How to use this Page

I had the good fortune of meeting John Steinbeck’s son Thomas this weekend.  He said a lot of inspiring things that will eventually make their way into future blog posts, but his fans have so distracted me that I must first dedicate a post to them.

The first one who caught my attention was a sweet old lady who needed help walking and carrying her books.  I offered assistance.  Less because I’m nice and more because I like old ladies.  They’re like Yoda.  I’d hoped she’d share a nugget of wisdom that would alter my worldview into something more…peaceful.  She didn’t.

She ignored my outstretched arms and thrust her books at the event coordinator.  Why? Because this was the inroad to Mr. Steinbeck.  Not long afterward, I overheard my Yoda telling the star of the show that she knew someone who knew someone that lived on his dad’s old street.

“That’s an awkward introduction!”  I wanted to yell.  “You sound desperate!” But I had no supporters.  Every person around me was clambering to get a piece of the Pulitzer Prize winner’s son.

A grown man virtually begged for the phone number of the career-groupie in attendance (otherwise known as a Steinbeck biographer).  Is there anything more pitiful than stalking a stalker?  I soon discovered yes.  Because before long, some college-aged long-hair got in Mr. Steinbeck’s face and waxed poetic about his undying passion for the cypress tree (the cypress tree, folks) and isn’t that a coincidence?  The word cypress appears in the title of Mr. Steinbeck’s first novel!

It depressed me.

I’ve been studying Buddhism recently because a major player in my novel misinterprets Eastern philosophies to tragicomic results.  Perhaps I will suffer her fate.  But for now, I hold dear a Buddhist teaching that has set me free:  the accomplishments of those you hero-worship are within your potentiality.

We’re all a little guilty of hero-worship.  I am obsessed with Kundera’s philosophical musings.  Nabokov’s unrelenting prose.  Guillermo Martinez’s conviction to thwart his characters’ goals to the brutal end.

Who do you hero-worship?  Why?  Now go accomplish it yourself!

Cannery Row. John Steinbeck. 1945. Penguin. 208 pages.

Cannery Row in Monterey in California is a poem, a stink, a grating noise, a quality of light, a tone, a habit, a nostalgia, a dream. Cannery Row is the gathered and scattered, tin and iron and rust and splintered wood, chipped pavement and weedy lots and junk heaps, sardine canneries of corrugated iron, honky tonks, restaurants and whore houses, and little crowded groceries, and laboratories and flophouses. Its inhabitants are, as the man once said, "whores, pimps, gamblers, and sons of bitches," by which he meant Everybody. Had the man looked through another peephole he might have said "Saints and angels and martyrs and holy men," and he would have meant the same thing.

I enjoyed this John Steinbeck novel. Steinbeck certainly has a way with words, details, and images. Even if what he is describing is more ugly than beautiful. He has a way of saying it so that it matters. So that you, the reader, care. It does help that this one has a good deal of humor. Not that humor is quite the way I'd put it. (Since early on, we see a suicide or two. But still. It's Steinbeck.)

Lee Chong's grocery, while not a model of neatness, was a miracle of supply. It was small and crowded but within its single room a man could find everything he needed or wanted to live and to be happy--clothes, food, both fresh and canned, liquor, tobacco, fishing equipment, machinery, boats, cordage, caps, pork chops. You could buy at Lee Chong's a pair of slippers, a silk kimono, a quarter pint of whiskey and a cigar. You could work out combinations to fit almost any mood. The one commodity Lee Chong did not keep could be had across the lot at Dora's.

If you're reading this on a site (other than Becky's Book Reviews or Becky's feed, be aware that this post has been stolen and is used without permission.

The Moon is Down by John Steinbeck. 1942/1995. Penguin. 144 pages.

By ten-forty-five it was all over. The town was occupied, the defenders defeated, and the war finished.

A novella by John Steinbeck published in the spring of 1942. Set in an unnamed country, an unnamed town even, it features a conquering but-again-nameless army. Of course, it's easy to read between the lines, to see the setting as Northern Europe, and the conquering enemy as the Nazis. And the message of this one is fairly simple. Resist. Resist. Resist. Ordinary people can in very small ways make a difference.

The reader meets a handful of characters on both sides. We get a portrait of those town folks who have been conquered but are determined to fight for their freedom. We get a portrait of the soldiers, the invaders. These soldiers are not as heartless and cruel as evil as you might expect. The picture Steinbeck paints is more human, more complex than that. They are men. Ordinary men who have been given orders, who have been assigned a job to do. For the duration of the war, they have to turn off their emotions, or else go crazy trying to stay on top of them all. The mental crises these soldiers face as the war continues....well, it's disturbing. We see the effect of war on everybody concerned.

