Japanese Book Club Language Exchange Meetup: Travels with Charley

Join us for an exciting meetup where we combine language exchange with exploring literature. This event is perfect for language enthusiasts and bookworms looking to enhance their language skills.

This month, we will be discussing Travels with Charley in Search of America by John Steinbeck.

An intimate journey across America, as told by one of its most beloved writers.

To hear the speech of the real America, to smell the grass and the trees, to see the colors and the light—these were John Steinbeck's goals as he set out, at the age of fifty-eight, to rediscover the country he had been writing about for so many years.

With Charley, his French poodle, Steinbeck drives the interstates and the country roads, dines with truckers, encounters bears at Yellowstone and old friends in San Francisco. Along the way he reflects on the American character, racial hostility, the particular form of American loneliness he finds almost everywhere, and the unexpected kindness of strangers.

アメリカを横断する、心温まる旅。アメリカで最も愛される作家の一人が綴る物語。

真のアメリカの言葉を聞き、草木が生い茂る香りを嗅ぎ、色彩と光を感じ取る――これこそが、58歳にして長年書き続けてきたこの国を再発見しようと旅に出たジョン・スタインベックの願いだった。

愛犬のフレンチプードル、チャーリーと共に、スタインベックは州間高速道路や田舎道を走り、トラック運転手たちと食事を共にし、イエローストーンで熊に出会い、サンフランシスコで旧友たちと再会する。旅の途中で、彼はアメリカ人の国民性、人種差別、至る所で感じるアメリカ特有の孤独、そして見知らぬ人々の思いがけない優しさについて思いを巡らせる。