Steinbeck (79 page)

I should love to see you when you have the time. I remember with such pleasure the day on Camelot. And didn't the Fayre Eleyne put up a proper salmon? But next time the subject of politics will not be taboo. Someone has to reinspect our system and that soon. We can't expect to raise our children to be good and honorable men when the city, the state, the government, the corporations all offer the highest rewards for chicanery and dishonesty. On all levels it is rigged, Adlai. Maybe nothing can be done about it, but I am stupid enough and naively hopeful enough to want to try. How about you?

Yours,
John

New York
November 24,1959

Dear Hagy:

It occurred to me to wonder whether during the coming summer vacation there might be a job for Thom on your new ranch. Please say no if there is not because a made job is worse than none. I should want him to do a man's work and take a man's responsibility and get a man's pay if he earns it. I would be very glad privately to pay that salary because I think something like this is so important right now.

When I was sixteen I differed with my parents and walked away and got a job on a ranch where they didn't give a damn whether I was sixteen or not. I slept in the bunk house with all the other hands, got up at four-thirty, cleaned my stall, and saddled or harnessed my horses depending on the job, ate my beefsteak for breakfast and went to work, and the work day was over when you could no longer see. I learned a great deal on that job, things I have been using ever since. I got a sense of values I have never lost but above all I became free. Once I could do that, make my own pay with my own hands, nobody could ever push me around again. Also I learned about men, how some are good and some are bad, and how most are some of both. And I learned about money, and how hard it is to get. On that ranch there wasn't one soul who knew me or my family or gave a damn. It wouldn't have been as good if there had been. I think that until a boy is put out on his own, he hasn't a chance to be a man. A kind of pride comes with it that is never lost again and a kind of humility also. I think the best gift I could give my son is that fierce sense of independence. Very few American kids ever get the chance to have it. They are always able to come up with excuses. But there aren't any excuses on a man's job. You do it or you don't.

This is a crucial summer for Thom and I am going to see that he does something about it, something that will make all the difference in his whole life.

yours
John

Sag Harbor
December 30,1959

Dear Elizabeth:

I'm sitting out in Joyous Garde and the deep snow is all around and I feel rested and unraveled. In a way, I'm sorry I didn't see you privately but in other ways it is probably better because I had nothing really to say. It takes time to work things out. I can tell you that although I have been in shock I haven't been in fear.

The hospital found many small things wrong with me but they couldn't find the big thing. It doesn't show on X-ray film. I think I know what it was or is better than anyone but still perhaps not enough to describe—even if that would be good. I don't know whether or not I expected too much of myself. It was when I realized all in a moment what I had got, that the shock set in, and not what I had got recently but over 12 to 15 years. It was no one's fault but my own that I lost command. I relinquished it slowly and imperceptibly. Command is a curious matter. I'm still pretty weak and lacking in energy but I do know now that I have only two ways to choose —either to take back command or to bow out. The third—remaining the way I have been—I won't have.

I'm going to do what people call rest for a while. I don't quite know what that means—probably reorganize. I don't know what work is entailed, writing work, I mean, but I do know I have to slough off nearly fifteen years and go back and start again at the split path where I went wrong because it was easier.

True things gradually disappeared and shiny easy things took their place. I brought the writing outside, like a cook flipping hot cakes in a window. And it should never have come outside. The fact that I had encouragement is no excuse. That same cook in a window can draw a crowd too but he is still making hotcakes. I tell you this because if I am able to go back, the first efforts will be as painful as those of a child learning to balance one block on top of another. I'll have to learn all over again about true things. I don't have any other choice.

In the hospital I must have hit bottom or at least a very low level. For one thing, I got over mourning for lost time because I grew to know that time can't be lost—only people can be. Also I seemed to survey all literature with clarity and to understand not only where I went wrong but where so many have in the last hundred years, and I remember and it seems valid. But mostly I found one thing that clings to me so that I think about it nearly every hour. When the door opened, and it did—I ran to it with longing. But I didn't go through. When I didn't go through, the door closed but the sure thing to me is that having refused it, it will never open again.

