John Steinbeck

[Elphin]

This forum has been dull for a bit so here's a question. Whats the modern view on Steinbeck?

While in Calfornia a couple of years back I read Cannery Row and Of Mice and Men (again). Cannery Row in particular hit me as an evocative piece of descriptive writing but then I was in the Monterey area and I put the Wow factor down to the coming together of place and book.

However, I have just finished Grapes of Wrath having put it off for a bit with excuses- its a mighty tome, its just a family saga, its outdated. How wrong could I have been?

What struck me most were two things

Firstly, the power of the story is undiminished by time -a story of the dispossesed and mans inhumanity to man that resonates today as technological change drives migration, unemployment and fear of migrants.

Secondly I was in awe of lyricism of the writing from the opening chapter to the end. The scenes were painted and the story came alive regradless of whether he was using standard English or the southern dialect.

So what are the collective thoughts?

elphin

[barrie]

It's years since I read it, but I recently saw the old b&w film of it with Henry Fonda as Tom Joad - it brought it all back. I think it's time I read it again from a new prespective of about three decades. You should listen to Guthrie's Dustbowl songs - Do Re Me, Dustbowl Blues, Ballad of Tom Joad etc, you'd probably like them.

Barrie

[Travis]

I think the modern view is that he's awesome. Or at least that he was. You know what I mean. Come to think of it, that's the antiquated view of him too!

Seriously though, Steinbeck is without a doubt the "best" writer I've read. Beyond the typecasting - benevolent voice of the proletariat, champion of the Okies and all that - and the more obvious observations of his allegorical and didactic writing style, beyond even the Americanisms and the societal forces that shaped the overall structure of his work, John Steinbeck had a deep and ultimately truthful understanding of humanity and of life as we know it, or perhaps more fittingly, life as we sometimes don't know it. You take his incredible writing skill into consideration then, and this rare understanding of the Universe as seen through a microcosmic lense gets VERY skillfully portrayed.

...the power of the story is undiminished by time -a story of the dispossesed and mans inhumanity to man that resonates today as technological change drives migration, unemployment and fear of migrants.

That's the thing, Elph. Good stories written well are never diminished by time. Because good stories are ultimately very human stories, and they contain human truths, and these truths will always be with us. What changes are the props. Horses to cars to flying cars to matter transporters, that sort of thing. We are existentially shackled to what we are, we people. I always say something like, a turtle is a turtle, a turtle is not a moose, and therefore, were it capable of wanting to, could never truly know what it's like to be a moose.

Klingons, the Tandu, Jabba the Hutt, they're all human.

Secondly I was in awe of lyricism of the writing from the opening chapter to the end. The scenes were painted and the story came alive regradless of whether he was using standard English or the southern dialect.

Yeah, his writing is simply epic. The most mundane and boots on the ground kind of scene between two lowly people may not be, but the way that scene is interwoven with the overall narrative makes it that way at the same time. He narrates slices of humanity with the perfect blend of high end, abstract artistry and low end, practical understanding. Of course the end result is allegorical and didactic, as I've already mentioned, but that's hardly as insidious as it sounds, as I'm sure most people who read his work come to realize.

I've posted this before, but again, here's one of my favorite passages from The Grapes of Wrath:

...The causes lie deep and simply - the causes are a hunger in a stomach, multiplied a million times; a hunger in a single soul, hunger for joy and some security, multiplied a million times; muscles and mind aching to grow, to work, to create, multiplied a million times. The last clear definite function of a man - muscles aching to work, minds aching to create beyond the single need - this is man. To build a wall, to build a house, a dam, and in the wall and house and dam to put something of Manself, and to Manself take back something of the wall, the house, the dam; to take hard muscles from the lifting, to take clear lines and form from conceiving. For man, unlike any other thing organic or inorganic in the universe, grows beyond his work, walks up the stairs of his concepts, emerges ahead of his accomplishments. This you may say of man - when theories change and crash, when schools, philosophies, when narrow dark alleys of thought, national, religious, economic, grow and disintegrate, man reaches, stumbles forward, painfully, mistakenly sometimes. Having stepped forward, he may slip back, but only half a step, never the full step back. This you may say and know it and know it. This you may know when the bombs plummet out of the black planes on the market place, when prisoners are stuck like pigs, when the crushed bodies drain filthily in the dust. You may know it in this way. If the step were not being taken, if the stumbling-forward ache were not alive, the bombs would not fall, the throats would no be cut. Fear the time when the bombs stop falling while the bombers live - for every bomb is proof that the spirit has not died. And fear the time when the strikes stop while the great owners live - for every little beaten strike is proof that the step is being taken. And this you can know - fear the time when Manself will not suffer and die for a concept, for this one quality is the foundation of Manself, and this one quality is man, distinctive in the universe.

Here's another, only this one's from East of Eden:

When a child first catches adults out - when it first walks into his grave little head that adults do not have divine intelligence, that their judgements are not always wise, their thinking true, their sentences just - his world falls into panic desolation. The gods are fallen and all safety gone. And there is one sure thing about the fall of gods: they do not fall a little; they crash and shatter or sink deeply into green muck. It is a tedious job to build them up again; they never quite shine. And the child's world is never quite whole again. It is an aching kind of growing.

[exysbloodhound]

The passages you posted from The Grapes Of Wrath and East of Eden blew me away. I have only ever saw the film of East of Eden, definitely read said Steinbeck.

Great

[Raisin]

I love Of Mice and Men, we studied it at school and I can say that before we studied it to death my class mates were very keen. That was until we read it through about five times.
I think it was the best possible piece of literature to describe the depression in America during the 1920's, partly because his style is amazing and often quite biblical, in the way that he opens each chapter, and also because he experienced what his characters experienced.
Raisin

[Elphin]

Raisin - Grapes of Wrath is not dissimilar in style and a much wider description of dust bowl years.

I would also recommend Cannery Row - I had the good fortune to read it while in the Monterey area of Calif where it is set. Another excellent read and a good bit shorter than GoW.

elph

[Raisin]

Thanks very much, I shall take a look at all of them
Raisin

[bobvincent]

"The Pearl" is lovely as well, lyrical and pure and with a strong universal message for every age. He managed to create great sympathy for his characters, without sentimentality.