Steinbeck (74 page)

New York
January 3,1959

Dear Elizabeth:

I know that what I am going looking for in Somerset I can find right here. What I am wishing for is a trigger rather than an explosion. The explosion is here. But in the haunted fields of Cornwall, in the dunes and the living ghosts of things, I do wish to find a path or a symbol or an approach. And please do know that in turning over the lumber of the past I'm looking for the future. This is no nostalgia for the finished and safe. My looking is not for a dead Arthur but for one sleeping. And if sleeping, he is sleeping everywhere, not alone in a cave in Cornwall. Now there, that's said and done and I've been trying to say it for a long time.

There's no way of knowing whether the new course is good or bad because the sea is uncharted and a compass is of little use if you don't know where you're going. Old navigators, when they had lost a headland for a point of reference, and when wind direction could only be judged by sunrise and set, had then to watch for flights of birds, weed and bits of wood floating in the sea and the high cumulus clouds that signaled land. It wasn't very accurate but it got people to strange places and there was no turning back because which is back?

If this does seem to be taking a trip to Southernmost England very seriously it is so because it is much more than that to me. There are no figures of speech for what I am trying to say—the “path” but a path on water. Do you see what I'm trying to say at all, or is it all lost in vagueness? Because in my mind it isn't vague at all.

And now I've used you as a well. As I always have.

Love,
John

“In the Vale of Avalon...
”

1959 Spent most of year in Bruton, Somerset, England, working on Morte
d'Arthur.

Discove Cottage
Bruton, Somerset
March 14 [1959]

Dear Graham and Dorothy:

Finally—finally we are settling. I am getting over my beast of an influenza cold. The house is warm and cozy, the telephone is on. Elaine romps happily with tradesmen. I have a fine little room in which to work—overlooking fields and hills and some forest. All in all a very comfortable and happy spot. The little Hillman is a good and gallant sort. Only fly in the jam has been the lousy press. Never have they been so arrogant and rude. The reign of terror seems to be over now, at least for the time being.

Now, I want to grow calm and slow and gradually to start to work. We couldn't have found a more perfect place. Gradually I will get my equipment working. There is a small garden in front, hedged against a pasture and a very large space for vegetables in back with black lovely-looking soil. It rains today but we had sun two days and a half running. I will get to turning over the earth in a very short time. It seems an early spring.

 

Now it's Monday. Yesterday, cows in the garden—a giant 7 A.M. cow hunt in bathrobes and boots. Shades of the old west. Comes the shout in the dawn “Cows away! Cry Havoc, Cry Riding” and up we spring to the defense. Meanwhile our little garden has become a morass or moreass. It's fun. But when we are planted and neat, then will be quite another story. Then will the cry be for revenge. Must speak to the farmer about this. Some very ancient laws of impound apply. I'm sure he will be happy to fence properly. Either that or there's going to be beef in our refrigerator.

As I knew she would, Elaine is seeding Somerset with a Texas accent. She's got Mr. Windmill of Bruton saying you-all. At this moment she is out in the gallant little Hillman, calling on the Vicar and getting in some booze. She'll probably bring both back with her.

It feels good here now that the press war is over. Feels right. Country people are always skeptical of strangers, particularly foreigners. But we know a trick that always works. We ask, and it's a mean, no-good bastard who won't respond to a civil question as a request for help and we haven't found any such here yet. I am becoming expert with the Rayburn stove, can build a fire with wet unseasoned wood. Haven't yet asked about the fishing but am equipped for a little poaching if I can't beg or purchase or hire some trout water hereabouts.

I think it won't be very long before I shall get down to work. The house is beginning to run nicely. We will this week meet the local antiquary. A little later I may need some books but right now am all right. No ghosts yet in the cottage but then April isn't here.

‘I'm just settling back and back and I think all will be well. And surely we have had beautiful weather to welcome us.

This is just a kind of a token letter. More in a little.

