Steinbeck (6 page)

This letter would seem to indicate that I am unhappy. Such is not the case. As long as I can work I shall be happy (except during moments of reflection) regardless of the quality of the work. That is a curious thing but true.

There was a great fire last night. The Del Monte bath house burned to the ground. We got up and went to it and stood in the light and heat and gloried in the destruction. When Cato was shouting in the Roman Senate “Carthago delenda est,” I wondered whether in his mind there was not a vision of the glorious fire it would make. Precious things make beautiful flames. The pyre that Savonarola made of all lovely and profound, wise and beautiful things of northern Italy must have been the finest fire the world has seen. I believe there is an account which says that when Caesar burned the great library at Alexandria, the populace laughed and groaned in exquisite despair.

You say you are striving for tenseness in your ms. I feel increasingly that you and I are the only ones of our entire acquaintance who have retained any literary responsibility and integrity. That is worth while regardless of the badness of my work.

Modern sanity and religion are a curious delusion. Yesterday I went out in a fishing boat—out in the ocean. By looking over the side into the blue water, I could quite easily see the shell of the turtle who supports the world. I am getting more prone to madness. What a ridiculous letter this is; full of vaguenesses and unrealities. I for one arid you to some extent have a great many of the basic impulses of an African witch doctor.

You know the big pine tree beside this house? I planted it when it and I were very little; I've watched it grow. It has always been known as “John's tree.” Years ago, in mental playfulness I used to think of it as my brother and then later, still playfully, I thought of it as something rather closer, a kind of repository of my destiny. This was all an amusing fancy, mind you. Now the lower limbs should be cut off because they endanger the house. I must cut them soon, and I have a very powerful reluctance to do it, such a reluctance as I would have toward cutting live flesh. Furthermore if the tree should die, I am pretty sure I should be ill. This feeling I have planted in myself,and quite deliberately I guess, but it is none the less strong for all that.

I shall stop before you consider me quite mad.

Sincerely,
John

Pacific Grove
[December 1930]

Dear Ted:

I think the manuscript [“Murder at Full Moon”] enclosed in this package is self explanatory. For some time now, I have been unhappy. The reason is that I have a debt and it is making me miserable.

It is quite obvious that people do not want to buy the things I have been writing. Therefore, to make the money I need, I must write the things they want to read. In other words, I must sacrifice artistic integrity for a little while to personal integrity. Remember that when this manuscript makes you sick. And remember that it makes me a great deal sicker than it does you.

Conrad said that only two things sold, the very best and the very worst. From my recent efforts, it has been borne to me that I am not capable of writing the very best yet. I have no doubt that I shall be able to in the future, but at present, I cannot. It remains to be seen whether I can write the very worst.

I will tell you a little bit about the enclosed ms. It was written complete in nine days. It is about sixty two or three thousand words long. It took two weeks to type. In it I have included all the cheap rackets I know of, and have tried to make it stand up by giving it a slightly burlesque tone. No one but my wife and my folks know that I have written it, and no one except you will know. I see no reason why a nom de plume should not be respected and maintained. The nom de plume I have chosen is Peter Pym.

The story holds water better than most, and I think it has a fairish amount of mystery. The burlesqued bits, which were put in mostly to keep my stomach from turning every time I sat down at the typewriter, may come out.

Don't let it make you too sick. It only took nine days to write and it didn't have any effect on me whatever. I feel very badly about it, but I won't be very happy anyway unless this debt is paid. It isn't a large debt but it is worrying me.

Carol and another girl, both of wide experience, are opening a small publicity and advertising agency on the peninsula. Come west soon and be their attorney.

Let me hear from you when you can. And if you don't get either card or present from me this Christmas, you will know that I am broke. I so warn you in advance. And I hope you have a good drunken Christmas.

affectionately
John

Pacific Grove
January 1931

Dear George:

I don't remember whether or not I have written since Christmas. It doesn't matter. We got your note. Thank you! Cards we did not send. Christmas broke us as it was, so that we must live nine days on two dollars and five cents. I think we can do it although the last few of those nine may find us living on rice. That doesn't matter either. It's rather amusing. The holidays were pretty exciting. We bought things and arranged them for all of my little nieces and nephews. Then Christmas eve we watched the workings of the god-given attitude, greed. It must be god-given because no other creature except man possesses it. It is our instinct stronger than the sexual and developing only slightly less early than the instinct to eat. The children grabbed things, tore off the papers, and grabbed other things. They squalled if they were not all served at once. And they are not bad as greedy children. They are very normal.

A letter from Maryon [Sheffield] this morning described a New Year's party which must have been a counterpart of the one last year. What are you doing? I don't feel like writing. I've been writing all day.

John

Pacific Grove
1931

Dear George:

Your letter this morning aroused a degree of argumentativeness in me—a good sign that the great depression is about over. It strikes me that the world is not nearly as hostile as you are. You fight it so, George. I think it angers you because it pays so little attention to you.

Fine artistic things seem always to be done in the face of difficulties, and the rocky soil, which seems to give the finest flower, is contempt. Don't fool yourself, George, appreciation doesn't make artists. It ruins them. A man's best work is done when he is fighting to make himself heard, not when swooning audiences wait for his paragraphs. An elevated train two doors away can have far more to do with a fine book than advance royalties or “an eager printer's boy waiting in the hall.” If you don't want to fight them you shouldn't be writing. One can force attention by making one's work superb. Only practice can do that.

