Note: When I was pursuing my BA at San José State University, I enrolled in Steinbeck studies with Professor Susan Shillinglaw. John Steinbeck has been my favorite American author since I was ten years old, and I was incredibly fortunate to study with Professor Shillinglaw, who is one of the top Steinbeck scholars in the world. She was the director of the National Steinbeck Center in Salinas, California from 2015-2018; she was also the director of San José State’s Center for Steinbeck Studies for 18 years. She has published widely on Steinbeck’s work, including introductions to various Penguin Classics editions (Cannery Row among them); her own works include A Journey into Steinbeck’s California (2006) and Carol and John Steinbeck: Portrait of a Marriage (2013). I got so much out of the course, which was all-the-more significant because it was Professor Shillinglaw’s final semester teaching at SJSU. One of the ongoing assignments throughout the class was to keep a journal about our thoughts on the works we read, as well as the films based on Steinbeck’s work. Compiled here are my complete journal entries from the course, along with Professor Shillinglaw’s commentary in italics at the end of each entry. To say that I loved the class would be a serious understatement.
Casey Wickstrom
Collected Journals
Shillinglaw: Steinbeck
SJSU Spring 2021
2/21/21—To a God Unknown
What struck me most while re-reading Steinbeck’s novel To a God Unknown was the depth of Eastern spirituality that the work exudes, as well as a blend of mythology, paganism, and various sects of Christianity and Catholicism. Reading the work again, a decade after I first discovered the novel, I was now taking in the story with a deeper appreciation of both writing style and spiritual understanding. As a result, To a God Unknown has now found its place among my favorite Steinbeck novels. The depiction of nature, Steinbeck’s strongest forte as a writer, creates some of his best passages in the book.
Ambitious and strange, Steinbeck’s novel describes his home landscape of Northern California—more specifically the San Antonio Valley—with a kind of depth and captivating clarity that only he can recreate. The way in which he examines the connection between man and the natural world that surrounds him offers a dark and fascinatingly rich study of Western theology, paganism, Greek mythology, and Eastern mysticism, all set against the landscape of the beautiful but foreboding San Antonio Valley. In A God Unknown, Steinbeck asks serious questions regarding life, meaning, and man’s role in the universe—but leaves all questions unanswered, open for interpretation, as he explores the land that readers would come to know so well in his work.
One of the best examples of Steinbeck’s masterful depiction of nature occurs early in the novel, when the protagonist Joseph Wayne finds himself in awe of both his new home in the Valley and his new love interest:
“The horses broke into a trot. Joseph saw how he could make a gesture with his arms and hands, that would sweep in and indicate and symbolize the ripe stars and the whole cup of the sky, the land, eddied with black trees, and the crested waves that were the mountains, an earth storm, frozen in the peak of its rushing, or stone breakers moving eastwards with infinite slowness” (Steinbeck).
Not only is this passage masterfully descriptive, but through the lens of Eastern spirituality, the significance of the metaphorical waves of mountains offer an even deeper look into Steinbeck’s understanding of the intricate web of oneness that is found in all things. In gorgeous prose, Steinbeck describes the mountain ranges as “eddied with black trees . . . the crested waves that were the mountains, an earth storm, frozen in the peak of its rushing, or stone breakers moving eastwards with infinite slowness.” While this depiction of the mountains is profoundly poetic, we can unearth an even deeper message behind these words, perhaps deriving the author’s intention behind the passage.
The mountains of the valley that Steinbeck describes are mammoth and of epic proportion; they appear unchanging in their harsh and forbidding terrain. Yet describing them as ocean waves, comparing them to water, the most constantly changing fluid matter, seems to contrast these two elements irreconcilably. However, if Steinbeck’s focus is to draw attention to the non-duality and interconnectedness of the natural world, then attributing the description of water to something as seemingly steadfast and unchanging as a mountain gives us an opportunity to recognize and consider nature’s constant impermanence.
In truth, mountains are constantly changing, much like the ocean waves that Steinbeck conjures in their description. Consider the Grand Canyon—sculpted by eons of water and wind, the seemingly impermeable rock slowly and consistently worn down through the centuries, chiseled into unendingly deep canyons that continue to change moment by moment. The alteration of the mountains is perhaps imperceptible by man, but over the course of millions of years, such change is certainly undeniable. For Steinbeck to attribute the qualities of water to the mountain ranges of the San Antonio Valley may be more than just poetic license; the author may have written the description to intentionally demonstrate the ever-changing flow of the natural world; to depict earth and water as one, as elements that collide and synthesize, mixed also over time with wind and fire, in an infinite and never-ending collaboration that is always changing.
Steinbeck has the ability, as all great authors do, to change the way that we see the natural world. If we read just a little bit deeper, beneath the lines of Steinbeck’s nature descriptions, we can see more than just gorgeous pastoral landscape painted with words. Suddenly, we can begin to see the world around as it truly is, acknowledging its state of interconnectedness and impermanence. And with this understanding, we too may begin to notice our own role in the ever-changing universe.
Shillinglaw: Nice passage from the book--it does convey a sense of ecological holism, so important to the book. I like the way you connect that passage with Eastern spirituality. Wonderful insight--connection of earth and water. I've never thought about that passage in that way.
