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A review by irelandrhea
Travels with Charley: In Search of America by John Steinbeck
3.0
rating this seems silly, as i’ve been reading it on and off for six months not because i really wanted to, but because i thought it would be instructive in my exploration of the travel writing genre. and it was. at first i thought i’d give it four stars, then five, then back to four, and i’ve settled on three.
there were many wonderful lines and sections; my copy has been heavily highlighted and dog-eared. but i would’ve liked to know from the outset that 1) there would be no arc, no real structure; and 2) his reflections on “racial hostility” (as the back of the book frames it) would be incredibly surface-level. while i expected these things to some extent, the ways in which certain interactions/memories/events were framed were still very… disappointing.
i’m sure i will refer back to this book and some of its more magical sections for the rest of my life… but overall it was… disappointing.
there were many wonderful lines and sections; my copy has been heavily highlighted and dog-eared. but i would’ve liked to know from the outset that 1) there would be no arc, no real structure; and 2) his reflections on “racial hostility” (as the back of the book frames it) would be incredibly surface-level. while i expected these things to some extent, the ways in which certain interactions/memories/events were framed were still very… disappointing.
i’m sure i will refer back to this book and some of its more magical sections for the rest of my life… but overall it was… disappointing.