Working Days (22 page)

Strange how the strangeness is. I’ll stay at Esther’s house* in the woods in Pacific Grove. It will give me the privacy to write at the same time as the work at Ed’s. Waiting, always for something. I’m going to look for a [indecipherable] to see within myself whether this is generalized or personal. Can’t tell except that the other urges do not come. I’ll try though—to see. I’ll fill this book this time I hope. There’s nothing else to do. And the world we know crumbles slowly and melts away, and the powerful voices of hysteria and terror are in the air.

 

 

I am down at P. G. at Esther’s house and just starting the gulf book. Last night Ed and Toby* and I drank too much and caroused about. Finally even got a little mischievous. But oddly enough no hang-over. [Indecipherable] child’s letter. No happiness there but still a fervent belief in it. Carol was to go to Santa Cruz yesterday. Don’t know whether or not she did. It is sunny and clear down here but I don’t know for how long. Now the old laziness but I don’t think it will hold me long. This is a comfortable house, with a rather good fireplace. I must not get into the difficulty of drinking as every one down here does. This is the uphill fight with no end but clarity and no reward except the feeling that a decent job has been done. I wonder whether I can do it. My back aches a little bit with that old ache that plagued me so and that is a little frightening, but if it is another focus of infection we can cure that. Shouldn’t be hard to locate this time. Writing the little daily journal is fun. I have set my usual two pages of writing as the day’s work. Don’t know whether I can keep this up from the beginning, but I will try. I must if I can.

Lord! I forgot to wire Lon Stewart that I could not come to dinner in L.A. I must also write to Max and send him the article to give to Herb. And these things must be done today. I’m sitting here wallowing in beginnings. Hard things beginnings—very hard. But I must do them. And I can. It will be easy when once the start is made. And that start is going to be made, and that today. It should not be hard. I think I am going to enjoy just sitting here and writing. I’m pretty sure I am. It is comfortable and quiet. At night I can draw the curtains and it will be warm and nice. The inevitable thing happens. My busy little mind thinks up a hundred things I ought to do rather than the writing. I should think at my age it wouldn’t try to do that any more. Time is running out and at the end of this page I will go to the opening. And the opening should be good—very good.

 

 

And the opening was good, I think. Ed thinks so too. In fact, he thinks it is better than I do. Last night I went to bed by 9:30 and dreamed strangely. Woke up early. Still the back ache and stomach ache. Maybe I have the flu again, too, but I don’t think so. The pen writes a little thickly. I hope this isn’t a psychic pen. I’m having enough trouble with such things. Visitations so definite that I don’t see how I can imagine them. Perhaps I am just crazy. I’ve never been sure I am not. Called Carol last night. She is low and mourning. I wonder if she is ever going to be even reasonably happy. It isn’t fair that she has so much unhappiness. It is becoming almost her usual state of mind. She used to blame it on other things. Now she blames herself and that is worse and she mourns more. I just don’t know what to do. Poor darling, I want so much for her to be happy. No sun today. It is 10:30 and I feel the crowding of work and the urge to hurry. But why? I have all day. I can work as long or as little as I want. The work flows easily and is fun. Why should I hurry? I’ll stay relaxed if I can. I hope this can be a relaxed book. There are so few of them now and the world really needs them for the world is tight and knotted now. A good fire is burning in the fire place and the room is warm. And I can even work at night if I want to. I can do anything, but I usually wind up doing the same things every time. There isn’t very much variation in a given man. I haven’t been or felt so quiet in years. Of course, the birth of other peoples’ unease are in me but of myself I am at peace. Perhaps a kind of anaesthesia. I don’t know. But I seem to be aware at least. Back still hurts and stomach ache has come to join it nicely now. Maybe it really is the flu. Can’t tell, don’t even want to. I’ll just sit here by the fire and set down words. Nothing wrong with that. I should be opening the page for the book work of today. There are so many things to go into this book. An astonishing number of things. But I’ll get them all in if I just relax and get them in day by day and only worry about the 2000 words of each day’s work. That’s the only way to do it, I have found. But damn it, I have to learn it over again every time. And that’s all for this section for today.

