I do like the feel of a book once I’ve finished savoring it: worn like a favorite shoe. One can feel slight creases in the cover, perhaps a curled page or minor tear in the spine. Woe is the book that, once having been read could be returned to a store without question, not showing any mark upon itself expressing how it was once treasured, tossed in a bag, fallen from a bed, maybe wedged under papers on a desk and retrieved with tea-stained edges.
Of course, it does cause grief to see harm done to a favored text. One must never throw a book. Such blatant disrespect is not to be tolerated. One doesn’t wish to see a page torn or a cover harshly creased or a spine broken so one page is the constant middle. Rather, one hopes that through gentle wear and afternoons spent in a favorite resting place that the tome will emerge as worn as we: a bit older, having discovered some new wisdom, but never beaten or broken. Just cared for, sought, and enjoyed.
I wrote these thoughts after I finished reading a much worn copy of John Steinbeck’s Travels with Charley: In Search of America last week. I picked it up after finishing Bill Bryson’s The Lost Continent: Travels in Small-Town America which was an easy read but Bryson was so crabby the whole time that I needed something to clean my palette. I thought Steinbeck would cheer me up and I was right. I decided with Travels with Charley that I love John Steinbeck. I’ve always wanted to love a classic American author, someone who would make me feel like I’m really a part of the literary scene in our country because I understand his writing. I already love plenty of work by female authors so I was looking specifically for a male author. I tried loving Fitzgerald but nothing was as wonderful as The Great Gatsby and I tried loving Hemingway but I couldn’t figure out how.
I’ve found my old man in Steinbeck for his simple truths:
“…we do not take a trip; a trip takes us…”
“…in my own life I am not willing to trade quality for quantity.”
“A sad soul can kill you quicker, far quicker, than a germ.”
“There are as many worlds as there are kinds of days…”
Is that overkill? I don’t care. He chooses his words to exactly fit what he wants to say. He acknowledges his weaknesses and doesn’t apologize for them. He lays out his fears and his joys as equals. He is so genuine I feel as if I’ve met him just from reading this one book of his. (I’ve read others but Travels with Charley being something of a memoir is a bit more personal.)
Bryson, for his part, had some good things to say too when he wasn’t being such a grouch. He held me when he wrote: “I wanted to step outside my front door and be somewhere.” Isn’t that what we all strive for? Meaning in our lives? Can we find it in the spaces we inhabit? Can we make the spaces of our lives be somewhere? How?
Bryson, as I’ve mentioned in an earlier post, is quite funny. I particularly enjoyed his observation that “…American radio is designed for people who have already lost their minds” and I agree wholeheartedly but for one small detail: in Minnesota we are fortunate in that we have MPR and more specifically: The Current.
The Lost Continent (1989) and Travels with Charley (1969) share a common theme in that they are both about travels through the United States and even though neither of them had anything decent to say about Minnesota, they were neat paired together. I wonder had retrieved my copy of Kerouac’s On the Road (1951) from an old family friend if I could have had a travel trifecta. I read it many years ago and I think it might have been over my head. I love travel and the thrill of discovery and these three books allow for these joys when I don’t have the resources so thank you, gentlemen.
This is a particularly appropriate day for discussing discovery as it is the 25th anniversary of the Challenger explosion and the death of seven NASA astronauts. There are many types of travel, many motivators and destinations, but none so heartbreaking as a journey that ends in violence and catastrophy. Some seek truth and others wonder; may our journeys always bring us safely home once more, wherever that may be.
Traveling mercies.
