Down to a Soundless Sea (35 page)

Q: Are any of the characters, such as the faux-crazed scholar Clarke in “An Unbecoming Grace,” based on real people from the Monterey Peninsula?

A: Almost all the characters in the book are based on real people and their life experiences. In some cases, as in the story “The Night Guide,” the key incident was related to me by Bill Post, the grandson of the boy described in the narrative. All the stories came down to me through a long oral tradition, and of course the best stories are always about real people. As a writer, one is hard-pressed to invent material that is as entertaining and informative as reality.

Q: You seem attracted to youthful and wayward protagonists. Is this simply a consequence of genre or is it evidence of a more personal inclination?

A: I’m not principally attracted to any one character for any particular reason. I always attempt to portray people as I find them, warts, halos, and all. I studiously avoid prejudice for artistic reasons only. Bias clouds vision, and chauvinism hobbles creativity. Since I have never come across anyone who stands without blame in one realm or another, it would appear senseless to portray them in any but the most realistic contours and hues. Pure objectivity may be impossible in a subjective world, but like Diogenes and his search for an honest man, impartiality is hardly an unrewarding lamp to follow. The process has its own tar pits, of course, but if I’d been looking for a sure thing, I wouldn’t have become a writer.

Q: Often your characters struggle with the vast inequities of society. How has this struggle been updated since the time of these stories? Do you encounter similar characters in modern-day Monterey?

A: Social inequity (in some instances applied on a statutory basis), and the implied manipulation of inequality, has been one of the darker hallmarks of human society since our troglodyte ancestors decided who was going to get the dry part of the cave. The struggle of any one minority to liberate its momentum from the constraints so stringently applied by the rest of society appears to be a never-ending repetition of a primeval human dilemma. Class paranoia has always insisted on the necessity of maintaining the status quo, regardless of how socially counterproductive and morally bankrupt such instincts prove to be. In that regard, one can’t swing a broken promise without striking parallels in all directions. My characters are taken from life portraits, and therefore I assume they endure the same social spurs as the rest of us. In a nutshell, little has changed in human affairs since before written history. It’s no great challenge to find identical threads binding past to present, and present to future when it comes to the conduct of human affairs.

Q: In
Down to a Soundless Sea
, you’ve created a well-rounded world in a relatively limited geographical area. Were you intentionally seeking to showcase this microcosmic diversity?

A: The fact that all the stories in the book concern people who once lived in the Big Sur was no accident, but the location was by no means chosen as a literary device. Though I would not fault a reader for coming to that conclusion. In truth, the microcosmic aspect of the completed work didn’t occur to me until after I’d finished the manuscript. I had spent so much time immersed in the details of each individual story that the ultimate impact of the format never came to mind.

Q: In these stories, each sentence benefits from a lush architecture of language. Do you approach writing as an arduous craft that requires intricate planning and careful construction or is your method more organic and improvisational?

A: If I could truly understand, and calibrate for the edification of others, how I do what I do, I probably wouldn’t do it at all. Everything in life is relatively arduous, and most human endeavors require some degree of careful planning. I find this human concern admirable every time I drive my car or board an aircraft. But I must confess that writing for me is a means and an end in itself. I write to become a better writer. Like all great crafts, the more you do, the better you get. Many times this requires grasping for technical literary straws, which rarely serve the purpose, and other ventures seem to come into bloom with little or no assistance from me whatsoever. But if one can’t resist the search for labels, then I will plead no contest to “organic” and “improvisational” for lack of a better list of charges.

Q: Redemption, when and if it arrives in these stories, is marked by a quiet, simple, and lonely sort of dignity. What is it about this dignity that appeals to you as a writer? As a person? Does it strike you as a specifically small-town or California-coast kind of dignity?

A: I rarely think in terms of downfall or redemption as a central theme, if only because spiritual journeys between those two well-defined extremes are literarily predictable as a plot vehicle. I really don’t concern myself with the moral ambiguities of society or individuals unless those insights might lead to a greater comprehension of instinct, motive, or conduct. Whether or not the struggles of individual characters are worthy to be labeled as ‘dignified’ is speculative. At the very least, it’s a decision I would rather leave to the reader.

Q: In congruence with the title, the strongest character in
Down to a Soundless Sea
is perhaps nature itself. Many of the stories are centered on man’s timeless struggle with nature and end with his eventual concession to it. What do you see as the proper, or necessary, approach that man must take in his relationship with the natural world?

A: It has been my general experience that mankind, though doomed to fiddle and fudge with everything within reach just for the hell of it, habitually ignores the subtle fluidity and changing pulse of the natural world, usually with horrific consequences. Gilgamesh, Osiris, and Noah could all testify to the challenging implications of rising water. The human lexicon of myths repeatedly chronicles mankind’s run-ins with the deadlier forces of nature. As always, the moral rests on the once and future premise that survival requires not just insight, but ever-vigilant flexibility. And it appears, according to most mythological and meteorological references, that only those creatures capable of swift adaptation, and prepared to take advantage of natural chaos, survive it. In other words, if the waves have already covered the temple, don’t bother building a damn boat. At that point you have better odds with prayer.

