The Steinbeck Question: New Essays in Criticism (review)

252Reviews split . . . there were only paths to explore" (p. 212). Both Edith Wharton 's Brave New Politics and Matters ofMind and Spirit illustrate Wharton's lifelong concern with questions of culture. Although Bauer and Singley focus on Wharton's fiction, future studies might turn to her nonfiction, where Wharton addresses issues of culture more directly. In French Ways and Their Meaning (1919), for example, Wharton locates "civilization " in France. Wharton loved the French for many things, from their fine food to their art of conversation. And, above all else, she valued their intellectual honesty. To her, they made an art of living, both outwardly and inwardly. Illustrating the credo of Wharton's life, the French lived well and deeply. This marked, in her mind, the apex of culture. University ofDelawareStephanie Bateos Noble, Donald R., ed. The Steinbeck Question: New Essays in Criticism . Troy, NY: Whitston Publishing Company, 1993. 288 pp. Cloth: $29.50. Although the title and the editor's introduction suggest that the various essays in The Steinbeck Question form a coherent response to the perceived problem of Steinbeck's generally low reputation among American academics , only the initial essay by Jackson Benson addresses the stated focus. Benson's piece, however, is not likely to sway any of Steinbeck's critical nemeses, because his argument, although probably correct, is based primarily on anecdotal evidence. For example, in the absence of a rigorous study on regional bias in canon formation, Benson states that the comparative lack of response in the literary press to the works of Wallace Stegner is evidence of anti-Western bias among Eastern critics (pp. 13-14). At the other extreme , two essays seem almost completely irrelevant to the volume's stated focus. H. R. Stoneback's interesting essay on Steinbeck's influence on Woody Guthrie puts to rest again the canard that the influence went the other way, but focuses primarily on Guthrie. Jeremy Butler's essay on Viva Zapata! is similarly more revealing about Elia Kazan than about Steinbeck. Most of the essays in this volume, however, focus on Steinbeck but not directly on the editor's question. Mimi Gladstein, for example, debunks the old excuse that the relative paucity of strong women in Steinbeck's fiction was a realistic reflection of the world he knew, but her conclusion, especially in the light of Charlotte Hadella's persuasive essay on Steinbeck's negative depiction of the social restrictions placed on women, seems a bit shrill. To the extent that one accepts his central tenet, Robert S. Hughes's argument in "Steinbeck and the Art of Story Writing" is compelling; however, his notion of ranking Steinbeck's short stories solely according to their Studies in American Fiction253 formal unity seems critically naive. In his defense, Hughes is far from being alone among Steinbeck critics in this regard. Although a sort of low-theory feminism has made a definite impact on Steinbeck criticism, most of the published collections of essays on Steinbeck contain little in the way of critical method that would have surprised a 1950s New Critic. Perhaps in recognition of that problem, the editor included Paul Hintz's ambitious but ultimately disappointing essay, "The Silent Women and the Male Voice in Steinbeck's Cannery Row." Hintz's piece, which tends to display rather than utilize his methodological sophistication, reads as if it were an entire dissertation condensed into twelve pages. What probably should have been two or three essays that would have shaken up the field is instead a single, promising mish-mash. Alan Brown's "From Artist to Craftsman: Steinbeck's Bombs Away" is also troubling. Although Brown's readings of Steinbeck's World War II propaganda works is reasonable, his larger claim that the quality of Steinbeck's fiction declined after The Grapes of Wrath because of bad habits he acquired during the war is not convincingly argued. In particular, his initial claim of a virtual unanimity of critical opinion on Steinbeck's post-war decline is highly suspect, because his most recent source on the subject is twenty years old (pp. 213, 222), and, unfortunately for Brown's argument, Charles Etheridge's useful survey of the criticism on East of Eden since...