2/24/21—The Long Valley
John Steinbeck is my favorite American author. He has been since I first read Of Mice and Men with my mother when I was ten years old, in fourth grade. I’ve read nearly all his fiction, with a few exceptions. To date, I’ve read 16 of his books. And out of all of those, my least favorite work of his is the collection of short stories in The Long Valley. I was twenty two when I read the collection and I remember feeling entirely underwhelmed by the majority of the stories. I had already read The Red Pony as a standalone novella, so that wasn’t part of the Long Valley reading experience for me. If it were my first time reading it, that may have redeemed the book significantly; The Red Pony is some of Steinbeck’s best writing. But instead, I became more and more confused as I read on.
I remember reading “The Chrysanthemums” and thinking, “Um . . . okay . . . so now what?” Even after reading it again as an older adult, and studying it at length in a Post Modern Lit class in Jr. College, after going over it again with an esteemed Steinbeck scholar at SJSU, I’m not impressed. There were moments of delicate beauty, to be sure, but not not enough to make it worth reading again.
Back at age 22, “The White Quail,” was an even worse read to me, and I started thinking, “Do I want to finish this book if all the stories are going to be like this?” It was just impossible for me to care about any of the characters—they seemed so thin and typical; they seemed to be the same people from story to story. And then I read “Flight,” and it turned things around for me. I thought, “Here we go—here’s the Steinbeck that I know and love.” The story of “Flight” is powerful and intense and beautiful, and, unfortunately, it’s the only story of its kind in the collection. The only other story that I was impressed by in The Long Valley was “The Murder.” The O. Henry writing award staff seemed to agree with my opinion. Again, having already read The Red Pony took away what may have been a positive influence in the overall reading of the book. Stories like “Johnny Bear” reminded me of early Vonnegut’s short stories (another favorite author, of whom I’ve read all his novels), but without any kind of real point to it. Other stories like “The Snake” and “The Harness” again featured characters that really didn’t speak to me on any level; they were so archetypical and redundant. I find it telling that, whether read at 22 years-old or 33 years-old (my current age), my feelings about The Long Valley haven’t changed.
But here’s the thing: I love John Steinbeck. I’m glad that there’s stories of his that I don’t like; and I’m glad that I read them multiple times to definitively decide that they just don’t do it for me. It’s not that the writing itself is bad—the writing is strong and confident and enjoyable to read. I mean no disrespect to the writer or the instructor; it’s just that the stories simply don’t do it for me. Perhaps I’m subconsciously contrasting these short stories with the longer novels of Steinbeck: East of Eden; Grapes of Wrath; Tortilla Flat, and that’s why they seem lacking. Still, maybe the greatest benefit of reading The Long Valley is that it showed me what I like about Steinbeck stories, and what I don’t. And in realizing my personal preference in his writing, it gives me an even deeper appreciation of what I consider to be his stronger work.
Shillinglaw: Good, honest response. The stories are slices of life. He said of Chry, that the story should "strike without the reader's knowledge," which means, I think, that they should hit one so you have to think about what is happening or why it happened. That said, the characters aren't "round" in the way that some are. He's studying humans like a scientist--observing from the outside. Maybe that's why you don't like them. They are cool in tone, not emotional.
2/22/21—Flight (film)
The short film adaptation of John Steinbeck’s short story “Flight” was impressive in its cinematography and by staying so close to the source material. The casting and location were also a highlight for me, and the black and white color of the film seemed to add to the mood of the story. A few discrepancies exist between the book and the film adaption, some variations from the story that were perhaps necessary in order to move the story forward, and also to create a feeling of empathy with the character of Pepé.
In the film, Pepé tells his mother that he killed a man while defending a working woman in a bar; in the book, no such background story exists. Pepé states in the story that a man merely “spoke words” to him and that his knife flew without any thinking of his part. This certainly makes it more difficult for the reader to empathize with Pepé, who appears more as a hothead than a chivalrous hero protecting a helpless woman from the violence of a brutish drunk. It’s obvious that this kind of background info and character development was added in to bring a more heroic element into the film, and help to make Pepé seem more likable.
Also, it is never specified in the written story as to who exactly is pursuing Pepé through the mountain terrain. As a reader, I assumed it was the law, or some extension of cowboy justice that tracks Pepé into the mountains and eventually kills him. In the film, it appears that the men hunting Pepé are vigilantes, avenging the death of their companion, whom they themselves don’t really care for. One man even states that it “was only a matter of time” before his “friend” met his end, acknowledging that his companion’s behavior was out of line. Still, the crew seem to understand that, whether the death was deserved or not, their duty is to kill Pepé.
Another discrepancy between the film and the source material is the prevalent appearance of water in the film, something that the short story blatantly and intentionally lacks. In the movie version, Pepé stops multiple times to quench his thirst in a mountain stream. The original story deprives Pepé of any water during his flight—it even has Pepé going so far as to stuff his mouth with mud and suck on a rock. Indeed, the lack of water is arguably one of the greatest factors that accelerates Pepé’s demise. In the film, I suppose that the image of Pepé stretched out on the ground, his face dipped in a clean running stream, has a kind of dramatic effect; one that the condition of dehydration (on film, at least) would lack.
Still, the main parts of the story were intact in the film: the family, the mountain lion, the death of Pepé’s horse and his complete lack of organization as he flees from the attackers. The cinematography throughout was remarkably spot on to this viewer; it was exactly as I saw it in my head. As I watched, I wondered if a color remake, recreated shot by shot, would be as hard hitting as the original. I doubt it; besides, the lack of John Steinbeck’s introduction would leave a void in the opening of the film.
