Steinbeck (10 page)

Dear Miss McIntosh:

We live in the hills back of Los Angeles now and there are few people around. One of our neighbors loaned me three hundred detective magazines, and I have read a large part of them out of pure boredom. They are so utterly lousy that I wonder whether you have tried to peddle that thing I dashed off to any of them [“The Murder”]. It might mean a few dollars. Could be very much cut to fit, you know. Will you think about it? It would be better than letting it lie around, don't you think?

I think that, when this is sent off (this new novel) I shall do some more short stories. I always think I will and they invariably grow into novels, but I'll try anyway. There are some fine little things that happened in a big sugar mill where I was assistant chief chemist and majordomo of about sixty Mexicans and Yuakis taken from the jails of northern Mexico. There was the Guttierez family that spent its accumulated money for a Ford and started from Mexico never thinking they might need gasoline. There was the ex-corporal of Mexican cavalry, whose wife had been stolen by a captain and who was training his baby to be a general so he could get even better women. There was the Lazarus who drank factory acid and sat down to die. The lime in his mouth neutralized the acid but he could never go back to his old life because he had been spiritually dead for a moment. His. will to live never came back. There was the Indian who, after a terrific struggle to learn to tell time by a clock, invented a clock of his own that he
could
understand. There is the saga of the Carriaga family. Son hanged himself for love of a chippy and was cut down and married the girl. His father aged sixty-five fell in love with a fourteen-year-old girl and tried the same thing, but a door with a spring lock fell shut and he didn't get cut down. There is Ida Laguna who fell violently in love with the image of St. Joseph and stole it from the church and slept with it and they both went to hell. These are a few as they really happened. I could make some little stories of them I think.

I notice that a number of reviewers (what lice they are) complain that I deal particularly in the subnormal and the psychopathic. If said critics would inspect their neighbors within one block, they would find that I deal with the normal and the ordinary.

The manuscript called Dissonant Symphony I wish you would withdraw. I looked at it not long ago and I don't want it out. I may rewrite it sometime, but I certainly do not want that mess published under any circumstances, revised or not.

Sincerely,
John Steinbeck

[Montrose]
February II, 1933

Dear Ballou:

Please don't mind the pencil. I don't own a fountain pen. I am lying in the sun, drinking coffee. Of course I could use the typewriter. For the first time in one solid month it is idle. This is a good day. I shipped mss. to Miss O. this morning. You should get it before very long. I hope you will like it. The book was hellish hard to write. I had been making notes for it for about five years. It will probably be a hard book to sell. Its characters are not “home folks.” They make no more attempt at being sincerely human than the people in the Iliad. Boileau (much like your name) insisted that only gods, kings and heroes were worth writing about. I firmly believe that. The detailed accounts of the lives of clerks don't interest me much, unless, of course, the clerk breaks into heroism. But I have no intention of trying to explain my book. It has to do that for itself. I would be sure of its effect if it could be stipulated that the readers read to an obbligato of Bach.

There are several things in your letter that I must answer. The Hymn to a God Unknown was, of course, written about three thousand years ago. It must have been chanted, but I know of no music. The disadvantage of setting Sanskrit characters in the end papers is that it would give an Eastern look to the book.

Your letter sounds a bit disconsolate. The working of publishing houses must be nerve wracking, but I should think it would be heartening. More and more competitions going out. And the need for books is leaping, not dropping. I know a French boy who started a haberdashery just before the crash. On all sides of him stores went under but he continued merrily. I went to see him the other day and asked him how he did it. He said, “I come from French peasant stock. We waste nothing. I have very little overhead. Such things as ‘service' and luxury are killing my competition. If I make a dollar it is my dollar.” If you can hold out for a year without falling into the mess the others have, you will be the “Publisher.” Your method is sane. Knopf says that only i percent of the books are sold because of advertising. And advertising is the most expensive item, isn't it? I can't tell you how pleased I am to be associated with you.

The Murder I thought might be sold to a pulp if it were cut down. Even a little money would be better than a bunch of grapes. [It was sold to
North American Review
and was included among the O.
Henry Prize Stories
the following year.]

We are very happy. I need a dog pretty badly. I dreamed of dogs last night. They sat in a circle and looked at me and I wanted all of them. Apparently we are heading for the rocks. The light company is going to turn off the power in a few days, but we don't care much. The rent is up pretty soon and then we shall move. I don't know where. It doesn't matter. My wife says she would much rather go out and meet disaster, than to have it sneak up on her. The attacking force has the advantage. I feel the same way. We'll get in the car and drive until we can't buy gasoline any more. Have two more books almost ready to start but a month of messing around won't hurt. But I do need a dog. Tillie haunts the house terribly.

Please let me hear as soon as you can, what you think of this new book. It was an important piece of work to me. I wanted to make a beautiful and true book.

 

Sincerely,
John Steinbeck

Box 6
Salinas, California
[1933]
Wednesday

Dear George:

This is a very sad time. Mother seems to be slipping badly. Every other day she seems to be a little better and then the next she slips back a little weaker. My father doesn't know how sick she is and we aren't telling him. He has enough worries as it is. Don't tell anyone down there what I just said. I am sometimes astounded at the way things get about, unbelievable. Anyway we are expecting the worst and hoping it may not be the very worst, that is a paralysis.

