Steinbeck (68 page)

I like the idea that George might get the girl or at least that he might want to get the girl. This would enrich. And also you might let the girl feel that she might want George—all good and all possible.

Now let me finally speak of music. I am pleased with the freshness and unhackneyed tone. I like the hint of the blues. Remember, please, though that music can pull the guts out of an audience. Consider then—hinting at the known—the square dance, the ballad, the ode, again the blues, even the Moody and Sankey hymn form. These are part of all of us and we rise like trout to mayflies to them. Hint at them—because after all this is a ranch. Let your audience
almost
recognize something familiar and out of that go to your freshness.

My friend Abe Burrows told me a very wise thing once about theatre and I believe him. He said—“Your audience is usually ahead of the play. They get impatient if you tell them something they have already got. Give them a signal and let them do it.” My own plays, most of which have failed, have failed because I told audiences things rather than let them move along. A good mule skinner simply indicates to his lead pair what he wants by a twitch of the jerk line. And the mules do it.

Now finally—I am pleased and excited with this project. I think it can have stature as well as uniqueness. I know the old feeling about never letting the author backstage but I think you will find me a different kind of author. I have no wish to protect my “immortal lines,” I want a play and I'll go along with anything that works—and help with it too. Just let's keep it hard and clean and very, very sparse. The emotion is in the situation. Let the audience emote and let the players simply twitch the jerk line.

And there is the advice I said I wouldn't presume to give you. Believe me please when I say that if I were not stimulated by what you have done—I wouldn't bother.

Good luck and thanks—

John Steinbeck

New York
February 20, 1957

Dear Bill:

Thank you very much for your advice.

I think possibly I knew these things but it is good to have them underlined. I know what you mean about the continued formality, and it makes me itch a little bit, but I think I will get by with it.

I am particularly glad about the advice about taking books. I get so damned sick of them before they are out that giving them to someone seems a poor present. But if that's what they want, that's what they'll get.

I read in the papers that you are considering going to Greece. I hope you do. Nothing has ever given me the emotional impact like that little country—an earthquake feeling of coming home, a recognition of everything. And the light makes it seem that you can look into the surfaces of things and see them in depth. I have never been quite so moved as I was by my first experience in Greece, and it doesn't get any less moving. They are wild, crazy, disrespectful, independent people and I think you'll love them.

I was asking the brother of the Queen something about peasants and he told me a story of walking with the King in the countryside and stopping where a man was tilling a field. They asked him what kind of fertilizer he was using. The man straightened up, looked in the face of his sovereign and said: “You stick to your kinging and let me stick to my farming.”

Again, thanks for your advice. I shall try not to disgrace us and if I succeed in doing that, it will be a success.

Yours,
John Steinbeck

Imperial Hotel
Tokyo
September 1 [1957]

My darling,

We arrived under a barrage of cameras usually reserved for M. M. [Marilyn Monroe] Good room here with air conditioning and the courtesy immaculate. Thirty-eight hours flying. Wake Island a hell hole of heat. Honolulu—Glendale in the Pacific. Hersey and Dos Passos wonderful traveling companions. Typhoon on the way but that means hot weather. If the reception last night at 10 P.M. is an indication, this is going to rival a Roman triumph, including the arches. I'll write a little to this here and there as I go along. Phone is ringing, phone is ringing.

 

Later—I have been interviewed unendingly all day long. And to put it delicately, my ass is dragging. Remember that piece about how many newspapers there are in Japan? It was an understatement. I must admit one thing though—the men they send are of a much higher caliber than any I have ever experienced. The questions are intelligent and the discussions a pleasure. But it is wearing.

I find now that they have scheduled me for a speech tomorrow. I was not told about this. You can be sure it will be the shortest speech on record.

The beer is excellent and I am sticking to it. The maids fold the end of the toilet paper with a neat little point every time I leave the room—like paper napkins in an Italian restaurant. I'll show you how to do it. Mighty pretty. I may end up as a toilet paper folder.

I am told that the Emperor has expressed a wish to see me and that I would like to do. He is a darned good marine biologist among other things. Hissing is no longer done socially but bowing is constant. I have bowed so much that my waistline is going down. For the time being I am substituting for Fujiyama as a tourist attraction. Heard a story about a professor, which I am stealing to use on the Ike administration. It was said of him that he was “a sham giant surrounded by real pygmies.” I told a newspaper man that I loved Japanese lanterns, paper fish and kites, and I suspect I am going to be given a crate of them. Never mind. I'll love them. Someone sent me a plastic pencil box with 6 pencils. A newspaper sent me a box of calling cards with my name on each side. English on one and Japanese on the other. The typhoon has not arrived yet but everyone expects it with a certain pleasure. I am following advice to rest every moment I can. There aren't many. It will take me months to get the smile off my face and this noon I caught myself bowing to a samovar in the dining room. For your private ear—Elmer Rice is a fool. He is so afraid of doing something wrong that he is going to end up doing nothing, which is the story of all such meetings. I have a little sneaking suspicion that he resents me. So I guess I'll have to make a pet of him. Egos are in bloom as you might well suspect. And this might well be the worst thing I have ever done. I wish to God the typhoon would strike.

I'll close this now. It isn't very gay.