 

 

Now the third day of writing. I don’t know how well, but rather imagine not too well. I am ill—ill in the mind. My head is a grey cloud in which colors drift about and images half-form. I’m bludgeoned and feel beaten by many little things. And I can’t figure answers to them. Maybe some people think clearly all the time and make nice decisions. I don’t know. But I feel very lost and lonesome. And no other way—for me, I mean. It is so curious. I think I use that word far too much, but it is I guess an indication of a staggered mind. The terrible thing to contemplate is that badly as I am thinking, so many others are thinking much more badly. Much more. And I am held in to this by a flogging head and increasing weight and everything like that. I don’t seem to have the knack of living any more. The clock is running down, my clock. This book has to be written. It should be good. I think it is my book. Maybe those people who say that I should never deal with thinking subjects are correct. I don’t know. It is impossible to say. Now the sun is gone again. Haven’t heard from Carol. I hope she isn’t feeling so lonely as she was. She was so low. I think I’ll leave this book now.

Although he cultivated reclusiveness and solitude, John Steinbeck was a writer immersed in and moved by the events, personalities, and conditions of his time. The indispensable primary accounts of the novelist’s multifarious life and career are: Elaine Steinbeck and Robert Wallsten, eds.,
Steinbeck: A Life in Letters
(New York: The Viking Press, 1975); Jackson J. Benson,
The True Adventures of John Steinbeck, Writer
(New York: The Viking Press, 1984); and Adrian H. Goldstone and John R. Payne,
John Steinbeck: A Bibliographical Catalogue of the Adrian H. Goldstone Collection
(Austin: Humanities Research Center, 1974). Equally valuable are: John Steinbeck,
The Log from the
Sea of Cortez (New York: The Viking Press, 1951), which includes “About Ed Ricketts”; John Steinbeck, Journal
of a Novel: The
East of Eden
Letters
(New York: The Viking Press, 1969); Florian J. Shasky and Susan F. Riggs, eds.,
Letters to Elizabeth: A Selection of Letters from John Steinbeck to Elizabeth Otis
(San Francisco: The Book Club of California, 1978); Thomas Fensch,
Steinbeck and Covici: The Story of a Friendship
(Middlebury, VT: Paul S. Eriksson, 1979); and K. Nakayama and H. Hirose, eds.,
Selected Essays of John Steinbeck
(Tokyo: Shinozaki Shorin, 1984).

Professor Benson’s great book makes everyone else’s seem like a footnote, though occasionally shiny nuggets still turn up that don’t appear in his biography. These other works are original and helpful: Lewis Gannett,
John Steinbeck: Personal and Bibliographical Notes
(New York: The Viking Press, 1939); E. W. Tedlock and C. V. Wicker, eds.,
Steinbeck and His Critics: A Record of Twenty-Five Years
(Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1957); Peter Lisca,
The Wide World of John Steinbeck
(New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1958); Richard Astro,
John Steinbeck and Edward F. Ricketts: The Shaping of a Novelist
(Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1973); Nelson Valjean,
John Steinbeck: The Errant Knight
(San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 1975); Joel Hedgpeth,
The Outer Shores, Parts 1 and 2
(Eureka, CA: Mad River Press, 1978, 1979); Terry G. Halladay, ed., “’The Closest Witness’: The Autobiographical Reminiscences of Gwyndolyn Conger Steinbeck” (MA Thesis, Stephen F. Austin State University, 1979); John Gross and Lee Richard Hayman,
John Steinbeck: A Guide to the Collection of the Salinas Public Library
(Salinas: Salinas Public Library, 1979); Susan F. Riggs,
A Catalogue of the John Steinbeck Collection at Stanford University
(Stanford: Stanford University Libraries, 1980); Bradford Morrow,
John Steinbeck: A Collection of Books & Manuscripts Formed by Harry Valentine of Pacific Grove, California
(Santa Barbara: Bradford Morrow Bookseller Ltd., 1980); Carlton Sheffield,
Steinbeck: The Good Companion
(Portola Valley, CA: American Lives Endowment, 1983); Joseph Millichap,
Steinbeck and Film
(New York: Frederick Ungar, 1983); Robert DeMott,
Steinbeck’s Reading: A Catalogue of Books Owned and Borrowed
(New York: Garland, 1984); Robert H. Woodward,
The Steinbeck Research Center at San Jose State University: A Descriptive Catalogue
(San Jose: San Jose Studies, 1985); Bruce Ariss,
Inside Cannery Row: Sketches from the Steinbeck Era
(San Francisco: Lexikos, 1988); and Jackson J. Benson,
Looking for Steinbeck’s Ghost
(Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1988).