How do I feel about this Steinbeck? I liked it. It reminded me of why I love Steinbeck. Of why I love the experience of reading Steinbeck. I love his descriptions, for example.

The paintings on the wall were largely preoccupied with the amazing heroism of large dogs faced with imperiled children. Nor water nor fire nor earthquake could do in a child so long as a big dog was available. (4)

Doctor Winter was a man so simple that only a profound man would know him as profound. (4)

Joseph habitually scowled at furniture, expecting it to be impertinent, mischievous, or dusty. In a world where Mayor Orden was the leader of men, Joseph was the leader of furniture, silver, and dishes. Joseph was elderly and lean and serious, and his life was so complicated that only a profound man would know him to be simple. (4-5)

If you're reading this on a site (other than Becky's Book Reviews or Becky's feed, be aware that this post has been stolen and is used without permission.

Guest blogger Liana Heitin has taught students with special needs for the past five years as a public school teacher, reading specialist, and private tutor. She has a master’s degree in cross-categorical special education and is a freelance Web editor for LD OnLine, the leading website on learning disabilities and ADHD. LD OnLine offers research-based information and expert advice for parents, students, and educators. Liana’s writing has been featured in such publications as Education Week, teachermagazine.org, and the recent book, The Ultimate Teacher (HCI Books, May 2009).

Last week, on a whim, I began to re-read my favorite book from middle school: Lois Lowry’s The Giver.  As I turned the pages, I kept expecting to have a new adult reaction to the story—to see the allegory as simple or recognize the protagonist’s dilemma as trite.

Instead, I experienced just what I had as a 6th grader. I felt the excitement of entering the science fiction world and exploring its rules. The main character’s curiosity and loss of innocence became my own once again.  And upon reaching the abrupt ending, I had a familiar emotional rush—shock, a twinge of frustration, and ultimately satisfaction.

Lowry is an adept storyteller, but I’m pretty sure that’s not the only reason I reverted to my 6th grade self. When I first read The Giver, it changed me. It made me think and feel in a way words on pages never had—and guided me toward many other books, many more ideas and feelings.  It made me into a reader. I will never outgrow The Giver because it was part of such a formative moment in my life.

A few years ago, I was teaching a gifted 9th grader with a learning disability in reading. Demetri had never finished a chapter book on his own. The two of us had been working on fluency for months, starting well below grade level, when I brought in Of Mice and Men.  We began reading together, making slow but steady progress.

Over spring break, I asked Demetri to read at least five pages a night. I gave him a homework chart and a pep talk but worried he wouldn’t follow through—Demetri was a hard worker but some days it could take him 20 minutes to finish a page.  He returned the next week and sat down, a quiet grin spreading across his face.  “I finished it,” he said, and launched into an explanation of how the book had become a movie in his mind and he hadn’t been able to stop reading. “The end was such a surprise! I never would have guessed!” Of Mice and Men had changed Demetri, like The Giver had me. We began to make a list of other books he would enjoy.

Demitri was 15 years old when he found the book that inspired him—the one he’ll read with equal fervor and delight if he picks it up a decade or two down the road.  Some people find their book at a younger age—and some unlucky readers never find it at all.  If you know a child who hasn’t discovered her The Giver or Of Mice and Men, take the summer to explore topics and genres that interest her.  Read together. Talk about your own favorite childhood books.  Comb through library shelves. And guide your child toward the book that will turn him or her into a reader.

For more tips on summer reading and learning activities, particularly for students with learning disabilities, check out the LD Online Summer Beach Bag.

My dear Seattle-transplanted-to-the-big-apple friend Lisa Bishop (over at HarperTeen) has posted some of my recent musings on process. Here again we meet up with the ever-wise John Steinbeck while bumping up against the ever-churning yours truly.

If you have some time, I hope you'll visit. You'll get to meet Anna Godbersen, Ellen Schreiber, Carol Snow, and Susan Juby while you are there.

http://www.myspace.com/harperteen

I have taken The Grapes of Wrath down from the shelf, and I am reading about that other great devastation that we as a country found ourselves in. Tom Joad and his woes. Dust like a dry, dirty cloud that has fallen and stayed. The pitch of power against the laboring masses. Uncertainty, heartache, panic.

Newsweek has a Robert J. Samuelson column this week called "Good Times Breed Bad Times." It begins by recalling the James Grant book The Trouble with Prosperity, summarizing it this way: "Grant's survey of financial history captured his crusty theory of economic predestination. If things seem splendid, they will get worse. Success inspires overconfidence and excess. If things seem dismal, they will get better. Crisis spawns opportunity and progress. Our triumphs and follies follow a rhythm that, though it can be influenced, cannot be repealed."

