Steinbeck (49 page)

So long. And this year is going so fast that it will be little time before I will be seeing you. My cabin is reserved.

Love to you
John

[New York]

Dear Dave and Joan: January 31, 1950

Dear Dave and Joan:

Lord! this month has gone fast and slow. With fingers crossed I am finishing my play today. That's pretty fast since I started it on Jan. 9. But that doesn't take into consideration the months of thinking about it of course. Naturally we haven't done very much else but that's not entirely true either. We saw Hepburn in As You Like It and that was a really beautiful show. I had never seen it before although of course I've read it many times. Then Saturday we went to a big party for Ethel Barrymore whom I had never met. She is charming and sharp but old and a little sick. The guest list was very strange: Bernie Baruch, Abe Burrows, Saroyan, Ray Bolger, Margo, John Ringling North with a tomato (why does he do it) Frank Loesser, Leonard Bernstein, Lillian Gish. Can you remember a crazier guest list? Anyway it ended at six in the morning with a dance contest between Bolger and Margo —she in classical Spanish and he in classical Bolger. A real good party. That's the only late one I've been to since I started. Friday we're seeing Caesar & Cleo with Hardwicke and Lilli Palmer and the Happy Time Monday and The Cocktail Party Wednesday. This is more theatre than I have seen in years. And I'm loving it. If I am going to do plays I'll have to know about them.

I know what you mean about wanting to get out of the cloisters and to work. Do you know what you are going to do? The only advice I can give you is that you must not insist on being consistent in anything but work. I mean—if one thing is not fun and rewarding, don't be afraid to reverse yourself and do something else. Joan will go along with you and it's nobody else's business. And that's my advice to you for the day—To make a little tight company composed of Joan and you—to make your plans and decisions there, to take advice if it seems good, but pressures never, and from that tight island to do exactly what you want and to hell with everybody. There's only one crime in our world and that's failure and only one sin and that's weakness. And if you operate out of your tight island, you'll have neither. And my God, I've really grown a long beard in this letter—haven't I.

love
John

[Rockland County]
Late July 1950

Dear Bo:

I was greatly relieved to get your letter. I am so glad you have broken the old slavery. I never liked the other one and I never knew why. But it was something basic; something maybe of odor beyond the conscious range. I am delighted that you have found a girl who delights you. Mine delights me.

I have my boys in the country with me about an hour out of New York in the rich green and little streams of Rockland County. It is rough and comfortable and we are having a good summer and I am getting work done too. What more can you wish? My boys are fine and brown. They are pretty good. I don't think I should want them more good than they are.

My first play [
Burning Bright
] goes into rehearsal on Sept. 5th and the second one probably in October. I am all finished with the Zapata script and with a biography of Ed Ricketts for a new edition of Sea of Cortez. The second play not finished yet but should be next month. [This was abandoned.] So you can see that work has been coming out of me. I shall be done and ready to start on my long novel in October.

I have been horrified at the creeping paralysis that is coming out of the Kremlin, the death of art and thought, the death of individuals and the only creative thing in the world is the individual. When I was in Russia a couple of years ago I could see no creative thing. The intellectuals parroted articles they had read in safe magazines. It makes me more than sorry, it makes me nauseated. And of all the books required and sent to Russians who asked for them, not one arrived, and even the warm sweater and mittens for a girl, and a doll for a little girl—not even these were permitted to arrive. I can't think that wars can solve things but something must stop this thing or the world is done and gone into a black chaos that makes the dark ages shine. If that is what we are headed for, I hope I do not live to see it and I won't because I will fight it. God knows you and we are far from perfect but we are far better than that. We can make a noise even if not many people listen.

Shostakovich denounced me as a cannibal the other day. Of course he must—any man who can say that his work, written in honesty, was not true, was wrong because a committee says it was—is a liar and must have a very bad artistic conscience. He can say it was inept, badly executed, childish or immature but no artist is
wrong.
I suppose we have many people who would like to curb thought too but they have not succeeded and they must not succeed. If I seem vehement about this, it is because I saw it and see it. Here, I may not be liked for what I say but I can write it and people can read it and do and that's all I ask. And I wonder (since our species is a creative one) about the hidden artists in Russia who paint behind drawn curtains, and sing music under their breaths and write poetry and burn it or hide it. I do not think any system which uses such force can survive for long but while it does—it can ruin and maim for such a long time to come. This is a tirade isn't it?

My Elaine is a wonderful girl. I can write with her sitting in the room with me and that's the best that can be said about her calmness and benignity. It is the first peace I have had with a woman. She has great style and great kindness. She doesn't want to hurt anyone for anything. I guess, in other words, she is a well adjusted girl. So that is that and I hope it is good and will be all right. I have lots of work to do and I should for once like to do it in peace. I have not had that before.

My oldest boy will be six on August 2nd. I am going in to New York tomorrow to get him some little presents. I don't know what to get him. He wants an automobile and a horse neither of which is practical. He will have to go back to his mother in October. I hope he does not have to go too many more times.

A long winter of hard work and then we will break free and if the world will let us, we will go out into it. So many people are shuddering in a planless lymph because they are afraid the world is falling apart. I do not believe that. It is changing surely but it cannot eliminate us completely. Some part of us —you in your windows and I perhaps in a sentence or two—will outwit them and go on.

Please write to me more often. I shall want to know how you are getting on.

and affection to you
and your girl
John

[Rockland County]
[Midsummer 1950]
Monday

Dear Pat:

A number of things to discuss with you so I'll write them because on the telephone I forget everything. First about Sea of Cortez. Please note down the things you might want cut or changed so I can do it all at once.

