John Steinbeck (and Charley) on Texas

Steinbeck’s comments about Texas and Texans go well beyond his “Texas is a state of mind” quote. Texas Standard commentator W.F. Strong explores. The full transcript of this episode of Stories from Texas is available on the KUT & KUTX Studio website. The transcript is also available as subtitles or captions on some podcast apps.

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Episode Transcript

(00:00):
I'm rather certain that most Texans
have heard the often quoted words
of John Steinbeck.
Texas is a state of mind,
but I think it is more than that.
It is a mystique, closely
approximating a religion.
He wrote that in his nonfiction work
Travels with Charley in Search of
America.
Charley was a standard poodle

(00:21):
who was Steinbeck's traveling
companion in 1960
when together they cruised
America's highways and back roads
in a GMC pickup truck
with a makeshift camper that
Steinbeck called the Rising
Sun.
He named the truck after don't yield
his horse.
What may be news to many is that
Steinbeck's comments about Texas

(00:43):
and Texans goes
well beyond his state of mind
in its ten pages
beyond.
He has much more to say about us
that is generally complimentary
and sometimes critical.
But as people on the border say, he
says, it conquered Inyo with
affection.
Steinbeck wrote, When I started
this narrative, I knew that sooner

(01:04):
or later I would have to have a go
at Texas, and I dreaded it.
I could have bypassed Texas
about as easily as a space
traveler can avoid the Milky Way.
Once you were in Texas, it seems
to take forever to get out.
And some people never do.
Even if I wanted to

(01:25):
avoid Texas, I could
not. For I am lived
in Texas and mother in law
and uncle and a cousin and
entered within an inch of my
life.
Staying away from Texas
geographically is no help whatsoever
for Texas.
Moves through our house in New York
and our fishing cottage in SAG
Harbor.

(01:45):
It permeates the world to a
ridiculous degree.
Once in Florence, on
seeing a lovely young
Italian princess, I said
to her father, But she doesn't
look Italian.
To which her father replied.
Her grandfather married a Cherokee
in Texas.
Here, Steinbeck laments the
struggles all writers have in

(02:06):
trying to define Texas and Texans.
He says that they all end up
floundering and lose themselves
in generalizations that
have little meaning.
He says that he is no exception to
this rule, but he tries anyway.
Texas, he says, is a state of mind.
Texas is an obsession.

(02:26):
Above all, Texas is
a nation in every sense
of the word.
Steinbeck notes that a Texan outside
of Texas is a foreigner.
He says that his wife claims that
she is a Texan who got away, but
he doesn't buy it.
He says she has virtually no accent
until she talks to another Texan
when she instantly reverts.

(02:48):
Soon she is saying yes, air
hare and yes with two syllables.
Yes, air, hare
and gas.
Steinbeck touches on many Texas
themes in his wanderings and
wanderings.
On secession, he writes, Texans
claim the right to secede
at will.
They want to be able to secede, but

(03:08):
they don't want anyone to want them
to.
On Texas. History says Texas has
its own private history
based on, but not limited
to facts.
Steinbeck says that Texans are
tight. If you attack one Texan,
you attack them all.
They circle the wagons.
There may be no geographical unity

(03:29):
in Texas. Its unity lies
in the mind.
And this is not only in Texas.
The word Texas becomes a symbol
to everyone in the world.
Texans and football.
Sectional football games have
the glory and despair
of war.
And when a Texas team takes the

(03:50):
field against a foreign
state, it is an army
with banners
on cattle.
The tradition of the frontier
cattlemen is tenderly
nurtured in Texas.
When a man makes his fortune,
his first act is to buy
a ranch the largest he
can afford and to run some cattle.

(04:12):
Steinbeck concludes that Texas has
a cohesiveness, perhaps
stronger than any other
section of America.
Texas is the obsession
and the passionate possession
of all Texans.
I'm W.F. Strong.
These are stories from Texas.
Some of them are true.