Things like this hurt. My sister is staying over night. I say —“I have a new story. I wish you'd listen to it.” She says, “I'd love to.” The story is three weeks of thinking and working. I am proud of it. It makes me laugh because it is so funny. I can hardly read the end because it is so sad. Its characters are my own children. And after supper, my sister walks up town and buys a Saturday Evening Post. I do not read her this story. It is silly. But why should I be angry when she would rather read a story whose value is $3,000 rather than one from my ragged notebook—in first draft and unsaleable. How can I blame her when I wouldn't like to read my own first drafts if I hadn't written them? It takes a great expert to judge a story in manuscript. You must remember that before you let your feelings be hurt.

I think Carolyn would be a good wife. You don't want your wife to think you a genius. No wife ever could and it would be terrible if she did. I had a mistress once who thought I was. I was young enough to think I was too. I had to leave her in sheer boredom and disgust. It's too onerous to be a genius.

John

Pacific Grove
February 27, 1931

 

Excuse this kind of writing. It is the only kind I am capable of just now. A visit to the dentist this morning has battered my outlook. I meant to answer your last letter before this. In my last letter I had no intention of giving you advice. Advice is not my nature anyway. I blunder terribly, George. I go through life a grazing elephant, knocking down trees I am too stupid to consider formidable. My blindness and unawareness terrify me in the few moments of light. I'm twenty-nine today, and I haven't thought enough things or done enough things to be that old. This afternoon my parents will drive over to get us and take us to dinner. Dinner at Highland or Del Monte. The check will be not less than thirty dollars, and I can't pay a dentist bill. There's something silly about it. I don't just know where it is, but it's crazy some way.

In a rougher age I would have been eliminated I guess. A saber tooth would have grabbed me while I looked stupidly at pond lilies.

When I was sixteen or seventeen I spent a goodly time looking in mirrors bemoaning my ugliness, turning my head to see whether some position or other wouldn't soften the coarseness of my features. None of them did. The people I admired and envied! If I could only have looked forward I wouldn't have minded so much. The beauty of the school, at thirty-two,—baldness and astigmatism and the gin which society forced him to drink, have made him look like a slender pig. The lovely girl I didn't dare speak to because my lips were thick and my nose resembled a wen, is sagging under the chin and her eyes have the worried look of half-successful people who only buy at the best markets and who will mortgage the house rather than keep a car two years.

Then after a while I stopped looking in mirrors. It was safer. I didn't see myself for a number of years, and when I finally did look again, it was a stranger I saw, and I didn't care one way or another what he looked like.

This was begun some days ago. It probably doesn't mean anything. I am having trouble with my manuscript. Most of my troubles arise in something like that. Also I have a tooth-ache, two huge fever blisters, and the itch of departing novocaine. These are enough to disrupt any philosophy. In addition—this paper which was guaranteed to take ink, didn't very well. I feel peeled of my skin and the nerve ends quivering in the air.

I'm having a devil of a time with my new book. It just won't seem to come right. Largeness of character is difficult. Never deal with an Olympian character. I think better times will come to me pretty soon. March is a curious month for my family. Every disaster of every kind—death, sickness, financial stress, during the last two generations of my family, has occurred in March. My mother goes through the month with her teeth set, fully believing it is an evil month for us. If a March passes without evil she celebrates.

Aren't you ever coming up again? This is the grand time of the year, and you didn't even see the coast country. It is the most fantastic place. We have no car now, but I drive my folks places. They are enjoying it so much.

[unsigned]

[Pacific Grove] [Spring] 1931

Dear George:

I have been filled with a curious cloying despair. I haven't heard a word from any of my manuscripts for over three months. It is nerve wracking. I would welcome rejections far more than this appalling silence.

My new novel slumbers. I doubt myself. This is a very critical time.

Carol's business is growing nicely. She gets prettier all the time. I'm more in love with her than I ever was. Sometimes I waken in the night with the horrible feeling that she is gone. I shouldn't want to live if she were.

I wish you would come up. There are so many things I want to talk to you about.

We are just as broke as ever. More so, if that is possible. Money would probably kill me as too rich air would.

I shan't send this today. I haven't a stamp and probably I shall want to write some more tomorrow.

John

[Pacific Grove]
[June 1931]

Dear Ted:

I had your letter this morning. Your house in the country at the place the name of which I could not read, sounds charming indeed. This country is becoming a desert. The ten dry years are on again and if they continue very much longer we will be conserving water. The usual dejection is falling over the country people and they are making plans to move. The farmer is the most chicken-headed of humans. Let one man succeed in a crop and the whole Valley puts in that crop and floods the market while there is a shortage of the thing they have cut out.

Things are the same with me. I am working on two novels, not simultaneously but a few months on each. I don't know how long I can hold out now. Universal rejections are bound to induce a kind of a mental state, but that I can overcome if only I can keep away from the successful paper pulp boys. Financially I should have been dead long ago, but I'm not. Things go on and I am not in jail. I live on twenty-five dollars a month now. Carol of course, supports herself and puts twenty-five in the pot every month so we have fifty for expenses. And we manage. I thought in writing the murder rot that I was doing a fairly sure thing, but obviously I was not. I think your plan to turn it over to an agent rather a good one. It would keep your hands clean anyway. I have completely lost hope in the other two things. I think they might as well be yanked out of circulation. Apparently they make no impression at all and they are wasting both your time and that of the publishers to whom they are submitted. Curiously enough their failure does not make much difference to the present work. The God must have been to ten publishers by now and has only received a decent note from one. That is pretty fair indication of its appeal. I don't know much what to do. Mostly I don't think about it if I can help it.