The backstory of the film’s creation was as entertaining as the film itself to me. How a high school kid could blow $68,000 in 1960 and only have 5 minutes of footage to show for it is absolutely insane. According to Google, $68,000 in 1960 is equal to $602,457 in 2021. My hypothesis is that the kid either had a serious drug problem or owed a huge amount of money to some dangerous mobsters. Barnaby Conrad’s commentary at the end is both funny and insightful; what a life that man lived. All in all, both the film and the story surrounding it were fascinating and well worth the watch. The fact that it had John Steinbeck’s blessing and the author himself introducing the film made it all the more impressive.
Shillinglaw: Yes, one assumes that he is pursued by vigilante justice. Good on water! And Pepe's thirst, like Joseph's, mirrors the region and shows his slow decline. Good on final paragraph commentary as well.
4/22/21—Tortilla Flat
I’ve read the majority of Steinbeck’s work, including nearly all the novels that we’ve covered in this course. Rereading it all again has been a luxury and total pleasure that has deepened my already vast appreciation for Steinbeck, who was and is my all-time favorite American author. I took this course with the intention of revisiting much of Steinbeck’s work that I had read over a decade ago, and generate a new and fresh perspective on his literary canon. This was my third time reading Tortilla Flat, and I feel like I’m reading it as yet another different, newer person.
The first time I read the novel, I didn’t get it. I was twelve years old, too young, and I was confused at the story, which seemed to go nowhere. These men were just drunk all of the time; their actions and the story’s dialogue, the use of “thy, thou art,” struck me as weird. When Danny’s house burned for the first time, I couldn’t understand why he was happy about it. Having read Of Mice and Men, the narrative style of Tortilla Flat seemed to contrast sharply with the characters and events that I had been familiarized with. It was a break in literary style from the Steinbeck that I knew.
And then I read it again, at twenty two years old, and it became one of my favorite Steinbeck books. The story of friendship, the camaraderie, the conquests, the sacrifices and the drinking, the drinking, the DRINKING. It all resonated with me so deeply, and it became the inspiration for my own writing at the time—a novella based on my life at age nineteen, living in a house for a year with my closest friends, all of us on our own, with no restrictions, completely free. The amount of alcohol and drugs that we abused during that year was ungodly; it was a year of complete decadence and debauchery and destruction and unrestrained youth. And yet the beauty and freedom of that time has stayed with me forever; the depth of friendship and the hours of conversations and the brotherly love and care that we had for each other mirrored the love of Danny and his friends. Steinbeck’s depiction of brotherhood in Tortilla Flat and the masterful descriptions of nature in his writing were the inspiration for my own memoir:
Excerpt from A Tragedy of Youth
It seemed unreal to me, as the end of June rolled around, that we had been in the house for nearly a year. Many was the time when I thought it would never end. Sitting in the living room with my friends, all the summer parties; then the fall when the trees turned red and orange and yellow like natural fireworks; then winter, when the the snow piled up outside our house, the cheap liquor filling our bodies with superficial warmth; the nights of brotherhood, just talking, talking, talking, time seemed to stand still. And yet here we were.
I thought of all the beer boxes and cans piled up in the kitchen. I thought of all the cocaine, the drugs, the fights, I thought of the broken window and the parties. I thought of all the times I’d thrown up into the toilet, all the times that I had made myself sick. I thought of the love, the friendship, all the time we had spent right in this living room. Suddenly, I felt very old and tired.
. . .
To me, the influence of Steinbeck’s writing on my own work seems almost too obvious. Appropriately enough, the book’s inception was fully inspired by Tortilla Flat. The novel laid the foundation for my own storytelling: to take something as seemingly banal as drunk friendship and portray it in a light of epic grandeur was something that I could fully embrace.
Now, the third time reading Tortilla Flat, at age thirty-three, I’ve been clean for over half a decade. Drugs and alcohol and self-destruction are no longer the focal point of my existence. Yet Danny and all his friends are still there in Tortilla Flat, drunk and disorderly, loving and loyal in their own specific way. It occurs to me now that Steinbeck’s narrative approach to Tortilla Flat could easily have been a long joke at the expense of its characters: the drunken antics of shiftless paisanos as they stumble in and out of trouble, all for a laugh. But Steinbeck chose to write with sincerity, with an authenticity that brought out the beauty of brotherhood and friendship. And it’s that sincere depiction of love among friends that still captures my own imagination.
Shillinglaw: There is a book by Anne Fadiman called “Rereadings." And there is, as you say, distinct pleasure in rereading a book you love. How much of your memoir have you completed? And the drink is not, as I noted in class, an end in itself--at least in Steinbeck's mind. I think it's the friendship that remains...
4/22/21—Of Mice and Men
This is my fourth time reading Steinbeck’s American classic Of Mice and Men, and much like his other works, my appreciation for the story increases with multiple readings. I noticed many new things this time around, having to do with the literary elements that Steinbeck utilizes. For instance, the novel begins and ends at exactly the same spot: by the creek, in a hideaway, where George and Lenny find themselves in a familiar predicament involving a woman and a posse of angry men pursuing them, out for Lenny’s blood. This full circle narrative is masterful, and everything up to the final conclusion is constructed perfectly in foreshadowing and metaphors.
Carlson’s gun is used to kill Candy’s dog, with a shot right in the back of the head. The same gun is used later on to kill Lenny; George shoots his friend in exactly the same spot. Curly’s wife—whom I never realized remains nameless throughout the entire story—is instantly bad news. Lenny’s habit of killing whatever he touches (mice, puppies) certainly foreshadows his killing of Curly’s wife. The use of hands in the story speaks volumes to the reader: George’s tough hands, Lenny’s huge paws, Curly’s soft, vaseline gloved hand, Candy’s stump . . . These men all live through their hands.
