Abstract
Carol Steinbeck divorces John; he marries Gwyn Conger, but then immediately takes a six-month war correspondent contract with the New York Herald Tribune. The Moon Is Down follows Of Mice and Men, appearing as both novella and play in Steinbeck’s new hybrid form. Films are made from most of Steinbeck’s fiction.
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Notes
- 1.
Steinbeck had not learned to be cautious. His brief statement in the 1938 booklet discussed what he termed his being “treasonable enough not to believe in the liberty of a man or a group to exploit, torment, or slaughter other men or groups.” How would one read the word “treasonable” for a positive effect? In that same essay, he commented that he believed in “the despotism of human life and happiness against the liberty of money and possessions” (Steinbeck Nonfiction 88). Steinbeck’s more cheerful news was that their baby was expected in July; that he planned to make a film of The Pearl in Mexico; and that he was working now on “a silly book that is fun” [Cannery Row] (SLL 268–69). He closed by telling Dook that he was happy to leave “the cosmic foolishness of war” behind, and that he was proud of the fact that Cannery Row “never mentions the war” [and] “is a relief to work on” (SLL 270).
- 2.
The sonority of the mayor’s speech sets a pervasive tone: as Steinbeck told an interviewer in 1947, one pathway into the reader’s mind is “the sound of words, in a kind of lulling with syllables” (Steinbeck Conversations 44).
- 3.
As well educated as are the mayor and the doctor, Colonel Lanser participates in the dialogue from Socrates’ Apology. The two townsmen had performed that set of speeches forty-six years earlier. They reprised them as they went to their executions.
- 4.
Simmonds usefully describes nine thematic categories, ranging from four dispatches to eleven—with some single pieces that appeared separately. He finds some of Steinbeck’s best writing in the late group of articles which cover “Task Group 80.4.”
- 5.
Underwood compares Steinbeck’s need to take part in military action with Hemingway’s, as does Mimi Gladstein in “Mr. Novelist Goes to War.”
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Wagner-Martin, L. (2017). World War II. In: John Steinbeck. Literary Lives. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-55382-9_6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-55382-9_6
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