An urgency saddled Steinbeck his entire life, a tension to move yet a need-as a writer-to remain still. Of course his horizons are limited, but how wide are mine?Ī man who once let the rhythms of America run through his fingers like a handful of water admitted he was removed, even homesick. But in his own field of endeavor, which he was now practicing, the slow, imperial smelling over and anointing of an area, he has no peer. He can't read, can't drive a car, and has no grasp of mathematics. Steinbeck found his beloved pet the most suitable companion. Doris Lessing once said, "No doubt fiction makes a better job of the truth." Even fictionalized, his journals give us insight into this man and into America as he saw it. Steinbeck was always a fan of large mythological figures and language like "the night was full of omens" it's no surprise he mythologizes himself. (Read more here.) In reality, his wife accompanied him, and he stayed at more than one high-priced hotel, apart from the people he sought to know. Recent exploration of Steinbeck's journals and the journey itself suggest that many encounters were fictionalized. In 1962, towards the end of his life and the year he won the Nobel Prize, John Steinbeck (Febru– December 20, 1968) drove around the United States with his French poodle, Charley, and wrote of the experience in Travels with Charley.
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