The pathos and ethos of the story is so rich and deep; the unlikely bond of George and Lenny has been an iconic symbol of friendship since the novel’s publication. The novel’s tragedy is in its humanity, in its broken dreams and unrealized hopes and goals. But what was perhaps the greatest takeaway from me this time around was just how quickly the story moves. I hadn’t realized that the whole story takes place in a matter of days—two days or so, from beginning to end. This timeline moves along quickly, the pace is steady and intentionally focused. I suppose that in the past, the amount of time taken to read the book was spaced out over a much longer period (ie a month in high school curriculum), which surely made the book feel like it takes place over a longer period of time. Reading the book in two sittings, I read it as more of a play, each chapter was an act. This was an intentional approach of Steinbeck’s, in a style that was fully realized in his odd work Burning Bright. Of Mice and Men is the better work, and packs a lot into one hundred pages.
The novel has been made into several film adaptations and has also made its way onto the stage as a Broadway play. For my money, the best version of the film is the 1992 picture starring Gary Sinice and John Malkovich. The 1939 black and white film is done well, but it’s too overly dramatic for me; the actors all project themselves like they’re on stage, which leaves little room for subtlety and emotional nuance. Many of these older films sound like the characters are shouting while reading off of cue cards.
Sinice manages to capture the pathos of the novel in his film; there’s a beauty and a controlled flow of direction that is absolutely masterful. Sinice’s role as George Milton is pitch perfect, and John Malkovich delivers the definitive role of Lenny. The emotional bond and the vulnerability between ranch hands is both tender and heartbreaking. The scene of Lenny crushing Curley’s hand is so well done; it’s powerful and gets me every time. The end of the film always leaves me choked up. It captures the mood and tone of the novel perfectly.
Gary Sinice is a huge Steinbeck fan: not only did he direct and produce the film adaptation for Of Mice and Men (for which he was nominated for the Palm d’Or at the Cannes film festival), but he also narrated the audiobook of the novel, which I listened to as a kid after reading the book and watching the movie (it’s worth noting that Sinice also narrated Steinbeck’s Travels with Charley in Search of America). He also starred as Tom Joad in the play adaptation of Grapes of Wrath, where he received a Tony award nomination for Best Actor. It’s nice to see an actor that appreciates Steinbeck’s work so much, and who is also able to do justice to some of the author’s best known stories.
Shillinglaw: Mice is a wonder, I agree. It's tight, claustrophobic, so that you feel how constrained the lives of Lennie and George are. The gun is a Lugar, and there are some interesting critical articles about eugenics and Mice (although I'm not sure I agree with the premise--see Louis Owens' article on Mice--I tried to find a copy, but don't think I have it scanned. So I attached another that is good). I like what you said about reading the book in HS, over weeks. Sometimes it's easy to lose the impact that way, for all books. I do like the George of 1939...and I don't like the too-abrupt ending of 1992. Gary Sinise was also in the Steppenwolf production of Grapes, a superb drama.
4/22/21—The Grapes of Wrath: A Modern Reflection
When I first read Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath, I was twenty two years old and the US was in the middle of the great recession. In many ways, this time period mirrored the novel’s Great Depression era of the 1930’s, though fortunately not in severity. As a broke twenty-something living in Boulder, Colorado, I was virtually untouched by the 2008 recession. I’d never had much to lose to begin with, so hearing of other people losing their jobs and homes because of the bursted bubble of the economy meant very little to me. Bailouts of Wall Street and the real estate market and the auto industry seemed too abstract to me (in fact, they still do). However, it was interesting to observe the historical significance of being in a recession; and I was also able to take in the changing winds of politics at the time: Barack Obama was running for president, and the sociopolitical pendulum of the United States was swinging from right to left. Obama’s message of hope and unity seemed to offer Americans a kind of light at the end of the tunnel. Reading The Grapes of Wrath at this time offered a unique perspective on America during the Great Depression, while simultaneously mirroring the relevant and parallel struggle of Americans in the fallout of the Great Recession. The story of the Joad family making the passage from Oklahoma to California, and the reception upon their arrival, was bleak and sad and angering; the novel reflected many of the sentiments that I’d heard on the news following the 2008 recession.
Now I’ve read The Grapes of Wrath again, at age thirty three, in the wake of the coronavirus. The US and much of the world is still reeling from this deadly pandemic; it’s been an entire year that will leave its mark in history forever. In the fallout of the coronavirus, the US economy is is shambles. California, the first state in the nation to shelter in place, has been hit hard, with significant unemployment spikes and a meteoric rise in homelessness. The wealth gap in the US has exponentially increased: capitalism has worked well with the richest .01%, while middle class unemployment and poverty levels continue to skyrocket. It seems that 2020 brought the themes of Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath squarely back into focus, marking an ever deeper relevance than possibly ever before. Themes of American displacement, destitution, class struggle, social unrest, and hope in the midst of hopelessness, the novel’s story is more relevant today than at any other time since perhaps the Great Depression in which the book takes place.
Steinbeck’s scope of the novel is wide and deep, written on a nearly biblical scale. The trek of the Joad family from the dustbowl of Oklahoma to the promised land of California depicts the struggles of millions of Americans. The destitution of America’s own people in the midst of the Great Depression was shockingly appalling; the level of poverty and desperation that the novel portrays is fortunately beyond any level of comprehension for me. The resiliency of the Joad family encapsulates the resiliency of humanity; the struggle of the poor and downtrodden in the novel shows us that even in the darkest and most hopeless circumstances, there is compassion and kindness to be found.
