It seems like it took me a really long time to finish “Travels with Charley.” I was expecting it to be a fun-to-read travelogue, but I really didn’t enjoy it that much. Maybe it’s because of my associative distaste for John Steinbeck. It just seemed like he thought he would write a fun little tale of his travels, but then he got home and just couldn’t shake the melancholy. A lot of Steinbeck’s observations are still spot-on, though, and some of his stuff did make me laugh. Well, smile a little, at least.

“When we get these thurways across the whole country … it will be possible to drive from New York to California without seeing a single thing.”

“I was so full of humble greatness, I could hardly speak. … I hope that evil-looking service-station man may live a thousand years and people the earth with his offspring.”