Steinbeck (67 page)

A novel may be said to be the man who writes it. Now it is nearly always true that a novelist, perhaps unconsciously, identifies himself with one chief or central character in his novel. Into this character he puts not only what he thinks he is but what he hopes to be. We can call this spokesman the self-character. You will find one in every one of my books and in the novels of everyone I can remember. It is most simple and near the surface in Hemingway's novels. The soldier, romantic, always maimed in some sense, hand—tes—ticles. These are the symbols of his limitations. I suppose my own symbol character has my dream wish of wisdom and acceptance.

Now it seems to me that Malory's self-character would be Launcelot. All of the perfections he knew went into this character, all of the things of which he thought himself capable. But, being an honest man he found faults in himself, faults of vanity, faults of violence, faults even of disloyalty and these would naturally find their way into his dream character. Oh, don't forget that the novelist may arrange or rearrange events so that they are more nearly what he hoped they might have been.

For example, if Malory had been at Rouen and had seen the cynical trial, the brutal indictment and the horrible burning, might he not be tempted in his novel to right a wrong by dreaming he had done it differently? If he were affected by the burning of Joan and even more by his failure to save her or even to protest, would he not be likely to have his self-character save Gwynevere from the flames? In a sense he would by this means have protested against the killing of the falsely accused but he would also in a sense have cured it.

And now we come to the Grail, the Quest. I think it is true that any man, novelist or not, when he comes to maturity has a very deep sense that he will not win the quest. He knows his failings, his shortcomings and particularly his memories of sins, sins of cruelty, of thoughtlessness, of disloyalty, of adultery, and these will not permit him to win the Grail. And so his self-character must suffer the same terrible sense of failure as his author. Launcelot could not see the Grail because of the faults and sins of Malory himself. He knows he has fallen short and all his excellences, his courage, his courtesy, in his own mind cannot balance his vices and errors, his stupidities.

I think this happens to every man who has ever lived but it is set down largely by novelists. But there is an answer ready to hand. The self-character cannot win the Quest, but his son can, his spotless son, the son of his seed and his blood who has his virtues but has not his faults. And so Galahad is able to win the Quest, the dear son, the unsoiled son, and because he is the seed of Launcelot and the seed of Malory, Malory-Launcelot has in a sense won the quest and in his issue broken through to the glory which his own faults have forbidden him.

Now this is so. I know it as surely as I can know anything. God knows I have done it myself often enough. And this can for me wipe out all the inconsistencies and obscurities scholars have found in the story. And if the Morte is uneven and changeable it is because the author was changeable. Sometimes there is a flash of fire, sometimes a moody dream, sometimes an anger. For a novelist is a rearranger of nature so that it makes an understandable pattern, and a novelist is also a teacher, but a novelist is primarily a man and subject to all of a man's faults and virtues, fears and braveries. And I have seen no treatise which has ever considered that the story of the Morte is the story of Sir Thomas Malory and his times and the story of his dreams of goodness and his wish that the story may come out well and only molded by the essential honesty which will not allow him to lie.

Well, that was the problem and that was the settlement and it came sweetly out with the morning sun on the brown walls of Rome. And I should like to know whether you two find it valid at all. In my heart and in my mind I find it true and I do not know how in the world I can prove it except by saying it as clearly as I can so that a reader may say—“Of course, that's how it had to be. Whatever else could be the explanation?”

Please let me know what you think of this dizzying inductive leap. Does it possibly seem as deeply true to you as it does to me?

I shall dearly like to know what you think.

Love to all there,
John

Florence
May 16, 1957

Dear Pat:

Spring has finally come, and late spring at that. The rains have stopped and the sunshine is beautiful, almost painfully beautiful so that in the morning you look out and take a quick breath as you do when you are quickly, sharply hurt. This afternoon I walked for quite a long time by the Arno and repeopled it. And I can now. I know what the people used to wear and to some extent how they thought, at least in so far as any age can get near another. But I told you I felt that I understood.

Thanks for sending Atkinson's letter on to me. [Brooks Atkinson, drama critic of
The New York Times.]
I have answered it.

 

I feel deeply that writers like me and actors and painters are in difficulty because of their own cowardice or perhaps failure to notice. When Artie told me that not one writer had come to his defense, it gave me a lonely sorrow and a shame that I waited so long and it seemed to me also that if we had fought back from the beginning instead of running away, perhaps these things would not be happening now. These committee men are neither very brave nor very intelligent. They would not attack an organism which defended itself. But they have been quite brave in pursuing rabbits and in effect we have been like rabbits. McCarthy [Senator Joseph McCarthy] went down not because Eisenhower faced him. That is a god damned lie. Eisenhower was scared of him. It took one brave man, Ed Murrow, to stand up to him to show that he had no strength. And Artie may be serving all of us. Please give him my respect and more than that, my love. You see, we have had all along the sharpest weapons of all, words, and we did not use them, and I for one am ashamed. I don't think I was frightened but truly, I was careless.

