I read. I read a LOT. I wolf down Biggie-Sized books in no time. I don't so much drink them in as chug them. If there were a literary equivalent to the beer bong, I would be using it. I love reading, and I can't keep my eyes from racing along, speeding towards the next plot point. . .usually.
I've been reading Travels with Charley, and like every Steinbeck book I've picked up before, I love it. I can't quite figure out why, but I'm working on it. Certainly it must have to do with his style, which at times can be somewhat passive, something my English teachers told me was a no-no but which I often find creeping into my own writing. One day I hope to pin it down. Some say knowing the magician's tricks can ruin the fun, but if the magician's tricks are real, I think all that can come of it is appreciation and enjoyment on another level.
Unlike most authors, I can't read Steinbeck quickly, even though he's never a difficult read. Sometimes he might use a word in an unorthodox manner, or might turn a slightly tricky phrase, but on the whole, I have to say he doesn't wander north of a 10th-12th grade reading level. Still, there's something about his writing that rewards the patient reader. If many of the other books I read are mass-produced beer, Steinbeck's works are fine microbrews, which reward every sip with a rich palette of flavors and scents.
There are better passages in the book, in all probability, than this one. There's a wonderful piece where he met and spent the evening with a group of migratory workers, but that was many pages back. This is a paragraph I just read, and I find something compelling even in this simple description.
There's something to Steinbeck, I think, that reminds me of Robert Frost. An unpretentious style of speech used to effectively conjure images of nature, of people, and of America.
Anyway, that's all I have for now. Travels with Charley has to go back to the library in a couple days, but I think I'll check it out again. 🙂
I've been reading Travels with Charley, and like every Steinbeck book I've picked up before, I love it. I can't quite figure out why, but I'm working on it. Certainly it must have to do with his style, which at times can be somewhat passive, something my English teachers told me was a no-no but which I often find creeping into my own writing. One day I hope to pin it down. Some say knowing the magician's tricks can ruin the fun, but if the magician's tricks are real, I think all that can come of it is appreciation and enjoyment on another level.
Unlike most authors, I can't read Steinbeck quickly, even though he's never a difficult read. Sometimes he might use a word in an unorthodox manner, or might turn a slightly tricky phrase, but on the whole, I have to say he doesn't wander north of a 10th-12th grade reading level. Still, there's something about his writing that rewards the patient reader. If many of the other books I read are mass-produced beer, Steinbeck's works are fine microbrews, which reward every sip with a rich palette of flavors and scents.
There are better passages in the book, in all probability, than this one. There's a wonderful piece where he met and spent the evening with a group of migratory workers, but that was many pages back. This is a paragraph I just read, and I find something compelling even in this simple description.
To mill so close together is the nature of turkeys in the evening. I remembered how on the ranch in my youth the turkeys gathered and roosted in clots in the cypress trees, out of reach of wildcats and coyotes, the only indication I know of that turkeys have any intelligence at all. To know them is not to admire them, for they are vain and hysterical. They gather in vulnerable groups and then panic at rumors. They are subject to all the sicknesses of other fowl, together with some they have invented. Turkeys seem to be manic-depressive types, gobbling with blushing wattles, spread tails, and scraping wings in amorous bravado at one moment, and huddled in craven cowardice the next. It is hard to see how they can be related to their wild, clever, suspicious cousins. But here in their thousands they carpeted the earth waiting to lie on their backs on the platters of America.
There's something to Steinbeck, I think, that reminds me of Robert Frost. An unpretentious style of speech used to effectively conjure images of nature, of people, and of America.
Anyway, that's all I have for now. Travels with Charley has to go back to the library in a couple days, but I think I'll check it out again. 🙂