- Steinbeck Today
Has John Steinbeck's popularity with readers hurt his standing among scholars? The so-called Steinbeck Question, first raised at a conference in 1989, seems more relevant today than ever before. While the volume of scholarly submissions to Steinbeck Review and blog posts submitted to SteinbeckNow.com continues to encourage editors, books about Steinbeck reviewed in the journal and posts published by the website increasingly reflect existential issues of personal concern to authors, and the first life of Steinbeck in twenty years is being written not by a college professor, but by a popular journalist from what might be described as an experiential point of view. Of the two university events related to Steinbeck reported to this column since the last issue—both at San José State University—one focused on Susan Shillinglaw's recent experience at an international festival in Russia and the other honored the cultural contributions of Francisco Jimenez, the Mexican immigrant who received the Steinbeck "In the Souls of the People" Award given by the Martha Heasley Cox Center for Steinbeck Studies to artists and activists whose work in the world advances the values that Steinbeck advocated in his writing.
A survey of Steinbeck content in college courses and graduate research would help answer the Steinbeck Question as it pertains to universities. Meanwhile, the picture outside the academy is positive. References to Steinbeck's writing in mass media accelerated during the recent presidential campaign, and commentators increasingly turned to incidents and characters in his fiction to explain contentious issues: the death penalty (Of Mice and Men), labor unrest (In Dubious Battle), refugee resettlement (The Grapes of Wrath), climate change and resource depletion (Sea of Cortez and Cannery Row), fascist behavior (The Moon Is Down), cultural identity and influence (East of Eden), public corruption and xenophobia (The Winter of Our Discontent), resurgent racism (Travels with Charley), and U.S.-Russia relations (A Russian Journal). Among other modern writers associated with these burning issues, only George Orwell attracted a similar level of attention from journalists, poets, and entertainers [End Page 89] looking for literary references to explain threatening developments on the global scene.
Events around Steinbeck in California highlighted the personal and political nature of interest in his role as internationalist and native son. Two in San Jose have already been mentioned. Farther south, in Salinas, the National Steinbeck Center celebrated Mexican Independence Day with music, food, and book discussions led by Susan Shillinglaw, the organization's peripatetic director. In Monterey, the Cannery Row Foundation honored Frank Wright, the last living member of the local group that purchased Doc's Lab after Ed Ricketts died, preserving and promoting the shrine to Steinbeck's friend and collaborator as a place where pilgrims to Cannery Row could come individually, or in groups, to see and learn. In Pacific Grove, the Sacramento artist Greg Kondos presented the painting he created of the Steinbeck family cottage to the recently completed art gallery at the Pacific Grove Library, named for the late Nancy Hauk, co-owner with her husband, Steve, of the nearby Ricketts family home. Half a world away, Steinbeck's Irish heritage was celebrated in County Derry and on Northern Ireland's BBC.
The cultural context and political point of Steinbeck's writing are two reasons, among others, that commentators continue to find characters and incidents from his fiction so useful as a form of shorthand for social ideas. Following publication of The Grapes of Wrath, the Joads became a metaphor for families displaced by apocalyptic disaster. Now, eighty years after Of Mice and Men, Lennie Small has become an equally potent symbol in public debate about the justifiability of capital punishment. After visiting the National Steinbeck Center last summer, Stephen Cooper, an attorney and blogger, published a series of posts accusing death-penalty defenders of misappropriating Steinbeck's character and misreading the meaning of Steinbeck's ending. Following the election of Donald Trump, he blogged about Trump's addiction to television and tweeting, contrasting Trump's impulsiveness with Steinbeck's self-discipline and devotion to editing. The post was picked up by news outlets throughout America, with a catchy title criticizing Trump's claim to...