For a writer with a terminal case of historic curiosity, I find the interplay among humans, their all-prevailing self-delusion, and the dynamic forces of nature, an abundant source of intellectually nutritious material; manna from chaos, as it were. As an unbiased observer, I prefer not to take sides in the struggle between man’s nature and Nature itself. Suffice it to say that I never bet on long odds, and from my vantage point, the forces of nature have the deck stacked and the bones loaded against us. If it weren’t for mankind’s inflated image of self-importance, humans would have realized that they don’t own the world. The world owns them. Perhaps it’s this secret knowledge that fuels the contest between the savage and the coming of the night.

1. Discuss the implications of “home” in
   Down to a Soundless Sea
   . The collection opens with Bill Post constructing a home for his new family, Chapel Lodge in “Blind Luck” never has a real home growing up, and Dean in “An Unbecoming Grace” makes his home by throwing its original settler over a cliff and renaming the homestead for himself. What does the concept of “home” imply specifically in these stories of the newly settled Monterey Coast?
   
2. “The Wool Gatherer” ends with the line, “John kept that receipt for years to remind him of his bear and the expense incurred by magic visions.” What might this reference to “expense” imply, especially in a family of storytellers like the Steinbecks, who hold the “magic visions” of fiction in such high esteem? In the end, was John Steinbeck’s pursuit of his Great Sur Bear worth the expense and trouble of tracking it that summer of 1920?
   
3. Many, if not all, of the characters in
   Down to a Soundless Sea
   are self-made. What are some pressures of the West after the turn of the century that force them to practice their personal industry? What are some freedoms that the Monterey County of that era allows them?
   
4. In his “Author’s Note,” Steinbeck notes how difficult it can be to “attempt duplication of language used by the original participants and make it ring true for the modern car.” Steinbeck does so in a number of ways: for example, the Portuguese captain seeks “a fitting dog’s body to take the axe when the cards turned sour,” the Partington brothers of “The Dark Watcher” were “not known for salting the mines of accuracy.” How do such phrases contribute to a tone of live storytelling? What other devices does Steinbeck use to emphasize these stories’ oral history?
   
5. Many of the characters in
   Down to a Soundless Sea
   are immigrants, from Chow Yong Fat to the dually surnamed Simon Gutierez O’Brian. Discuss the struggles that faced immigrants in the Monterey Coast area of this era. What support systems did it offer them? How does the liberation they found there compare to the hardships that confronted them?
   
6. Down to a Soundless Sea
   opens with the birth of Charles Post and closes with the death of Sue May Yee. Both events occur during great storms. Discuss this circularity. Do you see any other correlations in the way Steinbeck chooses to order the stories of this collection?
   
7. What does
   Down to a Soundless Sea
   have to say about the regard for learning in the early days of the Monterey Coast? Consider characters like Doc Roberts in “An Unbecoming Grace,” Sing Fat in “Sing Fat and the Imperial Duchess of Woo,” and Professor Gill in “The Dark Watcher.”
   
8. Many of the characters of the collection appear in more than one story: the Post family, introduced in “The Night Guide,” reappears in “The Dark Watcher”; the captain “smuggling Chinese ‘illegals’ ” in “Blighted Cargo” references Chow Yong Fat’s experience in “The Imperial Duchess of Woo”; Chapel Lodge chances across Captain Leland after many years in “Blind Luck.” How does this comment on the community of the Monterey Coast at the century’s beginning, especially in a time when travel and communication were more difficult?
   
9. The antagonists of
   Down to a Soundless Sea
   have all the deliciously vile characteristics of the good villains of oral storytelling. Are there any redeeming qualities to characters such as Simon Gutierez O’Brian in “Blighted Cargo” and the Stoat in “An Unbecoming Grace”?
   
10. Water is very significant in this collection set on the Monterey Coast. When is water a negative force in these stories? When is it positive? How is the sea “soundless” in all senses of the word “sound,” connoting stability, measurability, noise, or something free of flaws?
    
11. The intimate stories of
    Down to a Soundless Sea
    read like stories told by the fireside, stories told in person. Discuss the differences between oral storytelling and the written tale. What are some advantages of the story on the page? What is gained by stories told in person?
    
12. A reader comes away from
    Down to a Soundless Sea
    feeling connected to its vibrant characters. Although the modern plight is markedly different from that of the newly settled Monterey Coast, how do you feel that your experience is similar to theirs? How are the hardships of modern life different from those of turn-of-the-century California?
    

First I would like to credit Michael Freed, creator of the Post Ranch Inn on the coast of Big Sur, whose love of that country encouraged him to commission this volume of stories. His respect and admiration for the stalwart souls who settled those broken mountains and rugged shores inspired the author to resurrect and reexamine stories he had heard so often from elders or those who knew something of the anecdotes firsthand.