Travels with Charley (John Steinbeck)

John Steinbeck
Travels with Charley: In Search of America

A road trip with dog who gets far too much attention in my opinion. It's a strange book. Very interesting and of course Steinbeck describes places and people with great evocative detail. He meets lots of people and we hear their conversations often involving coffee or whiskey in the van. And although he tells us how great people are, or not, I come away with the impression that he doesn't really like people that much. It starts me wondering if his novels are like that and to be honest whilst his characters are interesting none are particularly likeable if I remember rightly. I think he liked places and dogs more than people. At least that's how it comes over. The ending is fairly unsatisfying as he suddenly gets fed up travelling and rushes back home to NY without telling us anything about it. So the story sort of peters out into nothing. Feels like he wanted to write a book about a road trip and in the end gets fed up with it but needs to finish the book for publication. Maybe that's a little unfair but I do remember thinking it's not that great when I've read it before.

Reunion (Fred Uhlman)

Fred Uhlman
Reunion

Very readable short novel where not a lot happens action wise, if you discount that the story is about a German Jewish boy during the rise of fascism and slide into WWII, which is really a study in friendship and loss with a twist in the tail. It's a very descriptive piece and I won't try to summarise. A quick read and well worth it.

The Professor (Charlotte Brontë)

Charlotte Brontë

The Professor

Interesting tale of an English teacher in Brussels written from his narrative. It seems very moralistic whilst putting forward incredibly unflattering caricatures of various nationalities, including the English, which makes it altogether confusing. The fact that it was written before Charlotte was "outed" as a woman and written originally (although not published?) under her male nom de plume makes it even more interesting, or strange. Spoiler... The characters are not particularly likeable in fact the one that is most obnoxious turns out to be the most likeable in my view. The story is fairly mundane and whilst anticipating a wholly predictable sting in the tail there isn't one which is just as bad as having the predictable one. The ending is strange in being about to submit the son to a life of misery at Eton to toughen him up in readiness for life in a world where everyone is out for themselves. That includes the narrator and his wife who are introduced as likeable, albeit with personality defects, but whose romance seems to be less romantic and more convenient. As ever, it's difficult to judge a book from today's society's context and to give that context there is an interesting introduction which gives certain aspects of the story more analysis than I had and how it relates to both the author, her life and society at that time. Interesting but by no means a classic. Although apparently the author was adamant as to it's value and that it should be published the shame being that it only was after her death.