Happy Birthday, Mr. Steinbeck

John Steinbeck

1902-1968

Today is John Steinbeck's birthday. As he was born in 1902 he would be 112. I imagine his typewriter would be a bit rusty by now.

The Google search graphic (which I have no idea how to link for you to see) today pays tribute to the author of Cannery Row, Of Mice and Men, The Grapes of Wrath, and my favorite, Travels with Charley: In Search of America.

I was a junior in high school when I read Travels with Charley, an account of Steinbeck's motor trip around America in 1960 in his green pickup truck with specially-outfitted camper. Charley was his black poodle and a welcome companion on the highway.

End papers showing  

the route taken in 

Travels with Charley

Travels with Charley was the first non-fiction book I remember reading that wasn't a textbook. I had no idea that people actually wrote about their experiences and adventures. 

Reading the book made me want to become a writer. And I did.

So Happy Birthday to you, Mr. Steinbeck. I hope your travels have been peaceful ones.

Visiting Cannery Row with John Steinbeck

One of the classics that Kevin Smokler looks at in his book Practical Classics is John Steinbeck's Cannery Row.  The action of this 1945 novel takes place in Monterey, California. I have actually visited the area and seen the fish canneries (now shops) and had my photo taken under the street sign.

The novel concerns marine biologist Doc and his group of friends: the madam of the local bordello; the grocer; and, a group of itinerant men known as 'the boys' who occasionally work in the canneries.

It is a story of community and, Smokler writes, was Steinbeck's way of reliving his early life in California with his own group of friends. Steinbeck, already wealthy and famous, was in his forties when he wrote this, his twelfth novel. 

Smokler writes:
He wrote Cannery Row out of longing for the place that held part of his youth, now gone. 

...of places where special things happen and memories dwell, of everyone around you knowing and looking after you, of nothing mattering outside your circle of friends. 

I recently picked up a paperback copy of Cannery Row from the library sale table. I think I paid 50 cents for it. It sits here in a stack by my reading chair. It may be time I revisited Doc and his world.

Here is its opening line:
"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."

It is that nostalgia, that dream, that Steinbeck was hungering for.

First Lines

"Elmer Gantry was drunk. He was eloquently drunk, lovingly and pugnaciously drunk."

Sinclair Lewis: Elmer Gantry (1926)

Picture: AP

There is a fun photo feast in the online edition of the UK newspaper The Telegraph. Here, according to culture editor Martin Chilton, are thirty of the great opening lines in literature. Some familiar, some not. The best part is seeing the wonderful photos of the authors paired with the covers of their books.

Of course there are Jane Austen (Pride and Prejudice) and Charles Dickens (A Tale of Two Cities), but also Jean Rhys (The Wide Sargasso Sea) and Ken Kesey (One Few Over the Cuckoo's Nest).  I was especially taken with the above black and white photograph of Sinclair Lewis sitting at his typewriter dressed in a suit and tie. I guess the photo was not taken on Casual Friday.

Therefore, not to be outdone by The Telegraph, here is a sampling of first lines from books on my own shelves:

"Those privileged to be present at a family festival of the Forsytes have seen that charming and instructive sight -- an upper middle-class family in full plumage."
    ----The Forsyte Saga by John Galsworthy

"I had a farm in Africa, at the foot of Ngong Hills."
    ----Out of Africa by Isak Dinesen

"When I was very young and the urge to be someplace else was on me, I was assured by mature people that maturity would cure this itch."
    ----Travels With Charley by John Steinbeck

"On Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays it was Court Hand and Summulae Logicales, while the rest of the week it was the Organon, Repetition and Astrology."
    ----The Once and Future King by T.H. White

"Had one been a Prime Minister there would be every reason for talking of one's first tooth and devoting a chapter or two to its effect upon the history of our times."
    ----Twenty-five by Beverley Nichols

"There were several promising-looking letters in the pile laid on Mrs. James Kane's virgin breakfast-plate on Monday morning, but having sorted all the envelopes with the air of one expectant of discovering treasure-trove, she extracted two addressed to her in hands indicative of either illiteracy or of extreme youth."
    ----Duplicate Death by Georgette Heyer

What first lines are lurking on your shelves?

To Reread, or not to Reread, that is the question

I am not a re-reader. Once I finish the book, that is pretty much it for me. But I recently watched an interview with Shelby Foote and he said rereading was when you got to study what the author did. You know by now where she is going and you get to see how she gets you there.

Anna Quindlen said the same thing. She is a big fan of rereading. I could probably count on two hands the number of books I have found compelled to read again.

One is Ex Libris by Anne Fadiman. Another is To Kill a Mockingbird. One summer I reread all of the Annie Dillard books that I own: Teaching a Stone to Talk, An American Childhood, and Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. I have read William Zinsser's On Writing Well multiple times.

Within the past few years I also reread Travels With Charley by Steinbeck. That is the book that made me want to be a writer. I was afraid to read it again - the last time was in high school - because I didn't want to be disappointed or finish it and say, "What was I thinking? This is the book I based my entire life on?"

Fortunately it was just as compelling as I remembered it.

I feel like rereading a book you loved the first time is risky business. The emotions that you felt may be entirely missing the second time and that would be so disheartening. It is like visiting the house you grew up in now that someone else lives there. The images that you hold dear are superseded by the green carpet and the yellow wallpaper that the new owners have installed in your bedroom.

How do you feel about re-reading a favorite book?