Thanks to the myriad socioeconomic programs following the Great Depression, many of the fundamental problems of the novel have been addressed. Unionization, worker’s rights, unemployment benefits, regulation of banks, and other social welfare efforts have set up a buffer against another Great Depression. Time will tell if these programs are enough to revive America post-COVID. Like many of the socioeconomic dilemmas illustrated in The Grapes of Wrath, I think we still have a long way to go.
Shillinglaw: I guess we have to hear/confront again the issue of poverty in America. The book is always, it seems to me, relevant in a new way. And I guess that shows that we’re cycling through episodes of loss and displacement and powerlessness for many.
4/22/21—The Grapes of Wrath (film)
As someone who loves literature and American film, I’m surprised that I hadn’t seen John Ford’s The Grapes of Wrath. It’s widely regarded as one of the greatest films ever made, and the source material from which it was derived has long been lauded as the quintessential American novel. After rereading Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath, I was excited to see the 1940 film adaptation, and I was not disappointed. The critical praise of the film is certainly warranted; and while I truly appreciated the aesthetic and artistic accomplishment of the film, I found there were many elements of the novel that were sorely missed. Reading up on the movie trivia after streaming the film on Amazon, I was able to derive a deeper sense of the film’s history and creation, while contrasting and contextualizing such details with the novel.
The first half of the film is so true to John Steinbeck’s novel that I found myself in awe of just how perfectly it had been done. Henry Fonda as Tom Joad was a captivating performance; Steinbeck himself said that Fonda’s role “made me believe my own words.” The way that the film incorporates the story of Muley Graves, detailing the land takeover by the banks during the dustbowl, made it emotional and rich through the use of flashbacks and narrative storytelling. It was a masterful portrayal of some of the novel’s most powerful imagery, and set a strong foundation for the rest of the film. The second half of the film started to deviate from the novel in many ways. While it’s understandable that no film based on a novel can perfectly convey everything in the book, it’s worth detailing how the latter part of the film lacked many of the elements that made made the novel great.
The novel’s brash, uncensored, and often vulgar dialogue is one of the many sources of controversy surrounding the work; as are the political overtones and criticism of the socioeconomic conditions of America in the Great Depression era. Many of these aspects were, not surprisingly, left out of the film. Given the language restrictions of Hollywood at the time, it would be unthinkable for any mainstream film to feature the kind of language and conversations that made the book so effective in its portrayal of American realism. According to the film’s trivia, Henry Fonda yelling at his mother to “get the hell off the car” in one scene was barely audible, and would have resulted in censorship had it been more audible.
John Ford’s direction was confident and assured—a staunch conservative, he was seen at first as a surprising choice of direction. Ford chose to downplay the political tones of the novel and focus instead on the family unit of the Joads. This approach is nicely summed up in the film’s section where someone asks a farmer “What’s a red?” In the novel, a character states that “‘A red is any son-of-a-bitch that wants thirty cents an hour when we're payin' twenty-five! . . . Well, Jesus, Mr. Hines, I ain't a son-of-a-bitch but if that's what a red is—why, I want thirty cents an hour. Every'body does. Hell, Mr. Hines, we're all reds” (Steinbeck). In the film, when asked the same question, the farmer responds by saying “Well, I don’t know about it one way or the other.” Such a dismissal is indicative of the film’s reluctance to take on Steinbeck’s strong criticism of capitalism.
The second half of the movie turns very Hollywood, which is warranted. I certainly wasn’t expecting full frontal nudity with Rose of Sharon breastfeeding a dying old man—indeed, while it’s the closing scene of the novel, such a scene never takes place in the film. Rosasharn loses her baby in the novel; no such occurrence takes place in the film. Instead, the film ends on a positive note, with Ma Joad’s inspirational monologue as the family, sans Tom, pulls into a clean and well kept government camp. The ending of the novel is starkly different, and ends at the lowest point for the Joads: they’re flooded out of their boxcar makeshift house, the car dies and they end up in an abandoned barn, wet and filthy like animals. Such an ending in the film would be unthinkable, even by today’s cinematic standards (short of an indie art film interpretation of the novel, perhaps). Steinbeck's novel simply has too much depth and realism to be translated completely to the medium of film, but the film did manage to retain many of the novel’s inspirational themes of family and community, and certainly did well at depicting the struggle of so many Americans during the Great Depression. It definitely did the book justice, which is the highest accolade that can be given to any movie based on a novel.
Shillinglaw: Good on first part of novel--yes, Ford was determined to capture a sense of poverty. The latter part of the film, the arc upward, was determined by audience expectations. Actual novel too dark for 1930s sensibilities, it was throughout. Excellent points. Glad you saw the film. Fonda is superb. Wonderful notebook, fun to read.
5/18/21—Cannery Row
The first time I read Cannery Row, it was my least favorite Steinbeck novel. Immediately after, I read the book’s sequel, Sweet Thursday, and that book instantly garnered the title of Steinbeck’s worst book (in this reader’s humble opinion). In retrospect, there’s a lot that I didn’t know about the background history of Cannery Row that may have given me a deeper appreciation of the novel. I had no idea who Ed Ricketts was—I actually had never heard of him until this course! Reading the appendix from Steinbeck’s The Log from the Sea Of Cortez, the author reflects on his friendship with Ricketts, and notes the influence that Ed had not only on Steinbeck, but on everyone that he met and interacted with. My journal entry regarding Sea of Cortez is independent of this writing, so I’ll stick with my analysis of Cannery Row to avoid repetition. The point is that I had no idea that the character of Doc was modeled after Ed Ricketts (as was Jim Casy, Doc Burton, Doctor Winter, and other Steinbeck characters). Had I known of Ricketts and his personality, it would have added a much appreciated layer of depth and context to the story.
