. In the pattern-thinking about roots I and most other people have left two things out of consideration. Could it be that Americans are a restless people, a mobile people, never satisfied with where they are as a matter of selection? The pioneers, the immigrants who peopled the continent, were the restless ones in Europe. The steady rooted ones stayed home and are still there,” (103).

And because I work for a parks system, “I must confess to a laxness in the matter of National Parks. I haven’t visited many of them. Perhaps this is because they enclose the unique, the spectacular, the astounding—the greatest waterfall, the deepest canyon, the highest cliff, the most stupendous works of man or nature. And I would rather see a good Brady photograph than Mount Rushmore. For it is my opinion that we enclose and celebrate the freaks of our nation and of our civilization. Yellowstone National Park is no more representative of America than is Disneyland,” (161).

This was a book full of personality. Steinbeck is a marvelous narrator and you can really see the place he speaks about, and relate to the individuals he meets along the way. Charley is a great companion and sidekick, often offering relief from the trials of the road.

Steinbeck recalls conversations with the people he meets along the way to add to his narrative. The conversations offer little portraits of life of Americans, but no where does Steinbeck really discover America and what it is to be an American. He never finds specific answers, and you would hope that he doesn’t. It’s not really his goal. He is merely exploring and seeing a nation that even so broad, has much in common.

He also hits on many of the issues plaguing the nation at the time of his journey, namely the flight of people from their hometowns and the discrimination issues in the South. Those scenes, near the end of the book, were difficult to leave, but one line really sticks out in my head;

“What we knew is dead, and maybe the greatest part of what we were is dead. What’s out there is new and perhaps good, but it’s nothing we know,” (203).

Throughout his journey, Steinbeck discusses how America is changing and how it isn’t stagnant any more, and that is his answer. Americas as a people are changing, adapting, and shifting to the things that are thrown their way. So while Steinbeck never answers his question, the reader knows and we understand.

Like I said in an earlier post, this book came at the right time. Not only was it a reaffirmation in what I am trying to accomplish here, but I read it on my own journey through a portion of America. Matt and I took a side trip on our way back to Michigan through the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, as well as the National Forests that litter Northern Georgia, the western part of North Carolina, and Tennessee. As we took the scenic roads and Matt pointed at things for me take pictures of, we kept saying, “Wow, it is so beautiful down here.” We commented on the houses, the people, and the way of life. And in our own way, we developed our own image of what America is, or just edited the old vision we had. In any case, we knew that words and pictures could not describe the beauty of what we had seen, even as we tried to capture it.

I think that is the frustration Steinbeck must have felt. He sought out the beauty in people and found it, but couldn’t explain it in a way that all his readers could understand. But I got it, so I could walk away from this book knowing. And even though I have tried to explain it to you, you can’t understand the depth of it until you have seen it yourself.

So save this one for the right moment. I think it’ll only matter to you then.

All pictures were taken by me during our trip.

Book 15: Journeys.

There have only been a couple of times in my life where I picked up a book and it was perfect for that moment. You can’t plan it, you can’t try for it; it just happens. And when one of those books comes along, it just speaks to you in that moment. You simply have to take it in for what it is and cherish those moments.

When I selected a few books to take with me on our road trip down to Orlando for our honeymoon, I just grabbed a few things that I “might” want to read. Travels with Charley was one of those books. I only knew that it was a travel narrative and nothing more. I didn’t know how perfect it was going to be for a road trip down to Florida and back.

From the moment I began reading, I was touched by Steinbeck’s words:

“Once a journey is designed, equipped, and put in process, a new factor enters and takes over. A trip, a safari, an exploration, is an entity, different from all other journeys. It has personality, temperament, individuality, uniqueness. A journey is a person in itself; no two are alike. And all plans, safeguards, policing, and coercion are fruitless. We find after years of struggle that we do not take a trip; a trip takes us. Tour masters, schedules, reservations, brass-bound and inevitable, dash themselves to wreckage on the personality of the trip. Only when this is recognized can the blown-in-the-glass bum relax and go along with it. Only then do all the frustrations fall away. In this a journey is like marriage. The certain way to be wrong is to think you control it. I feel better now, having said this, although only those who have experienced it will understand it,” (4).

How perfect an analogy for the journey Matt and I started on that trip down there. When I first read those words, we were only a couple of hours into our trip, stuck on the highway in a blizzard. We were starting two journeys then; one to our destination in Orlando, and the other with each other. And the journey has swept us along with it in the process. It has/had a plan of its own and we were merely along for the ride.

But I also felt a much deeper connection to this because of this blog. My blog and this challenge to myself is an odyssey; that is what inspired the name. And in many aspects, this blog has taken a hold of me and I am merely along for the ride. I never thought anyone would read it outside my family and I never thought that I would already feel something for doing this. With each book, each side trip if you will, I am already feeling a sense of accomplishment and like I have gotten somewhere. I never would have picked up these books if I hadn’t challenged myself to do so and I KNOW that there are many other great things waiting for me in the covers of the books I have yet to read.

Steinbeck set out in the fall of 1960 to see America and to figure out what America was, much like I set out in the fall of 2009 to find purpose. He had questions in mind, but got no definite answer. I am merely hoping that I get answers to the questions I’m not even sure of.