Steinbeck (14 page)

It would not be as sharp as this of course. But the little dialogue, if it came between the incidents would at least make clear the form of the book, its tragi-comic theme. It would also make clear and sharp the strong but different philosophic-moral system of these people. I don't intend to make the parallel of the round table more clear, but simply to show that a cycle is there. You will remember that the association forms, flowers and dies. Far from having a hard theme running through the book, one of the intents is to show that rarely does any theme in the lives of these people survive the night.

I shall be anxious to know your reaction to the Communist idea [which was to become
In Dubious Battle
].

Thank you for your letter.

Sincerely,
John Steinbeck

[Pacific Grove]
January 15 [1935]

Dear George:

This is the first time I have felt that I could take the time to write and also that I have had anything to say to anything except my manuscript book. You remember I had an idea that I was going to write the autobiography of a Communist. Then Miss McIntosh suggested that I reduce it to fiction. There lay the trouble. I had planned to write a journalistic account of a strike. But as I thought of it as fiction the thing got bigger and bigger. It couldn't be that. I've been living with this thing for some time now. I don't know how much I have got over, but I have used a small strike in an orchard valley as the symbol of man's eternal, bitter warfare with himself.

I'm not interested in strike as means of raising men's wages, and I'm not interested in ranting about justice and oppression, mere outcroppings which indicate the condition. But man hates something in himself. He has been able to defeat every natural obstacle but himself he cannot win over unless he kills every individual. And this self-hate which goes so closely in hand with self-love is what I wrote about. The book is brutal. I wanted to be merely a recording consciousness, judging nothing, simply putting down the thing. I think it has the thrust, almost crazy, that mobs have. It is written in disorder.

In the God I strove for a serene movement like the movement of the year and the turn of the seasons, in this I wanted to get over unrest and irritation and slow sullen movement breaking out now and then in fierce eruptions. And so I have used a jerky method. I ended the book in the middle of a sentence. There is a cycle in the life of a man but there is no ending in the life of Man. I tried to indicate this by stopping on a high point, leaving out any conclusion.

The book is disorder, but if it should ever come to you to read, listen to your own thoughts when you finish it and see if you don't find in it a terrible order, a frightful kind of movement. The talk, and the book is about eighty percent dialogue, is what is usually called vulgar. I have worked along with working stiffs and I have rarely heard a sentence that had not some bit of profanity in it. And in books I am sick of the noble working man talking very like a junior college professor. I don't know what will become of this book. It may be too harsh for anyone to buy. It is not controversial enough to draw the support of either the labor or the capital side although either may draw controversial conclusions from it, I suppose. It will take about a month to whip it into shape for sending. If you see Miss McIntosh will you tell her? I should have it off by the fifteenth of February.

It is called Dubious Battle from the lines in the first part of the argument of Paradise Lost:

I was very near collapse when I finished this afternoon. But I've been thinking and dreaming it for some months now. Only the mechanical revision is needed. It won't take much polish. It isn't that kind of a book.

I suppose in a few days I'll get out of this lost feeling. Just now I feel that I have come up out of a deep delirium. I must put in the beginning of this book a guarantee that all persons places and events are fictional because it all has happened and I don't want anybody hurt because of my retelling. Lord, I hope it has in it one tenth of the stuff I tried to put in it. Can't tell. Can't ever tell. People who are easily revolted shouldn't read it. Oh! what the hell. I'm just talking on. And I'm too tired to be writing a letter. I've written thirty thousand words in the last eight days. I'll finish this letter later. I'm going for a walk down by the water.

 

It is the next day. I am luxuriating in laziness, with a fine sense of sin, too, but shall get back to work tomorrow. I got rid of most of the tiredness last night and with the help of a little glass of very nice chartreuse, which beverage I love. The first part of this letter is rather frantic.

Carol's mother sent her an insurance policy to bury Carol in case of her death. It has brightened our whole day. Had been intended as a Christmas present but got delayed. It would have made a nice Christmas present, don't you think?

The sun is shining so nice. One of Ed's collectors got very drunk in the lab the night before last and tipped over a museum jar, left his pants and shoes and disappeared. Ed was angry. The next morning the collector Gabe came in in a long overcoat and a pair of rubber boots. Ed said, “I should think you could at least keep sober on the job.” And Gabe who was very friendly put his arms around Ed and said, “Eddie, I know I have a bawling out coming and I forgive you.” “Forgive, hell!” yells Ed. “Now Eddie, don't think you can embarrass me,” Gabe says. He turns around and spreads the tails of the overcoat, showing that he had on a pair of blue jeans in which there is no seat and exposed is a large pink tocus. Gabe says, “Eddie, I've been visiting people like this. If I can do that, you couldn't possibly embarrass me and I forgive you for trying.” Ed got down from his chair and everybody had a drink. Ed says, “What can you do with a man like that?”