Second part—Forests [the play-novel he had been working on]. There is one disadvantage to the play-novel form. The novel has to go to press and stay that way but little changes take place in the play right up to opening night. One big change took place yesterday. Neither Rodgers, Hammerstein [producers of the play] nor anyone in this office thought In the Forests of the Night was a good title for a play. Too long, they thought, and a touch literary. They suggest and I have agreed to the title, Burning Bright. I wish I had thought of it long ago. I don't know what you will do about this since you have started the process and the thing is in page proof. Maybe just a note on the title page. I can also tell you that Mielziner will do the sets. He is crazy about the play. I am very glad of this because I think he is the very best of all.

The summer is half over and I don't know where it has gone. Nothing ever went so quickly. Elaine had to go to town to meet her daughter but she will be back tomorrow. I miss her and the boys miss her. My sister [Mary Dekker] went home. I think she was frightened. She has been living alone so long and in the past that she scuttled back. But I think she will come back and soon. It usually takes two tries when you have been boarded up so long.

If I do not mention the war it is because I try not to think of it much. It seems a screaming hysteria to me—a thing of nightmare and madness. The pattern is too recent. We seem to be forcing ourselves into a war. I do not think the Russians will fight nor will they have to. We will bleed white and all die of apoplexy.

I guess this is all. It is still cool and lovely in the country. Who could have thought it? But I am getting restive and I shall not be unpleased to be back in my little apartment with the yellow pads laid out.

I'll talk to you soon.

love
John

[Rockland County]
August 22, 1950

Dear Gwyn:

The boys are fine but bug bit. Thorn especially has some very pretty mosquito bites. He scratches which makes them worse. Johnny has a tougher skin and they don't poison him so badly. The boys are both hard as nails due to constant exercise. I think they have made progress this summer. They are being very good and very good company.

Having heard small Nat [younger son of Nathaniel Benchley] say his prayers, they demanded to say theirs and they now know and like not only “Now I lay me—” but also the Lord's Prayer. Their interpretations of some of the words of the last one are interesting but they love the sounds of the words. Amen—has become “our men” and I can't change that, just as I can't change Oblong Cassidy and the Long Ranger. Also Johnny's remark that “Last night it was night all night,” I find not only true but poetic. The boys know a great many poems and songs, some new and some they brought with them.

Thorn can now dive off a board into deep water and is very proud. Johnny is still shy of swimming but that is the only thing he is shy of.

Both boys are highly manners-able (you've trained them well) and have lost the shyness with strangers. Both have remarkable ears for music but Johnny has an amazingly true pitch in singing—at four can carry a tune perfectly which is rare. Both boys want very much to go to school. Thom will learn to read this year and the moment he does, he will be into books for some time, I think.

I have completely cut off comic books this summer and they have not missed them—largely because there were not other children around reading them. I also cut off the radio. They could listen to it in the daytime but never in their room during naps or at night.

All in all they have been wonderful boys and I have enjoyed them thoroughly. They look as wild and brown as range ponies.

I should like to know when you want them back. On Sept. 5th we go into rehearsal when I will move into town.

Finally and with crossed fingers—there has not been one single cold or sniffle or stomach upset or fever all summer. They seem to be in perfect health.

Please let me know your plans so I can make my arrangements.

John

[Rockland County]
[Late summer 1950]

Dear Gadg:

Last night Elaine read me parts of the script [
Viva Zapatal
]
.
She liked it very much and I must say I did too. It is a little double action jewel of a script. But I was glad to hear it again because before it is mouthed by actors, I want to go over the dialogue once more for very small changes. Things like—“For that matter.” “As a matter of fact”—in other words all filler wants to come out. There isn't much but there is some. I'll want no word in dialogue that has not some definite reference to the story. You said once that you would like this to be a kind of monument. By the same token I would like it to be as tight and terse as possible. It is awfully good but it can be better. Just dialogue—I heard a dozen places where I can clean it and sharpen it. But outside of that I am very much pleased with it. I truly believe it is a classic example of good film writing. So we'll make it perfect.

Let me know. what happens. After Labor Day I will be in town most of the time.

Molly [Mrs. Kazan] left her hat here.

Love to you both—
John

[Rockland County]
August 30 [1950]

Dear Toby:

You have written me often and fully from Mexico and it occurs to me that this might be the first time you have had the leisure to write in many years. Did you like it? Did you find you could stand leisure? I can't very well. I go into a restless unhappy coma. It isn't that I want to work but that I don't want to not work. If that makes any sense. I am conditioned with a pencil until it has become a nervous tic. I can give the best advice about relaxing and not take any of it. I don't think I have ever been relaxed in my life—not for one single minute. That might be the secret of my failures. Too much tension always.

The summer is almost gone. We have one more week here. We start rehearsals on the 5th of Sept. We have a good cast. Kent Smith, Barbara Bel Geddes, [Howard] da Silva and an unknown boy who is going to make the rest of them fight for their lives [Martin Brooks]. It's a good play, strong and simple and basic with no smartness. It will either strike with a smash or not go at all. It is a morality play, completely timeless and placeless.

As a short novel—it has been turned down by every magazine in the country. The Book Clubs would not touch it. This makes me proud of them and of me. This is a highly moral story and they are afraid of it. It also gives me reason to believe that I am not writing crap. Indeed I think it might start a new trend in the theatre—partially going back to old and valid thinking and partially something entirely new. I feel some of my old vitality and courage coming back. And I do have the electric courage of a confirmed coward.