Just when you were tired of reading about books here's a post about just one. Arguably it's one of the best, by one of the best authors, and I forgot to even mention it. I even did my high school Senior Thesis over this book (I got an A by the way) and I forgot to mention it. Before that I read it at Philmont while trekking through the mountains of New Mexico over a two week period. It was a book for which we had to buy a cheap copy for us kids because we weren't allowed to use the family copy. This may be the best travel book there is. It may not, but I've yet to read one that better instilled in the reader a desire to load up the dog in the truck and just head out for a few months. Every bit of it is enthralling.
From the onset it's easy to see that Steinbeck takes as much care in the preparation of his trips as he must have writing his books. There's the part about how he designed his own truck for the trip, the catalogue of all the things he took with him (the weight of which ended up causing him to need to replace his tires mid trip), and how the truck was almost lost in a freak storm before ever leaving his garage. For all those interested this truck is apparently located in a museum in Salinas, CA which is dedicated solely to the great author. Rocinante was her name after the horse created by another great author. Cheers to those who know who that author was.
So Steinbeck set out with Charlie, his poodle, and Rocinante. They did a tour of the country in which he related his meetings with people old and young, nice and mean, intelligent and ignorant, and everything in between. The man made coffee with eggshells and whites to "polish" it in some way. I've yet to be brave enough to try it but it sounds good the way he describes it. He ate corned beef hash from a can, and fresh fish he caught himself crusted with bacon. He gave rides to hitchhikers, witnessed racism, visited the Salinas valley of his childhood for what I've read was the last time in his life, and witnessed his wife's lapse into a southern drawl when surrounded by other southerners (she apparently didn't have one when they were at home in the north). He watched Charlie try to protect him from a bear, which is what every good dog should do. The interesting part of that was that he knew Charlie had never seen a bear before.
I could go on, but the short of it is that this book should be at the top of everyone's to read list. At least if you haven't read it yet then it should. It's one of those books that you go back and read again every now and then just to remind yourself of all those little details you forgot. It also sold more copies than any of his other books. That alone should be an indicator of how good of a read it is. If anyone has any other books they'd like reviewed let me know. If i haven't read it then I will. Otherwise I'll just review one of my own in a week or so. What will it be? You'll just have to wait and see.
3 comments:
Nice pic, always wondered if the truck "matched" my mental image of it.
Here's to pickup trucks and dogs
"When I was very young and the urge to be sompelace else was on me, I was assured by mature people that maturity would cure this itch. When years described me as mature, the remedy prescribed was middle age. In middle age I was assured that greater age would calm my fever and now that I am fifty-eight pehaps senility will do the job. Nothing has worked. Four hoarse blasts of a ship's whistle still raise the hair on my neck and set my feet to tapping. The sound of a jet, an engine warming up, even the clopping of shod hooves on pavement brings on the ancient shudder, the dry mouth and vacant eye, the hot palms and the churn of stomach high up under the rib cage. In other words, I don't improve; in further words, once a bum always a bum. I fear the disease is incurable."
I still contend that this is the greatest opening paragraph of any work ever written for the gypsy at heart. I would note a correction though; that's not the family copy, that's your mother's treasured physical gift to me and Steinbeck's intellectual gift to us all.
That'll do Josh . . , that'll do. :)
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