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Bezig met laden... Travels with Charley in Search of America (origineel 1962; editie 1980)door John Steinbeck (Auteur)
Informatie over het werkReizen met Charley door John Steinbeck (1962)
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Travels with Charley is a great story of Steinbeck‘s road trip around America. While it dances on the line between fiction and non-fiction, it succeeds beautifully in capturing both the essence of wanderlust and a telling snapshot in time of the US. At times I wished I had read this in print so that I could highlight some of its many memorable passages, but then I would have missed this excellent feat of audiobook narration by Gary Sinise.
Steinbeck’s book-length account of his journey, “Travels With Charley: In Search of America,” published in 1962, was generally well reviewed and became a best-seller. It remains in print, regarded by some as a classic of American travel writing. Almost from the beginning, though, a few readers pointed out that many of the conversations in the book had a stagey, wooden quality, not unlike the dialogue in Steinbeck’s fiction. Early on in the book, for example, Steinbeck has a New England farmer talking in folksy terms about Nikita S. Khrushchev’s shoe-pounding (or -brandishing, depending on whom you ask) speech at the United Nations weeks before Khrushchev actually visited the United Nations. A particularly unlikely encounter occurs at a campsite near Alice, N.D., where a Shakespearean actor, mistaking Steinbeck for a fellow thespian, greets him with a sweeping bow, saying, “I see you are of the profession,” and then proceeds to talk about John Gielgud. Even Steinbeck’s son John said he was convinced that his father never talked to many of the people he wrote about, and added, “He just sat in his camper and wrote all that [expletive].” Onderdeel van de uitgeversreeks(en)COLECÇÃO DOIS MUNDOS (Livros do Brasil) — 6 meer Is opgenomen inCannery Row | East of Eden | Grapes of Wrath | Of Mice and Men | The Pearl | Travels with Charley door John Steinbeck Setinbeck Hardcover Collection: Tortilla Flat, The Winter of Our Discontent, East of Eden, The Grapes of Wrath, Travels with Charley, & The Long Valley door John Steinbeck Is verkort inInspireerdeHeeft als studiegids voor studentenPrijzenOnderscheidingenErelijsten
Author John Steinbeck was 58 when he set out to rediscover the country he had been writing about for so many years. With his elderly French poodle, Charley, he embarked on a quest across America, from the northermost tip of Maine to California's Monterey Peninsula. Traveling the interstates and the country roads, they stopped to smell America: trucker and strangers, old friends and new acquaintances. Steinbeck's poignant, perceptive reflections reveal the American character: a blend of unexpected kindnesses and racial hostilities, loneliness and humor. Geen bibliotheekbeschrijvingen gevonden. |
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Google Books — Bezig met laden... GenresDewey Decimale Classificatie (DDC)818.5203Literature English (North America) Authors, American and American miscellany 20th Century 1900-1945 DiariesLC-classificatieWaarderingGemiddelde:
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It’s an older Steinbeck who decides to travel America coast to coast and back again to see what the country is like now. He feels a bit out of touch with what the American people are thinking and takes his ute with a caravan on the back and his dog Charley on a trip. He aims to stay off the huge highways and away from the big cities, exploring the back roads and talking with everyday people. Of course, sometimes he deviates (for example when he’s just wanting to get home or when Charley is ill) and sometimes he stays in highway motels. What Steinbeck aims to do is to take the temperature of America politically and culturally. He somewhat succeeds, finding that the differences between the states is becoming less and less from news to accents. The people are generally becoming a homogenous mix and the radio and newspapers state the same thing. But he perseveres and meets some interesting characters, with views that vary from the old to the modern. His descriptions of the landscape are phenomenal and his joy in finding out that Wisconsin is the cheese state would bring joy to anyone’s face! (As an Australian, I did not know that).
Steinbeck arrives in his old stomping ground in California and the mood turns melancholy. Everyone is older, some friends are no longer around and things have changes but in Steinbeck’s head, they are still as they were during his youth. It’s there that the narrative and the author are ready for home and the familiarity that goes with it. He moves on to Texas and Thanksgiving with his wife and friends (I have no idea if his comments about the state have truth to them, but they are amusing at times). He then travels to New Orleans to see for himself the ‘cheerleaders’ – women who yell abuse at the desegregation of schools and the Black children who attend. It’s a sobering experience for both Steinbeck and the reader and the book closes relatively quickly after that.
I feel that Steinbeck’s writing captures the issues of today just as well as those of yesteryear. People are over politics, full of hate or genuinely trying to do their best in a world that is change. His writing is just as eloquent in Travels With Charley as in his novels, capturing the mood and painting the scene clearly as if it was the modern era. It’s full of wit but also doesn’t sugarcoat the country’s problems. I recommend it just as highly as Steinbeck’s novels.
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