Ed is fine. And he is feeling pretty fine now too. He was over yesterday afternoon. This is a long letter, I guess. All about me. I haven't had such a going over for some time. I like this typewriter. It is very fast. I see a cat. You see two cats. Who are the cats. That will be all, sir. You can just take this letter out and put it in an envelope if that's the way you feel. No tricks, sir. We have our standards and by God sir, no wart hog like you is going to lower them.

I beg your pardon

for being,
sincerely yours

Rabbit Steinbeck

[Pacific Grove]
[1935]

Dear George:

The book came this morning two days after your letter [an advance copy of Albee's novel
Not in a Day
, published by Knopf]. It found us in a mad manuscript period. Carol batting out finished copy like mad [of
In Dubious Battle
]
.
But I'm letting her read the book first. She takes little rests and plunges into it and lets out bellows of laughter. I envy both her and you. She reads very fast and I read very slowly. She'll be through with it tonight. So I shall only start this letter and finish it when I have read Not in a Day. I don't like the dust jacket. Saving the back flap, I burned it. But I think the binding and boards and set up and printing is superb. Knopf does that sort of thing so darned well.

Yesterday I went collecting with Ed. The first time I had been out in a long time. It is fine spring now and I enjoyed it a lot. Went over to Santa Cruz. Carol wouldn't go because she was typing and wouldn't take the time off. It would have done her good. But we're broke now and one hamburger was all we could afford. I had been working longer than she had so I took the day off. Today back at revising and proofreading. I'm making dumplings for dinner. I hope they're good. It's a dirty shame Carol has to work so hard. She's putting in nine hours a day at it. I wish I could do it but my typing is so very lousy.

I had a letter from Covici which sounded far from overenthusiastic. I liked it. It gave me some confidence in the man. I like restraint Covici says, “I am interested in your work and would like to arrive at an agreement with Miss McIntosh.” My estimation of him went up immediately. It is nice to know that he is more enthusiastic than that, of course. This morning I got applications on the Phelan Award sent at your request. I shall probably fill out the blank and send it in. I don't know whom to get to sponsor me but maybe I'll think of some one. That's all for now.

Now it's Monday morning. Carol has gone to work for the S.E.R.A. [State Emergency Relief Administration.] Poor kid has to put in six hours there and then come home and type ms. She has nearly two hundred pages yet to do. What a job. She is taking it awfully well as usual.

I read Not in a Day last night. Finished it about three this morning. I don't know whether it is high or low comedy but I do know it's awfully funny. My own work seems stodgy and heavy by comparison. I hope you will read Tortilla Flat some time. That is neither heavy nor stodgy. Anyway I'm glad you wrote this book and I am convinced that it will release you from the necessities for working on fan magazines. I hope it sells a million copies. Congratulations.

I have a great deal of proof reading and correction to do and besides that I am doing the house and the cooking and bedmaking. So I'll sign off. But I am pleased with Not in a Day. Don't let it make a slave of you. I mean, if it sells well, people will want another just like it, and don't let them have it. For right at that point of capitulation is the decision whether the public is going to rule you or you your public.

I simply have to go to work. Goodbye. You have complimented me greatly by sending the book.

jon

Pacific Grove
[1935]

Dear Miss Hadden:

Thank you very much for your offer to help. I shall explain the situation. The James Phelan Award for Literature is coming due, and a friend sent me an application. It is only open to natives of the state. Now there is one space on the application after the following demand: Give names of three persons competent in your field and acquainted with you personally to whom the Trustees may apply for confidential information about your qualifications for the fellowship.

What confidential material they could wish I don't know. Possibly about my habits. I'm afraid you don't know much about those. I will tell you.

I have all the vices in a very mild way except that of narcotics, unless coffee and tobacco are classed as narcotics. I have been in jail once for a night a long time ago, a result of a combination of circumstance, exuberance and a reasonable opinion that I could lick a policeman. The last turned out to be undemonstrable. I don't think the trustees would be interested, but they might. I am married and quarrel violently with my wife and we both enjoy it very much. And last, I am capable of a tremendous amount of work. I have just finished a novel of a hundred and twenty thousand words, three drafts in a little over four months.

I am embarrassed for having to ask any one to vouch for me. It seems to me it would be better if I could simply submit a book and be judged upon the strength of it.

I have a long and very different novel nearly ready to write but I have thought I would have to put it off until I had laid aside enough money to allow for no interruption. This award is for one thousand dollars. It runs for one year but since we ordinarily live on four hundred a year, the money would let me do what I really want to and what the thesis of the novel really deserves, that is take two full years to the work.

I hope this will not cause you to go to any great trouble. I have little hope of being awarded this fellowship. But since it is rather easy to do, I think I shall, if you are willing to help me.

 

Sincerely,
John Steinbeck