Now Elaine knows all this because I have told her. And she is wonderful. But she, as do most people, considers this a warning to me to take it easy. And that's not the way it is at all. That's the thing which makes invalids. It's not taking it easy that matters but taking it right and true. The mind does not tire from true work nor does the body moving efficiently. Only frustrations weary one to death—a blunt axe, a dull saw, or a false premise. Those are the killers unless one sharpens the tools and straightens the line. It is true that bad architecture is ugly but more important, with bad design a building falls down—and so does a man. And that's not a bad lesson nor too great a price to pay for learning it.

I will not take it easy. That would be sick. But I will throw everything I possess against whatever world I can move, in the effort to take it right.

And do you know—I have a sense of dignity again. And I am not afraid.

Love,
John

“I'm still
a
man, damn it.”

1960
Traveled through America, collecting material that would become
Travels with Charley
.

1961
The Winter of Our Discontent
(last novel) published; Book-of-the-Month Club selection.

[New York]
[February 19, 1960]

Dear Robert:

I hear via a couple of attractive grapevines, that you are having trouble writing. God! I know this feeling so well. I think it is never coming back—but it does—one morning, there it is again.

About a year ago, Bob Anderson [the playwright] asked me for help in the same problem. I told him to write poetry—not for selling—not even for seeing—poetry to throw away. For poetry is the mathematics of writing and closely kin to music. And it is also the best therapy because sometimes the troubles come tumbling out.

Well, he did. For six months he did. And I have three joyous letters from him saying it worked. Just poetry—anything and not designed for a reader. It's a great and valuable privacy.

I only offer this if your dryness goes on too long and makes you too miserable. You may come out of it any day. I have. The words are fighting each other to get out.

Can I help in any way? I know the pain and bewilderment of the thing.

love to you
John

Sag Harbor
[March 1960]
It's Wednesday already

Dear Elizabeth:

I am sitting in this good little house on the point. Poor Harry, the giant blue heron, is wading past looking for soft clams and the wrinkled water moves in' as though I were on the bridge of a ship. I could want no better place to sit and contemplate and turn over the rocks of what mind I have left. I know some of the wrong turnings now but they may not have been wrong, only indirect. Once I trusted the persuasions of whatever force it was that directed me and it was easy because no one else gave a damn. But then I became what is called eminent and immediately many people took over my government, told me what I should do and how, and I believed many of them and gradually tried to be something I am not and in the process became nothing at all. It is a sickeningly common story.

I remember once, long ago, I wrote you ten titles for unwritten stories and asked which one I should write, and you replied—“Write all of them.” And that was correct. What's to stop me except the traffic officers of criticism and I don't mean only the external ones. I should have written everything—absolutely everything. And it's back to that I must go. What have I to lose except sadness, and anger and frustration ? I should imagine that the only evidence of interest and value is copy. And that's the way it should be. Otherwise, it's like the patient in a hospital who fancies the doctor is really interested in him or her when what the doctor is interested in is himself, his art, his science and his success or failure. He wants to cure the patient, as you doubtless would like me to be cured, but the important thing—to everyone—is the cure, not the patient. And so we'll leave it that way. The hell with the symptoms. Everyone has them if he cares to look but it's healthier if he doesn't look. And that should be a relief to you. The role of wet nurse was never anticipated in our unspoken agreement.

I forget what day we are going in to town but it's probably next Monday. Thanks for your letter.

Love,
John

New York
March 28, 1960

Dear Jim:

This is a kind of pass-the-time-of-day letter, not to be taken too seriously if you are wise, and you are. I shall enquire about your health later in the letter. That proves that I don't want anything. If I did, there would be a note of solicitousness for your well-being in the first paragraph. At least that's the way my sons work it and it usually works for them.

I'm afraid I have joined your school of political thinking—what might be called the Old Curmudgeon School, and I have some desire to sit at the feet of the master. The present sad scene of candidature is ridiculous when it isn't disgusting. Would you mind moving over a little and letting me sit on the bench with you? Maybe the country has been in as bad a state before but the only times I can think of are the winter of Valley Forge and the glorious days of Warren Harding. The candidates are playing them so close that they have Ace marks on their shirt fronts. The mess in Washington now resembles a cat toilet in Rome. It isn't that the Administration is cynical—I honestly believe it doesn't know any better. And the Democrats, Jesus, the Democrats—fighting over a dead colt before it is foaled, no guts, no ideas, no plan, no platform. If I had any sense I'd go back to Europe and let the thing rot. I have never held with those who somehow find the rat that leaves the sinking ship ignoble. Wouldn't it be a stupid rat that didn't?