Reading Cannery Row for the second time, I was now aware of Ricketts’ influence on the novel: his intellectual, philosophical, and scientific proclivities, to name a few of his characteristics. All that being taken into consideration, I’m still not a fan of the book. It’s a light, harmless read. To me, Steinbeck is playing it safe and writing on what feels like autopilot. The book doesn’t challenge me in any way. I’ve read the characters before in better stories: Mack and the boys, who inhabit the Palace Flophouse in Cannery Row, are nearly identical to Danny and company in Tortilla Flat, including their penchant for unemployment, drinking, and throwing parties that destroy houses (or laboratories). I enjoyed the escapades and conquests of Tortilla Flat’s paisanos much more. The build up and climax of Cannery Row is that the townsfolk arrange and throw a party for Doc—it all seems to end abruptly, and on a dull, anticlimactic note.
I found the introduction of the book to be the most illuminating part of the reading. In many ways, it clarified and confirmed some of my sentiments on the novel. Shillinglaw states that, “From its very inception, the Monterey material was one antidote to the highly political and politicized novel The Grapes of Wrath.” Dealing with ill health and a deteriorating marriage, as well as the controversial acclaim following Grapes of Wrath, Steinbeck was left feeling “a desperate need to escape from fiction, to kick up his heels instead.” This explains the drastic shift in literary tone and subject matter that Steinbeck channeled in Cannery Row.
So, while I feel that the novel is indeed “frothy, sentimental,” and “an arbitrary sequence of trivial events,” it’s encouraging to know that in some ways, those views are valid. Steinbeck himself dismissed the novel as “a nostalgic thing, written for a group of soldiers who had said to me, ‘Write something funny that isn’t about the war.’” It’s nice to know that Steinbeck sees where I’m coming from on this. I can appreciate Cannery Row, and I’m glad that I read it again—but it’s still a book that ranks low on my list of Steinbeck’s best novels.
Quick aside: seldom is the opportunity that I can quote the introduction of a novel to the very author who wrote said introduction. Very cool. Truly, the intro really enhanced my understanding of the novel’s themes and more nuanced elements: the gopher metaphor in particular was very effective, as was the exploration of certain characters and the geographical significance surrounding the novel. It gave me a much deeper understanding of what could be found in the book. Thank you.
Shillinglaw: Yes, CR is a tribute to Ricketts and his way of moving through the world. I hope I convinced you--just a bit--that CR is complex once you consider its 4 layers...Yes, CR is funny--but also nostalgic and sad. Thanks for your nice comments about intro. Nice of you to read it (!) and comment!
5/18/21—The Log from the Sea of Cortez
As I stated in my analysis of Cannery Row, I had no idea who Ed Ricketts was before taking this course on Steinbeck. I love Steinbeck’s work, and I was certainly familiar with Joseph Campbell’s literary and philosophical work as well—Hero’s Journey; The Hero with a Thousand Faces, etc. But I’m a little surprised that I missed out on Ricketts, whose influence on both authors, and countless others, is hard to overstate. In the appendix of The Log from the Sea of Cortez, Steinbeck gives his friend a beautiful eulogy, examining the myriad contradictions and the eccentricities of his brilliantly complex and fascinating companion. Steinbeck writes with a kind of love and admiration of Ricketts that’s as personal as it is honest. I’ve never read Steinbeck like this before: so relaxed, so comfortable, so reflective and open. It’s a completely different tone. His writing on Ricketts is warm and intimate, with a kind of effortless flow that shines a complicated but endearing light on one of his closest friends.
Steinbeck opens his writing on Ricketts with a jarring introduction, beginning with Ricketts’ death. On May 11th, 1948, Ricketts was hit by a train while driving in his car; he hung on for three days, conscious some of the time, before he finally died. This was a bold and deeply compelling artistic move for Steinbeck to make: to start with Ed’s death is to examine the man in retrospect, after he was no longer alive. It sets a very specific tone to the writing: the introduction and indeed the entire text would have been quite different if Steinbeck had ended the writing with Ed’s death. Instead, I felt like I was also broadsided by a train as I read the beginning of the story. Ricketts' untimely death was sudden and absolutely unexpected. The could be many reasons Steinbeck's choice of narration. Perhaps Steinbeck is showing us that Ricketts was, above all else, human, a mortal man just like any other. He was complicated and multi-dimensional, and no one, not even Steinbeck, knew him completely.
Steinbeck’s honest portrayal of Ricketts does not deify him; it doesn’t need to. Ricketts’ life was full of depth: science, philosophy, art, music, literature, adventure, romance, friendship . . . He was unapologetically real; his authenticity was perhaps his greatest asset. This is the friend that Steinbeck examines, while admitting that it is only one view of a deeply complex person. Still, the Ricketts that Steinbeck knew is immortalized in much of his work, perhaps nowhere more than Cannery Row and the book's sequel Sweet Thursday. There are gems of Ed Ricketts in Cannery Row; you can almost hear the words coming from the man himself.