I am taking up the harmonica in my usual thorough way. I decided that there was no future in the peedle pipe, no chords. Besides my new peedle pipe is in B and the accordeen is in D and while we do a fairly good peanut vendor, and the combination hits hearts and flowers as it should be hit, for serious music you just can't put B and D together and make anything sweet of it. So I got a D harmonica and we are getting hot.

I have the pony story about half written. [The Red
Pony]
I like it pretty well. It is more being written for discipline than for any other reason. I mean if I can write any kind of a story at a time like this, then I can write stories. I don't need publication so why should I send it to Story which pays nothing. If I can't hit a paying magazine I'll put it away for the future collection that everybody dreams about. It is a very simple story about a boy who gets a colt pony and the pony gets distemper. There is a good deal in it, first about the training of horses and second about the treatment of distemper. This may not seem like a good basis for a story but that entirely depends upon the treatment. The whole thing is as simply told as though it came out of the boy's mind although there is no going into the boy's mind. It is an attempt to make the reader create the boy's mind for himself. An interesting experiment you see if nothing else. I'll send you a carbon of it when I get it done. It will take about three more days. Maybe four. I have to go to the hospital this afternoon while they draw some blood from mother. It

[unfinished letter]

Salinas
June I, 1933

Dear Ballou:

We came to my home because my mother was ill. She has grown steadily worse and five days ago suffered a stroke of paralysis which put her left side out completely and permanently. And there it stays. She has improved now and may live on in this state for a year or even more. Needless to say I shall not be in New York this summer or any other time for a long time in the future. I am badly needed here and I have no regrets about that except that my work seems to be at a standstill. I spend about eight hours a day in the hospital. Thought I would take my little pad and work there, but the tiny scratching of the pen is irritating to the patient. I have been very ill myself and I know how such a sound can be utterly maddening. If this continues, she will be brought home and then I shall continue in another room just out of her ear shot. I have been trying to go on at night but find it very slow. It is difficult to concentrate. I guess we are all pretty tired. But it is good discipline. Perhaps you can see now, why I was insistent on the dedication last year. I have sisters who might help out but they all have children who get something every time anything happens. Besides I have no inclination to go away. That is a curious thing. I've always thought I would want to run away but I don't. That is the end of a paragraph of woe.

We have a new dog. I will send you his picture when I take it. He is an Irish terrier pup, a beauty. His owner died and we bought him from the dog hating wife. A great bargain. He is not nervous nor noisy the way so many terriers are. I will surely photograph him when I get the direction to do anything.

I wish you would tell me whether you are going to publish this book and when. In weaker moments I imagine a conspiracy of silence.

Please let me hear from you before too long.

Sincerely,
John Steinbeck

[Salinas]
[1933]

Dear George:

I have forgotten how long ago I wrote to you and what I told you. Did I write very frequently? I can't remember. I have your letter this morning. I don't know whether I told you that mother is now paralysed and will linger perhaps a year. It has been a bad time. The pony story, you can understand has been put off for a while. But now I spend about seven hours a day in the hospital and I am trying to go on with it, but with not a great deal of success, because partly I have to fight an atmosphere of blue fog so thick and so endless that I can see no opening in it. However, if I can do it, it will be good. Anyone can write when the situation is propitious. I'd like to prove to myself that I can write in any circumstance.

I hate to think what a year here will do to us. Perhaps nothing. I am pretty rubber. Carol is the one who will suffer. She takes things harder than I do, but she has been wonderful about the whole thing.

Went to the hospital and got a few pages of the pony story done although I suspect it is pretty rotten. But between bed pans and calling relatives I got some done. I shall hate to spoil it because it is really a fine story. Carol is going bicycling this afternoon. She had her bicycle fixed up and skids about the streets on it. Poor kid, she needs some kind of relaxation. She hasn't had any fun in a long time. And I don't see much chance that she will have any for some time to come. I would send her away for a while if she would go. I imagine that the English edition of The Pastures is out because I have begun to get letters from clipping bureaus.

I think I would like to write the story of this whole valley, of all the little towns and all the farms and the ranches in the wilder hills. I can see how I would like to do it so that it would be the valley of the world. But that will have to be sometime in the future. I would take so very long. There doesn't seem to be anything more to say. bye jon

Pacific Grove
June 21, 1933

 

This is not a letter to read unless you have so much time that you just don't care. I just want to talk and there is no one to talk to. Out of the all encircling good came a theme finally. I knew it would. Until you can put your theme in one sentence, you haven't it in hand well enough to write a novel. The process is this (I am writing this at the risk of being boring. One can refuse to read a letter and the writer of it will never know.) The process is this—one puts down endless observations, questions and remarks. The number grows and grows. Eventually they all seem headed in one direction and then they whirl like sparks out of a bonfire. And then one day they seem to mean something.

When they do, it is the most exciting time in the world. I have three years of them and only just now have they taken a direction. Suddenly they are all of one piece. Then the problem begins of trying to find a fictional symbolism which will act as a vehicle.

Let me quote a few of the notes. The coral insect working with hundreds of billions of others, eventually creates a strange and beautiful plant-like formation. In the course of time numberless plants create the atoll. Architecturally the atoll is very beautiful and good. Certain groups in Europe at one time created the Gothic spire. They seem to have worked under a stimulus as mysterious, as powerful and as general as that which caused the coral insects to build.