Steinbeck (92 page)

There has been something I have wanted to ask you for some time and I have been shy about it. As you can believe, I have never been one for medals or decorations. They seem a kind of vanity that doesn't touch me. But there was one that meant very much to me—that was the Haakon VII cross. I liked that very much. [It had been awarded by the Norwegian government for
The Moon is Down.]

A number of years ago when my oldest boy was much smaller, he became fond of the cross and one day asked if he could wear it to school. I saw nothing against it and told him he could. Well, he was six. He wore it to school all right and somewhere along the line he lost it. I couldn't be too rough with him. After all I have lost plenty of things and I still do. Of course I have the citation and everything else, but here is my question. Do you think I, meaning you, could find a duplication of it? I would be very pleased to have it. It was a reminder of the old hard true days when men were better and braver than they could be. I believe I remember that when I got it, Norway was so poor that I had to pay for the cross, I mean the cost of it. And I would be awfully glad to do that again.

Yours,
John

New York
May 13, 1963

Dear Lee:

That was a very good session we had last week, although we covered lightly a very un-light situation. The subject, of course, is the possibility of my going to Russia in the fall.

Incidentally, although this is a personal letter to you, you may show all or any part of it to Ed, if you wish [Edward R. Murrow, Director of the United States Information Agency].

In the light of the Birmingham episodes [of racial violence] it seemed to me that I couldn't, or would be reluctant to, try to explain that situation to people whose minds would be automatically closed to explanation. Then too, K's [Khrushchev] apparent switch back to the old party line might well make me “persona non grata.” Maybe I am getting old, too. A kind of grey weariness creeps over me.

And yet, I want to go. I should go. And at least now the young and the experimenters are not as cowed as they once were. This is only one of many changes since 1947. Another would be the re-building and a new generation coming along who will not remember the war, nor the deep blight of Stalin. For my own sake, I should go.

My thinking continued this way. We have always been a shy and apologetic people. Sure we have Birmingham, but we are doing something about it. Now is the time to go—not to apologize nor to beat our breasts, but to bring some fierceness into it—the kind of fierceness the Negroes are using. I don't know that I could do it, but I could try.

Very well—if I could go—would there be any way for Elaine to go with me? She is a much better ambassador than I am and the two of us work together very well. I hope it might be arranged.

You remember that when we discussed this quite a time ago, we thought it might be good if Kazan went along. I have telephoned him, but can't get him. He is very busy on the new theatre project.

Then, I had another idea, I wish you would take in mind. Edward Albee, our newest and perhaps most promising young playwright came to see me last week. I have known him for some time. I told him of this discussion, and he showed great enthusiasm for going. He might be a better choice. He is another generation—under 35. I think he would have an enormous impact on the younger Russians. He would be very happy to go with us, and between us we might be more effective than either one alone. He is coming on while I am leaving the scene—at least, so it is thought. His problem is that he opens a new play in early autumn—an adaptation of The Ballad of the Sad Café, but he would be free to go when he gets it opened. As for me, I have no time limitation and could make my time match his. Does this seem like a good idea? Think it over and let us discuss it.

In considering this, think also of Poland, where I have never been and Finland, where I have. My work is well known in both places.

I hope you would remember that I will not speak, but will discuss anything with anyone or any number. That's always better for me, since it is an exchange, rather than a telling.

That's all, except that it was a darned good dinner and a good evening. And we love the new Mrs. Brady. She and Elaine are very much alike in many ways.

I hope to hear from you soon.

Yours,
John

[Sag Harbor]
[July 1963]

Dear John:

My eye is doing fine. I get prisms the end of the week. Of course I'll use it for a long time when I feel the need to be pitiful. Our dog Charley taught me that. When he was a pup he got hit by a car and had his hip broken. All the rest of his life, if I scolded him or he had a bad conscience, he would limp.

Part of my pitifulness is that I got well before we got enough talking done. So many things I want to discuss with you—the general things that turn out to be personal and vice versa. If I pretended great pain—couldn't you come once again? I really can't drive yet.

I wish you would. There are a number of things I can't discuss with anyone else but you.

Yours,
John

love to Sister.

Sag Harbor
July 23, 1963

Dear Dr. Montgomery:

You have not heard from me because a detached retina and surgery therefor have rendered me hors du voir. Even now I have those pinpoint goggles that make one feel like a stalk-eyed crab or a good trotting horse with blinders.

A little later in the summer when the rules against vibration are removed I can probably get about. The eye was saved anyway by good Dr. Paton of Southampton.

Some years ago you wrote me that you had some fine dogs you want me to see. At that time Charley was in his dotage or dogage (forgive it).

But now Charley is dead and only recently I don't hear him in the night.

And I wonder whether you now have some dogs for me to see. May I hear from you?