One passage that struck me came from Cannery Row; a philosophical monologue from Doc that seemed timely, relevant, deep and honest. To me, it’s the best passage of the book:
“It has always seemed strange to me," said Doc. "The things we admire in men, kindness and generosity, openness, honesty, understanding and feeling are the concomitants of failure in our system. And those traits we detest, sharpness, greed, acquisitiveness, meanness, egotism and self-interest are the traits of success. And while men admire the quality of the first they love the produce of the second” (Steinbeck).
No one knew Ricketts completely. But I’d say that, in Steinbeck’s writing, the voice and legacy of his dearest friend is in good hands.
Shillinglaw: You do a nice job of describing the tone in "About Ed Ricketts." Yes, there was love between the two men--an intense friendship. I love the fact that Steinbeck captures Ricketts through paradox--and you're right, he doesn't try to deify him.
Great quote "things we admire in men..." so true.
5/4/21— East of Eden
East of Eden is my favorite book by my favorite American author. The multi-generational storyline is magnificent in its scope, and the biblical narrative interwoven into the novel’s 600 pages is profound and powerful. There is so much beauty in the novel, so much depth and love and humanity. It’s one of those books that changed my life. I had always known that Steinbeck considered East of Eden as his magnum opus; it was the novel that he put every ounce of himself into. His letters to his editor in Journal of a Novel corroborate this conviction tenfold. As the author noted in one of his letters:
“I have often thought that [East of Eden] might be my last book. I don’t really mean that because I will be writing books until I die. But I want to write this one as though it were my last book. Maybe I believe that every book should be written that way. I think I mean that. It is the ideal. And I have done just the opposite. I have written each book as an exercise, as a practice for the one to come. And this is the one to come. There is nothing beyond this book—nothing follows it. It must contain all in the world I know and it must have everything in it of which I am capable—all styles, all techniques, all poetry—and it must have in it a great deal of laughter” (Steinbeck, Journey of a Novel 8).
While reading Steinbeck’s letters, I was continually taken aback at how much it resonated with my own beliefs on art and writing and philosophy and the creative process. There were beliefs and ideas in the letters that I had only recently started to explore in my own life; through meditation and writing and self-inquiry, it seemed like everything had started to connect at exactly the right moment. The parallels between Steinbeck’s thoughts and my own were more than coincidental. This is why I decided to purchase the signed first edition of Steinbeck’s best novel. The decision was a culmination of so many driving factors: emotional, intellectual, and spiritual. It’s not hyperbolic when I say that I really felt the universe pushing me towards buying this book. It was $2,725. And it is one of the greatest things I’ll ever own. Reading the novel again after a decade, I fully recognize that East of Eden is more than just a book to me; it’s an integral part of who am I.
. . .
All that being said about the novel, I have to change my tone and admit that I absolutely hated the film. It was a complete and utter abomination to me; the acting and the writing and the casting were atrocious. It was painful to watch—torturous, even. I don’t care how much Steinbeck liked it; in my opinion the film lacked literally everything that made the book great. My dislike for the film was so strong that I had to wait a day after watching it before writing this entry; I didn’t want it to be too vicious. I’m looking forward to hearing what others think of the film; but as for me, my disappointment is probably too great to change my mind on the subject.
Shillinglaw: Wow. This is very powerful . . . a wonderful statement to Steinbeck's power. Thank you.
And it's ok if you hated the film. I understand.
5/11/21—Travels with Charley: In Search of America
I like Travels with Charley. It’s not Steinbeck’s best book, and certainly not my favorite, but it’s a nice and honest take on a country that had grown foreign to Steinbeck in his later years. The irony of one of America’s greatest writers feeling like a stranger in his own land is at the heart of the book. Steinbeck doesn’t recognize the America that he is traversing: many of the landscapes and the people and the world around him have changed so drastically that he is experiencing a completely different country than the one he remembers, the one he spent so much time studying and depicting in his younger years.
The book is a lighter read than many of Steinbeck's heavier, longer fiction novels. Travels with Charley is fast paced and a bit rushed, not in it’s writing but in its narrative structure. There is a constant motion, a persistent pushing, rambling trajectory that’s driving Steinbeck on. Steinbeck spends time on the road, taking notes on social interactions (or lack thereof with townsfolk, truckers, and easterners); he writes sparingly about politics (nobody’s talking openly about it), about weapons of war (a conversation with a submarine soldier on leave) and life in small towns throughout the country. He notices the similarities and points out what has changed, at least in his mind.
At times, Steinbeck seems a bit crotchety and old, like a bewildered senior citizen flabbergasted and confused at the strange contraptions of a world that had moved on without him. The writer is shocked at soup and coffee that is automatically dispersed from machines with no human interaction. He openly moralizes much more than in many of his other works—explicit moralization as opposed to implicit. It’s a bit like reading the journals of someone’s grandfather, who keeps repeating, “Back in my day . . .” As a twenty-first century American, I find myself smiling at Steinbeck’s weary depiction of the more “modern” United States of America. Given the current age of the internet, social media, and everything therein, various flavors of soup dispensing from a can sounds downright antiquated and primitive. But to be fair, Steinbeck is older: Travels with Charley was his last book before his death in 1968, not counting the collection of essays compiled in his final work America and Americans, which took on many similar themes. The title is “in search of America”—not “finding America” or “rediscovering America.” The author’s search at times seems to leave him more estranged from the country than at the beginning of his journey.