For specific analysis of and background to Steinbeck’s most famous novel, the following are recommended: Joseph Henry Jackson, Preface (originally printed as “Why Steinbeck wrote
The Grapes of Wrath
”) to the two-volume, Thomas Hart Benton illustrated deluxe edition of
The Grapes of Wrath
(New York: Limited Editions Club, 1940); Warren French, ed.,
A Companion to
The Grapes of Wrath (New York: The Viking Press, 1963); Agnes McNeill Donohue, ed.,
A Casebook on
The Grapes of Wrath (New York: Thomas Crowell, 1968); Peter Lisca, ed., The Grapes of Wrath,
Text and Criticism
(New York: The Viking Press, 1972); Warren French,
Filmguide to
The Grapes of Wrath (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1973); Robert Con Davis, ed.,
Twentieth Century Interpretations of
The Grapes of Wrath (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1982); and John Ditsky, ed.,
Critical Essays on
The Grapes of Wrath (Boston: G. K. Hall, 1989).

I have frequently, but sometimes silently, relied upon all these groups of books for guidance, information, inspiration, and verification. The following notes to
Working Days,
then, much as they seem like poor relatives at a rich person’s feast, are intended to perform an erstwhile service by sketching some of the private allusions and public references found in Steinbeck’s journal. The annotations are drawn from many published and unpublished sources, and of the latter, notably Steinbeck’s personal and professional correspondence with the staff of his agency, McIntosh and Otis, especially the fabulous cache of letters to and from Annie Laurie Williams, which until 1987 were restricted from public view. In addition, I have supplemented these with personal interviews and various archival documents. The aim, as Steinbeck once said, has been to create a whole picture, a unified field of facts and intimations, “where everything is an index of everything else.”

Gene.
Eugene Ainsworth married one of Steinbeck’s older sisters, Elizabeth (b. 1894). They were living in Stockton with their three children when he died on January 22, 1938, of strep infection.

Visalia and Nipomo.
The former is the seat of Tulare County, located between Fresno and Bakersfield in the San Joaquin Valley, which itself is the southern part of the great Central Valley of California. The plight of 5,000 stricken migrant families, in the flooded country around Visalia, fully engaged Steinbeck’s attention and compassion. What he witnessed there became the backdrop for the final scenes of
The Grapes of Wrath.
For three years running the latter, a small town north of Santa Barbara, had been the scene of starvation and misery among migrant pea pickers whose numbers (lured by inaccurate labor estimates and unscrupulous contractors) were far larger than needed to get in the crop. In February and March 1938, several hundred families were marooned in Nipomo.

Work goes well.
Steinbeck, at work since May 26, had already written what would become Chapters 1 and 2 of the published novel. Here, he is about to write 3, the symbolic intercalary chapter on the land turtle’s determined progress across “the concrete highway.” It became one of his favorite sections, and he frequently read it aloud to friends. For clarity and uniformity, subsequent references to episodes, scenes, sections, and/or chapters of the novel will be to the first published version,
The Grapes of Wrath
(New York: The Viking Press, 1939), and will be, wherever possible, incorporated parenthetically within brackets in the text of Steinbeck’s entries. With the exception of minor differences in chapter numbering (in the early going Steinbeck numbered the “general,” or intercalary, chapters alternately, not consecutively, with the “particular” chapters on the Joads—see his Entry #9 below) the sequence and arrangement of the holograph manuscript and the published version are precisely the same.

 

 

Duke.
Carlton “Duke” (or “Dook”) Sheffield, Steinbeck’s Stanford University classmate (they roomed together in Encina Hall from January to June 1923, when Sheffield graduated). A lifelong friend, the independent, Thoreauvian, Sheffield was at various times a teacher, a graduate student in English at Stanford, and a newspaperman. In 1938 he was working as a journalist for the Marysville (CA)
Appeal-Democrat.
During his visit (he arrived in Los Gatos on the afternoon of June 2—see next Entry) Steinbeck read aloud “with restrained glee the chapter on the turtle” (C.A. Sheffield/Robert DeMott, letter, July 1, 1985).