Yours
John

Discove Cottage
March 23, 1959

Dear Eugène:

Good letters from you and from Betty this morning. What a fine related feeling to get them. Now the work seems to begin to churn. “Hit befel in the dayes of Uther Pendragon when he was Kynge of all England—” And my little room looks out over the meadows and forests of the England he was kynge of. And the pace hasn't changed much here. Never any manufacturing. Still cows and pigs and some sheep. The Somerset speech is Anglo-Saxon with a lacing of Celtic—it is even pronounced in that way. For right here the two met and fought and later mingled. The Norman never really took hold here. I feel at home here and why—? My mother was of pure Celtic stock if there is any such and my name Steinbeck is not German in the modern sense. The two bloods meet in me just as they met here in the Mendip Hills and so there is every reason for me to feel that I have come home.

I brought very few source books. For the moment I have read all I can take in. But words I need. I have sent to London for dictionaries—lots of them. I didn't bring them. They are too heavy. Dictionaries of old and transition English, of later —classical and medieval, of Welsh, Cornish, of Anglo-Saxon and of Old Norsk—Words are very important to me now. A Somerset man in Bruton said disparagingly of another—“‘E be mean-like. 'E be'thout worship.” Still the word “worship” and used in its oldest sense. And the Anglo-Saxon syllables are all pronounced here. Great is said gre-at, meat is me-at. I am learning much and there is so much to learn. But the earth is full of it. Last night the moon through the mist on our meadow—and time had disappeared—and night birds whirring so that past and present and future were one. In the Vale of Avalon, the waters have receded, but in these Mendip Hills nothing has changed. The hill forts are still there and the oaks and the hedges.

We have mastered the cottage as I knew we could. I keep the fires. Elaine runs the house and it is warm and cozy and the dreams float about. This is right. This is good. Yesterday I cut dandelions in the meadow and we cooked them for dinner last night—delicious. And there's cress in the springs on the hill. But mainly there's peace—and a sense of enough time and a shucking off of the hurry to get to the moon. I don't want to get to the moon—do you?

I am very anxious to see your new book. It takes years to publish. Is there any chance that I can see it in manuscript?

I have no suggestions for change of method in your new edition of the great Malory. But I would be interested to know what new thoughts and findings had come to you since the first edition. Oh! wouldn't it be fine if another ms. should turn up? Two isn't enough for any scientific approach. I wonder whether I could put a bomb under the Duchess of Buccleuch —to turn out her libraries. Not that she would read anything, but they must have book men in their holdings. And if the history of Prince Arthur could hide in Winchester, think what might be lurking in the ducal bookshelves. I'm going to give it a try.

I am so anxious to see you both. As soon as my foot is in the door, and the full spring comes—maybe you can come down here and walk our Camelot with us. That would be a good thing—

It is not cold now. The moment the wind switched to the west, the sweet warm air of the Gulf Stream came in. Today is gloriously sunny.

I am very glad to be here. Very glad.

As always,
John

Discove Cottage
[March 1959]

Dear Graham:

My work is going beautifully and I didn't expect that for a long time—at least a month. But then it crept in on little goat's feet. And good too, but then I have to believe that. I don't have any choice. But I believe it thoroughly.

I hope you are having this wonderful day in the country. The most golden and lovely day. It makes me want to get out in it. Our garden is overgrown and full of trash but with the help of a school boy on vacation I am getting it cleared. And I have a fine scythe (borrowed) and a sickle (owned). I shall soon have it cleaned and clipped and then our area for planting will be ready. But it is still a touch sticky. I have the gardener at the Manor house as advisor—a hard-bitten, red faced Somerset-born man who can make orchids grow on Mars. He is teaching me local gardening but what he doesn't know is that he is teaching me local speech and many things he has forgotten he knows. A mean, crusty man and one I trust. When I asked to borrow a scythe he said cynically—“Thu be a scythe-hand?” “Once was,” I said. Then he watched me use the scythe in the grass and his whole attitude changed. You can't fake it if you don't know the rhythm of the scythe any more than you can fake the clean use of an axe. My God! What a lovely day it is. It's almost time for me to go to work. And it comes easily and right. I
am
so pleased. Never could I have hoped for so much so quickly. I'm having to hold down the word rate to keep it from going beyond the speed I wish.