Steinbeck’s voice is strong; he has his trademark wit and masterful prose and writing style; there are many beautiful and insightful passages and sentiments throughout the novel. Some personal favorites of mine are in the first half of the book. Steinbeck, in describing his old age and his refusal to fall into the trap of old-age complacency, states, “I have always lived violently, drunk hugely, eaten too much or not at all, slept around the clock or missed two nights of sleeping, worked too hard and too long in glory, or slobbed for a time in utter laziness. I've lifted, pulled, chopped, climbed, made love with joy and taken my hangovers as a consequence, not as a punishment.” Living life to the fullest is strongly characteristic of Steinbeck, who insists that he’d rather go out swinging than fade away in the comfort of senility. “I see too many men delay their exits with a sickly slow reluctance to leave the stage. It's bad theater as well as bad living.” Other gems are: “I was born lost and take no pleasure in being found,” and, in describing the myriad contrasting points of view not only with various writers but in one’s own eyes: “So much there is to see, but our morning eyes describe a different world than do our afternoon eyes, and surely our wearied evening eyes can report only a weary evening world.”
Steinbeck's choice to take Charley as his companion was a great move; the novel would have been so different if he had gone it alone, or with anyone else besides his French poodle. I feel that there would be a feeling of brooding loneliness permeating the novel had Charley not been along for the ride. The book shows the beauty and the ugliness of America—choosing to end the book around his time in New Orleans depicted racism, ignorance, and violent hatred in such extremes that it makes me sick to read. Steinbeck abhors this, and the way he writes makes his disdain almost palpable. The author’s depiction and views on racism is deeply important in the latter part of the novel; it shows the dark side of America that many authors of Steinbeck’s generation didn’t notice or consider examining. Travels with Charley is an older book from an older time, but in many ways it shows a timeless picture of America that, for better and for worse, is familiar in so many ways.
Shillinglaw: I think Travels represents the two sides of Steinbeck--restless and rooted. Steinbeck is 58 when he takes this trip, not so very old. But age is a state of mind, and I think he feels old after his brush with death the year before. Yours is a very fair analysis of the book.
5/16/21—Lifeboat (film)
A collaboration between Alfred Hitchcock and John Steinbeck sounded amazing to me; I’m a fan of both men and their respective mediums of art, and strangely, I had never even heard of Lifeboat. Directed by Alfred Hitchcock, and based on a story by John Steinbeck, the entire film takes place on a small claustrophobic lifeboat during World War II, with an eclectic crew of passengers that vary widely: sailors, a nurse, a journalist—and a German U-Boat captain, also rescued from the wreckage. The Americans take the German aboard, their reservations ranging from doubt to open mindedness to outright malice and distrust. Still, in the emergency situation, the Americans decide to keep the German on board with them until they can find help or reach land. What follows is a tense and violent drama that takes on the themes of war, duty, trust, and humanity.
While the cast of characters is impressively diverse, the German is easily the most complex role in the film. For most of the film we are unsure of his motives: at times he appears benevolent, willing to help: he offers direction, amputates the gangrene infected leg of a passenger, and spends much of his time rowing the boat while the rest of the crew rest. Yet his actions also prove untrustworthy: he hoards a compass, he hides water and food pills, he pushes a dying American overboard. In the end, the crew turns on him, beating him unconscious and throwing him overboard, in what amounts to an execution. The complexity of the German character generated a strong amount of negative press: critics felt like the film humanized the German instead of villainizing him; Hitchcock was accused of sympathizing with the Germans, and the backlash prompted limited release for the film and very little support from the studio.
Steinbeck also took issue with the film, stating that the role of the black passenger fell victim to stereotyping, becoming a surface level archetype of race, and was not portrayed accurately from the source material. Steinbeck denounced his role in the film and asked to be removed from the credits; instead, his name was placed front and center and he was nominated for best story at the Academy Awards. When I read these facts this prior to watching the film, I had expected to see a racist portrayal of the black character George: talking in obvious ebonics, shucking and jiving, playing a servile role with a lot of “yes ma’am, no ma’am.” To tell the truth, I was actually quite impressed with the character; I didn’t feel like he was stereotyped or disparaged at all. On the contrary, I felt that he was one of the stronger characters in the film. While I can’t fault Steinbeck for wanting to portray the black character with more depth and humanity, I think that Hitchcock did a fantastic job with all the characters—especially the token black character George, aka “Joe.”
Steinbeck had also faced past criticism for portraying German characters in a potentially sympathizing light: his novella The Moon is Down created a story with characters that were not clearly distinguishable as purely good or evil. This nuanced characterization angered many critics who were perhaps looking for pure jingoistic propaganda. But both works, The Moon is Down and Lifeboat, are excellent because they challenge us as readers and viewers, forcing us to examine all the characters in their complexities, where obvious labels of "good" and "bad" don’t suffice. While it’s admittedly much easier to label each and every German character as the pure embodiment of evil, and every American as the perfect and admirable hero, war—and real life—aren’t that easily distinguishable. The dichotomous thinking of black or white, good or bad, all-or-nothing is easier, but it is woefully ignorant, deceptively comfortable, and deprives us of understanding and progress. Steinbeck and Hitchcock understood this; in telling their stories, they didn’t take the easy way out in exchange for obvious answers. They challenged their audience. And Lifeboat is a far better film because of it.
Shillinglaw: Great comments about the film and complexity of the German. Wonderful conclusion here. Casey, your notebook was a pleasure to read. I loved how you dug into each text; your appreciation of Steinbeck's work was palpable. A+ Notebook