I never read The Trouble with Prosperity, but I have modulated my life according to its thesis—choosing that safe middle ground, buying a house with two bedrooms because, well, we only needed two, and putting nearly every dollar I made or had against the mortgage and my son's college fund. I live on the vaunted Main Line of Philadelphia (where gardens and farms still loll between trees, where the schools are good, where the communities are fine), and my decisions have frankly often set me apart. Smallified me, if you will. I lost a friend because of what I would not buy, because of what I did not have. She stopped inviting me to her parties.

I have, I realized, lived my literary life the same way. I have said no to TV and film adaptations of my nonfiction, shutting the door to some version of income and notoriety (but also, I thought and still think, opening the door to peace of mind). I have sought the right editor above the right advance in every case save for that of my second book, when I was enticed to go with a house that ultimately did not care about my future as a writer. Lesson learned. Mistake not to be repeated. All I've ever wanted as a writer is the chance to publish again, the chance to commune with other readers and writers, a reason to keep writing. I have wanted, desperately, sometimes consumingly, the editorial yes, we will publish this and you, and even now, 11 books in, it's not so easy.

Yesterday, reading the magnificent introduction to the Penguin Classics version of Steinbeck's book, I came upon these words from Steinbeck, which seem both timeless to me and extremely prescient. They are about writing, yes, but they are also about the way we live our lives, about the need, perhaps, not to want overly much. To be satisfied.

"I have always wondered why no author has survived a best-seller. Now I know. The publicity and fan-fare are just as bad as they would be for a boxer. One gets self-conscious and that's the end of one's writing."

This is what happens after 1: overdosing on two drinks, linguini with white clam sauce, and a Veal Francaise at the The Park Side Restaurant in Queens, where tuxedos and GODFATHER-types meet, 2: a sinus headache, 3: a snoring husband ruining any chances of a good night's sleep and 4: the curse of having a television in your bedroom and a remote control to keep you company, jumping from channel to channel until your eyes rest upon a 4 AM showing of THE GRAPES OF WRATH and you know you're not going anywhere until the credits roll.

I think, therefore I write.

You have anything better for me to do with my time in the middle of the night?

Don't answer that unless your thoughts are PG-rated. ;>

And hell if I didn't think so hard that I turned to keyboard and screen. Damn you, wretched and tempest-tossed writers. Can never keep these things to yourselves, can you? ;>

Great Characters Make Great Stories. These are the books we remember. The characters that transcend the page. The iconic voices we carry with us, speaking to us from beyond the confines of the novel and remind us, time and again, why literature is a powerful link between generations. These are the voices that inspire me to write. To paint words into life, to connect reader to reader, to be "a little piece of a big soul." Not just for today but for tomorrow.



citycatinwindow introduced me to ARTISTS FOR LITERACY, an organization that promotes music inspired by great characters and great literature. Their mission is to make literature more accessible, to marry music and the written word in order to "open doors" to a more critical analysis of a book that might otherwise be daunting to a young reader.

TOM JOAD from John Steinbeck's GRAPES OF WRATH stands tall in my pantheon of literary heroic characters. His "I'll be there" soliloquy has moved many to tears, to action-- and to music. I know. Woody Guthrie was right there, compelled to create a homage to Tom Joad after Guthrie saw the movie, THE GRAPES OF WRATH. Fast forward to another great writer who found truth and beauty in this quintessential American literary hero. Enter Bruce Springsteen. (Ah, there's always a tie that binds my words to Mr. Springsteen.)

It may not be the first question I ever ask should I have the chance to have a one-on-one moment with my muse (and, should that day ever come, I highly doubt any intelligible sounds would make it past my quivering lips), but this writer would love to ask that writer what about Steinbeck's Joad inspired him to paint his musical portrait of the Joad character in Bruce's GHOST OF TOM JOAD. Steinbeck's novel identifies a cultural war that is seeped in the soul of the American dream. After stuttering and stammering for 23 minutes in Bruce's face, telling him what hismusic has meant to me (everything), oh how I would love to ask him: "How do you see your music as a source of characters questioning what is wrong and what is right in America? Who are your characters speaking to? The choir or the disenfranchised- the believers or the estranged and alienated? Are your characters uniquely American and why? Would you rather sing to the church or a confused, wandering congregation?"

I suspect this would be his answer:



Then I would fall faint to the floor.

And... end scene!

Speaking of Page Turners: Here's to 2008-- and to you and your characters and the life you give them. (Or is it the other way around?)

Evan Schnittman wrote an article for Publishing News last week entitled “Facing The Digital Reality.” Schnittman writes in his article that,

“…at the 500-year-old publishing house where I am employed book sales still make up the lion’s share of our income. Yet, as print-oriented as we may be, we have successfully launched many digital products - all into institutional and library markets. Until recently, however, the boundaries of e-content success seem to have stopped at journals, reference, and STM content in institutional and library markets.” (more…)

Share This