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.
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