 

Only two more days in Florence. I've had a large and good time here with too much work perhaps but very valuable.

love to all there,
John

The Lord Crewe Arms Hotel
Blanchland [England]
July 20, 1957

 

My dear Professor and Madame Vinaver:

I cannot tell you what pleasure and stimulation I had in meeting and talking with you. I carry a glow from it in the mind as well as well-defined gratitude for your hospitality which was princely. Just as Launcelot was always glad and returned to find that a good fighting man was also a king's son, so I am gratified to know that the top of the Arthurian pyramid is royal. Having read you with admiration, I could not have believed it to be otherwise for I have been fortunate in meeting a number of great men and it has been my invariable experience that in addition to eminence, superiority has two other qualities or rather three—simplicity, clarity and generosity.

It could not be otherwise with you and is not. There is a final ingredient in the recipe for greatness—enthusiasm—which you have to a superlative degree. I shall carry this glow for a long time.

I hope you will not be bored with me if I write to you occasionally and, if I know myself, at great length, and even presume to ask questions both of fact and of intuition.

Elaine joins me in compliments and gratefulness. Nothing would give us greater pleasure than to be allowed to entertain you in our own querencia.

Finally, my deep thanks for your kindness, your hospitality and your encouragement. It provides a noble pediment for work which I dearly hope will not embarrass you.

Yours in pleasure
John Steinbeck

Slemluch
“
...
taut as a bowstring... ”

1957
Attended P.E.N. Congress in Tokyo.

1958
Once There Was a War
published.

Sag Harbor
August 7, 1957

Dear Catsell:

Finally I got your long and beautiful letter and was properly impressed. There was a laugh in every line. Nancy Brown must be a killer, even if she is “shear jelousy.” Please don't marry her right away unless she can support you, in which case grab her up even if her name does sound like an item on a police blotter on a Saturday night. As for your ducking of DeeDee Snider in the pool, I seem to detect some catbirdian technique for keeping Nancy off balance. And it is a tried and true method. Don't ever forget it. And I wonder whether some more of the “shear jelousy” is not attributable to certain catbirdiana. Just remember that you are a poor kid with no prospects and no fortune—in fact a brave but pitiful character. That way you will be loved for yourself rather than for financial tangibles. You had better learn from the experience of others, namely me. Solvency never made a girl less attractive and has been known to improve the appearance of a clubfooted harelip.

I hasten to tell you that our beloved government charges duty or customs on items sent in from outside the country. The twelve dollars duty on the microscope was just such a thing. I am interested in your remark that you had paid for it. I had understood that your grandmother and also your mother paid it so that makes $36 already and since I will inevitably pay it $48 seems to be the final figure. But I will settle for $12 just as soon as I find out who actually disbursed the money.

It strikes me that having a rich brother may be setting you back emotionally so tuck the enclosed bill in your pocket and invest it as you see fit in Nancy Brown, but don't give her the impression that this is going to last.

Please give my love to Thorn and tell him that next year is Geo-Me year

with love from your
Fa.

New York
August 28, 1957
Wednesday

Dear Annie Laurie:

With reference to the Mice and Men music and plans we heard the night before last—I would not presume to give advice to creative people, which means of course, that I will inundate them with advice.

The company must add a freshness to my play which may well suffer from a kind of mustiness.

First, I like what I heard. I know the pressure they are under and they did it very well and I am grateful. There was freshness and force in what they did. M & M may seem to be unrelieved tragedy, but it is not. A careful reading will show that while the audience knows, against its hopes, that the dream will not come true, the protagonists must, during the play, become convinced that it will come true. Everyone in the world has a dream he knows can't come off but he spends his life hoping it may. This is at once the sadness, the greatness and the triumph of our species. And this belief on stage must go from skepticism to possibility to probability before it is nipped off by whatever the modern word for fate is. And in hopelessness—George is able to rise to greatness—to kill his friend to save him. George is a hero and only heroes are worth writing about. Boileau said that a long time ago and it is still true.

The other night the word “corn” came up and I said not to be afraid of corn. I want to amend that now. In an otherwise lovely song the words occur “It wasn't meant to be.” To me this is fake corn. It implies a teleology not inherent in this play. You will find any number of things were not “meant to be” in a lot of successful plays and songs and I hate every pea-picking, Elvis Presley moment of them.

On the other hand a sense of fate expressed as I have heard it “Everything in life is 7 to 5 against”—is good corn. If the protagonists leave a feeling that they never had much of a chance—and in this play that is perfectly true—let them sing that the deck was stacked, the dice shaved, the track muddy, there was too much grease on the pig—corn, sure, but make it corn in the vernacular. I like the idea of a little party when the girl comes to her new home. Let it almost work! Almost! and let the audience feel that it might.