Love,
J

 

 

 

[September 3]
[Tuesday]

Now it's Tuesday the third of Sept., of the longest week in the world. Yesterday morning I was in the tub reading the paper when I discovered to my horror that I was to make the closing address of the opening session. They had not told me. I went into a blind panic, sat on the stage under blinding light. The Mayor of Tokyo spoke half an hour. The Prime Minister three-quarters of an hour—I thought, in Japanese, but was told later English. The international president of PEN (French) gave an impassioned address, shadow boxing the while. An Indian lady delegate intoned a long prayer in the bell tones of a red coon hound and then there was me, down front and lighted with enough candle power to illumine all Japan. I got a bowling ball grip on the lectern to keep from falling on my face—and plunged. I enclose my address. This is not an excerpt. It is the whole damn thing, accurately quoted. It took, with interpreter, not more than 3 minutes. And at the end all hell broke loose, probably out of relief at its brevity. Every paper has printed it. It has been compared to Japanese poetry and someone has set it to music. Anyway, thank God I didn't know, or I might have worried up an address and that would have been dreadful.

I'll have to finish this note later.

 

[September 7]
[Saturday]

Later is right. It is now the following Saturday. The roof fell in on me. I couldn't keep down things I swear I never ate. Everybody sent doctors. The U. S. Embassy sent a Colonel of Army Medical. So I had to come 7,000 miles to get Asiatic flu. I'm still not sure it wasn't better than the speeches. I'm up now but weak as 8 cats and the suggestion of a Japanese dinner of raw fish brings hot flashes. The Congress has moved on to Kyoto. My room looks like a combination of Forest Lawn and a garbage dump. I've subsisted on tomato soup (Campbell's) for four days. The only thing I could keep down. I've been a perfect guest because I couldn't get away. From 8 to 12 smiling Japanese hosts have observed my most delicate moments—and they have been real delicate. At some moment of fever I wrote 64 analects on a yellow pad in the manner of Confucius.

Now hear this—I get on the plane at 6:30 P.M. Tuesday the 10th and I arrive in San Francisco 24 hours later at 6:30 P. M. Tuesday the 10th. Don't think about that. It will just make you mad.

The doctor let me up for two hours yesterday and I bought you two beautiful pearls for earrings—10 ½ centimeters and flawless. And I was very happy to get back to bed as he told me I would be. I plan to spend the weekend opening a bale of letters, mostly in Japanese and one in Japanese braille. The poor things have read my stuff in Japanese and the idea that I didn't write it that way has not penetrated.

Hersey and Galantière have been wonderful to me. They just phoned from Kyoto 8 hours away to see how I am. We will be on the plane together Tuesday. Dos Passos has been an angel also. What a nice bunch of people.

I'm sorry I didn't get this letter off to you but I've been a little off my rocker. You know what fever does to me.

Typhoon Bess has been raising hell in Japan. She is supposed to strike Tokyo tonight sometime but kind of weakened —only 70 miles instead of 115. It has been raining dogs and very hot and sultry. Anyway the Governor of Tokyo promised us a typhoon and he'd better deliver. It's kind of dull here with everyone away in Kyoto. I'll try to save a copy of my analects but they are pretty much in demand. Dos Passos read them to the Congress and apparently they caused a sensation. Congresses aren't very humorous bodies and some of my dichos are pretty sharp. Anyway, I saw enough of this first Congress to know it is my last. I guess some people just aren't cut out for them. Another bundle of mail just arrived. I've got to open it sometime. The ones I have looked at begin, “I are Japan girl higher student which like you bookings.” Mostly they enclose photos and pretty cute too. I could be a real heller with Japan girl higher student if I having impulse. But not soooo. Hai! I'm going to hit the sack now.

Damndest people. Phone just rang and a man told me a long story in Japanese. When he paused, I said, “Hai” and he hung up. I wonder what Hai means?

Anyway I love you—what's left of me. And you wouldn't want the part I threw away.

Yours,
Tokyo Rose

 

Oh! Lord! a letter eight feet long has just come—Japanese. Looks like poetry. Very beautifully written. I'm going to have to send lots of books in English when I get home. I should have brought a suitcase full. They want them in English.

 

After lunch now (Saturday night). I can't sleep and I miss you. Miss you like the devil. I've looked for wind-bells but can find only little ones. Have decided to make my own. I'll bet I can. I bet I can even pitch them. I'll copy the little ones bigger—maybe even use plate glass if I find it has a good tone. Or brass tubing might be nice. You can see that I'm getting well. I'm making plans. I'm anxious to get home now. But then, I wasn't anxious to leave.

Four more vases of flowers came this evening. There's not much room left for me. It stays hot and muggy and they promised that when the typhoon passed it would cool off. Bess went and missed us so no flying rooftiles or anything, but the southern cities were beat up and the southern rice crop ruined. I saw a 600-year-old cypress a foot and a half tall. Beautiful thing. Haven't seen the Emperor. He's tied up with Yugoslavs.

I've got to stop this nonsense now but I do miss you.

Love,
Abata Watabe

 

September 8
Sunday

Honey:

I'll write this and then race across the Pacific and try to beat it to America. Let's don't move to Japan. It is charming but I'm fed up with charm. I've done the turn, I've had the boneless chicken, the tea ceremony is fine but I don't understand much of it. The Imperial Palace is lovely. It is surrounded by a moat. I asked a Japanese how deep it was and he said deeper than a cab. He knew because he saw one taxi go in and it disappeared.

_, the British delegate, made a long, impassioned speech in a high girlish voice. His interpreter, a real girl, had a low voice. It went on radio and the Japanese are still wondering how it is that the girl spoke in English and the man in Japanese. Is certainly a puzzlement.