After finishing the Atomic Enchiladas and listening to Wolfie's (my son) crazy organ music, I read a little more from the Steinbeck book "Travels with Charley".
Steinbeck get very introspective once he hits his hometown of Salinas California, and reveals much of his true thoughts and wisdom. The book no longer is a fun adventurous road-trip like when he started. He talks of the locals he had known that treat him like an outsider and he quotes Thomas Wolfe, saying that "home has ceased to exist except in the mothballs of memory".
My take on it is that his controversial book "The Grapes of Wrath", and his rejection by some of the rich farmers from his own valley, who called Steinbeck a "communist" and shit, have forever estranged him from his native place. He moved on from Salinas then crossed the Mohave desert and began to philosophize.
Some of his quotes from the Desert chapter were quite profound. "and there are true secrets to the desert. In the war of sun and dryness against living things, life has it's secrets of survival." and goes on to state: " I find most interesting the conspiracy of life in the desert to circumvent the death rays of the all-conquering sun."! Damn that man could write!
Steinbeck goes on and adds: "The desert, being an unwanted place, might well be the last stand of life against unlife. For in the rich and moist and wanted areas of the world, life pyramids against itself and in its confusion has finally allied itself with the enemy... non-life. And what the scorching, searing, freezing, poisoning weapons of non-life have failed to do may be accomplished to the end of its destruction and extinction by the tactics of survival gone sour."
John Steinbeck shared the concern of the worlds destruction with others such as Einstein and Oppenheimer and many, many others. But John Steinbeck proposes that the inhabitants of the deserts....being used to such harsh extremes and tribulations could possibly be where the survivors of the destruction would come from.
He writes " The lone man and his sun-toughened wife who cling to the shade in an unfruitful and uncoveted place might, with their brothers in arms....the coyote, the jackrabbit, the horned toad, the rattlesnake, together with a host of armoured insects---- these trained and tested fragments of life might well be the last hope of life against non-life." then adds this poignant sentence: "The desert has mothered magic things before this."
Curious how after his initially his trip sounded like a personal blog or even a tourist guide book, then turns into a personal journey. After Steinbeck visits Salinas, the book turns inward-then on to profound philosophy. Steinbeck seems to be searching for something. Unfortunately the book is almost over when he gets to his desert ideas. He is only halfway finished with his trip yet the book is nearly over. I think he lost interest after the heartbreak of visiting his home town.
Life is all about "heartbreak" and how we deal with it. There are many types of heartbreak and millions of ways to address it or accept it. The heartbreak of being rejected by many of his old friends and neighbors is a tough thing for Steinbeck to live with. I suspect that he was so far beyond those people in his writings and ideas, that he tended to make those folks quite uncomfortable and his old friends had no choice but to reject him and his ideas. People reject things out of fear or misunderstanding, or a perceived need for self-preservation: This causes people like Steinbeck to travel to the desert and contemplate existences.
Steinbeck get very introspective once he hits his hometown of Salinas California, and reveals much of his true thoughts and wisdom. The book no longer is a fun adventurous road-trip like when he started. He talks of the locals he had known that treat him like an outsider and he quotes Thomas Wolfe, saying that "home has ceased to exist except in the mothballs of memory".
My take on it is that his controversial book "The Grapes of Wrath", and his rejection by some of the rich farmers from his own valley, who called Steinbeck a "communist" and shit, have forever estranged him from his native place. He moved on from Salinas then crossed the Mohave desert and began to philosophize.
Some of his quotes from the Desert chapter were quite profound. "and there are true secrets to the desert. In the war of sun and dryness against living things, life has it's secrets of survival." and goes on to state: " I find most interesting the conspiracy of life in the desert to circumvent the death rays of the all-conquering sun."! Damn that man could write!
Steinbeck goes on and adds: "The desert, being an unwanted place, might well be the last stand of life against unlife. For in the rich and moist and wanted areas of the world, life pyramids against itself and in its confusion has finally allied itself with the enemy... non-life. And what the scorching, searing, freezing, poisoning weapons of non-life have failed to do may be accomplished to the end of its destruction and extinction by the tactics of survival gone sour."
John Steinbeck shared the concern of the worlds destruction with others such as Einstein and Oppenheimer and many, many others. But John Steinbeck proposes that the inhabitants of the deserts....being used to such harsh extremes and tribulations could possibly be where the survivors of the destruction would come from.
He writes " The lone man and his sun-toughened wife who cling to the shade in an unfruitful and uncoveted place might, with their brothers in arms....the coyote, the jackrabbit, the horned toad, the rattlesnake, together with a host of armoured insects---- these trained and tested fragments of life might well be the last hope of life against non-life." then adds this poignant sentence: "The desert has mothered magic things before this."
Curious how after his initially his trip sounded like a personal blog or even a tourist guide book, then turns into a personal journey. After Steinbeck visits Salinas, the book turns inward-then on to profound philosophy. Steinbeck seems to be searching for something. Unfortunately the book is almost over when he gets to his desert ideas. He is only halfway finished with his trip yet the book is nearly over. I think he lost interest after the heartbreak of visiting his home town.
Life is all about "heartbreak" and how we deal with it. There are many types of heartbreak and millions of ways to address it or accept it. The heartbreak of being rejected by many of his old friends and neighbors is a tough thing for Steinbeck to live with. I suspect that he was so far beyond those people in his writings and ideas, that he tended to make those folks quite uncomfortable and his old friends had no choice but to reject him and his ideas. People reject things out of fear or misunderstanding, or a perceived need for self-preservation: This causes people like Steinbeck to travel to the desert and contemplate existences.
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Kudos to you. I just read this passage of Steinbeck´s myself this morning, and came to the internet cafe in Granada, Nicaragua to send it to some friends.
ReplyDeleteDoing something similar, only i'm in a motorcycle in latin america, sans dog. However, I am headed towards the western USA. Maybe we'll bump into one another. I hate rv parks too..
Vaya bien - safe travels,
Pieter