Yours,
John Steinbeck

Sag Harbor
[August 1963]

Dear Adlai:

Thanks for your note. The eye is going to be all right. But even if it weren't I still have one and Lord Nelson did all right not only at Trafalgar but at Lady Hamilton with only one (eye, I mean).

Elaine says when you come out she will give you lunch if you will give her enough notice to have a salmon flown over from Somerset.

Anyway, I want to talk to you. I think we're going to Moscow etc. in Oct. Could use some advice.

Regarding Barry Goldwater—He promises to lead us out of Egypt and I believe he could do it, too. Trouble is, we're not in Egypt.

Anyway, we want to see you. If anyone could bugger up Averill Harriman's good work in Russia—I can.

Yours,
John

Sag Harbor
August 13, 1963

Dear Mr. Gilfry:

Please forgive this writing method. I am wearing prism glasses following eye surgery and have some difficulty seeing the page.

 

Thank you for your kind letter of August 8. It's not the interest of letters—No, it's the sheer weight that finally drives a writer to cover. You ask about the amount. It varies. This last year for various reasons it must have been thirty to forty thousand. Now it has settled down to between twenty-five and fifty letters a day. Nearly all of these should be answered because they are kindly and are written in good faith. But it is simply physically impossible. If I spent every waking hour answering I could not keep up and this is leaving no time for my own work. When I came out of the hospital there were over a thousand letters to answer. How would you handle it?

Writing is not easy for me. It takes every bit of strength and concentration I can muster, and interruptions have a feeling like that of being hit with a stick of stove wood.

I am answering your interesting letter at length perhaps to take the place of all those I am going to have to eliminate. And I hope all of this does not sound like complaint. It isn't. This is something that happened which I didn't expect, and I can't cope with it. I didn't expect the Nobel Prize either and receiving it shocked me rather deeply. And I am still far from knowing whether I approve of it.

I was interested in your speculation about money and poets. I didn't know Robert Frost had $240,000 and I wonder whether he knew it. I didn't know him so I have no idea. My own financial image is equally obscure to me. For many years I lived a few days' rations from nothing but I did manage to stay out of debt. The books that are selling now did not sell then, although they are the same books. I presume money is coming in. It goes to a pool out of which taxes, charities, families, dependent requests are paid. Out of this pool a kind of salary is deposited to my account monthly for me to live on. I live well but not wealthily. I eat one meal a day, have a four-room cottage with a bunk house for my sons and a second-hand twenty-foot fishing boat. I drive a Ford Falcon station wagon which is getting pretty ratty. Also I have an apartment in New York because it is more handy and cheaper than going to hotels. I travel quite a lot but always as a matter of work and research. Please don't think I am shouting “poor mouth.” I'm not. I live this way because I like to live this way. I don't know how Frost felt about money but I know I have utterly no interest in it as long as there is some. I know from the poverty years that when you have no money your interest in it quickens.

You say, “How could a poet permit himself to accumulate $240,000?” What should he have done? Throw it away, refuse royalties on his books which people wanted to buy? During the war I gave a book to the Air Force Aid Society, proceeds to be given to families of casualties. It cost me well over a thousand dollars in lawyers' fees to get permission of the tax division to give it away and everyone—even the Air Force—thought I was nuts. You can't give money to friends without losing them. No, the pool is right for me. I never know what is there or who gets it. It also protects one from feeling bountiful which is as ugly an emotion as I know.

When Charley died we planted a willow tree over him; sentimental, but who isn't? Then I had to go to town and when I came back someone had planted flowers all around the tree. I don't know who did it. I don't want to know.

I haven't got another dog yet. I am torn between a white English bull terrier and my first loves which were Airedales. I will want a very young dog to raise and train with care so that independence survives obedience. I should not want to remove the ability to fight from a white terrier but I would try to make it unnecessary. I never knew a truly good fighter who picked quarrels. That is for the unsure.

I know the Bostons you speak of. I had one when I was a boy and he was a fine dog with a great deal of humor. What has happened to the breed is what I detest. They are small, pop-eyed, asthmatic, with weak stomachs and an inability to find their way home.

All of the dogs I have had have been natural dogs. I could learn from them as much or more than I could teach them.

I must be coming to an end. I shall not speak of your poems. Poetry is as private and personal as nerves.

Now I have used you as a scapegoat. The next twenty-five letters I shall not answer and my guilt will be on you. Perhaps this might be a solution to the whole problem.

I am glad you like the Sea of Cortez. It was little noticed when it appeared but it seems to grow on people. Such a book can't be sold. It has to creep by itself.

Now I am done. Except for one thing. What you call Great Basin in Santa Cruz County, California, is really called Big Basin, unless they have changed the name recently. I grew up among the sequoia semper virens on the coast. Big Basin was my first and very deep experiment with gigantia. And I was seven years old at the time and we went in a buckboard with feed and food and a tent in the box. No one was there and it was wonderful with hazelnuts and ferns in the dimpsy. That's a Somerset word for the twilight under trees.