Editor's Column

Abstract

Dedicated “To Beth, my sister, whose light burns clear,” John Steinbeck's last work of fiction, The Winter of Our Discontent, admonishes readers to “inspect their own communities and look inside their own hearts, for this book is about a large part of America today.” His sister, Beth, serves as a paradigm for the upright American of high integrity—her “light burns clear” (inside front cover). The protagonist in this novel is an Every American, Ethan Allen Hawley. His wife calls him “silly” (3-5), and he calls her by inane names—“bugflower” (50) “sweet fern” (50), “fern tip” (65), and “heaven wife (232).” Initially an upright man of high morals and integrity, Ethan succumbs to greed—the malaise of his times—and descends into darkness. He plots a bank robbery (failed before the attempt), instigates his drunken childhood friend's death, and betrays his employer. When his son plagiarizes and wins an “I Love America” contest, he determines to commit suicide. Steinbeck had written to Elizabeth Otis, “If this is a time of confusion, then that should be the subject of a good writer if he is to set down his times” (Steinbeck and Wallsten 485). In The Winter of Our Discontent, then, he writes of a nation's and a good man's loss of moral moorings—of the confusion of his times. But, typically, he gives hope.The last chapter of the novel is an accolade to light, endurance, goodness. It is set in a time of physical and psychic darkness as Ethan Every American, razor blades at the ready in his pocket, goes to his Place in a cave by the sea. As night descends and the tide rolls in, the darkness is infused with light as a “thin mist … accumulated all the stars and town lights and spread them evenly—a dark, pewter-colored sheen” (278). Then Ethan sees a late-rising star and the mast light of a slow, chugging craft. It casts anchor and drops off the horizon, its mast light no longer visible.With the extinguishing of the mast light, Ethan Every American thinks of those whose “light still burned”—his boss Marullo, whom he had betrayed; his forebear “old Cap'n”; and his Aunt Deborah (178). He muses, “It isn't true that there's a community of light, a bonfire of the world. Everyone carries his own, his lonely own.” In despair, he concludes, “My light is out. There's nothing blacker than a wick” (278).What follows has the effect of fervent, sincere prayer: “I want to go home—no not home, to the other side of home where the lights are given” (279). Although this Every American realizes “It's so much darker when a light goes out than it would have been if it had never shone,” he reaches into his pocket for the razor blades, determined to carry out his devilish mission. But the prayer for light is answered as he grasps a “lump” that proves to be the strange, luminescent family talisman placed there by his daughter, “the light-bearer.” In his hand “it gathered every bit of light there was and seemed red—dark red” (179). As the surging tide pushes him against the back of the cave, he fights against it, determined to get out: “I had to get back—had to return the talisman to its new owner. Else another light might go out” (279). Such is Steinbeck's vision for his Every American—that he emerge from the darkness and confusion of his times to become a bearer of light, truth, and goodness. And Steinbeck's vision endures.For in the inaugural ceremony for the forty-sixth president of the United States, Joe Biden's address speaks to just such a vision. As greed, corruption, and confusion were rampant in Steinbeck's times, so we face our own darkness. Pandemic, devaluing of truth, attempts to undermine a valid presidential election, insurrection—all have threatened us at home and abroad. But out of all dire threats has come a promise: Biden states, “Together we shall write an American story of hope, not fear. Of unity, not division. Of light, not darkness. A story of decency and dignity, love and healing, greatness and goodness. May this be the story that guides us.” And, in light of a failed insurrection, Biden reassures us, “Democracy and hope, and truth and justice did not die on our watch, but thrived. America secured liberty at home and stood once again as a beacon to the world.” What Steinbeck called “the beacon thing” is not destroyed (Journal of a Novel 115).Youth poet laureate Amanda Gorman's inaugural poem, “The Hill We Climb,” asserts the efficacy of this national, American vision, inspiring and challenging Americans to be brave enough to be the light for their fellow citizens: “There is always light, if only we're brave enough to see it. / If only we're brave enough to be it.” Such was Steinbeck's challenge left for his fellow countrymen and women as Ethan Every American fights against the surge of an incoming tide and rises out of darkness to pass along the light to those who follow.The Spring 2021 issue of the Steinbeck Review features writings by both emerging and senior scholars that speak to Steinbeck's role as a beacon of light in varied trying times. In “Steinbeck in a Pandemic,” Gavin Jones highlights the author's relevance amid current world health conditions. Citing the author's “central interest in human interconnectedness and transmission,” Jones believes that Steinbeck's focus on “group behavior” transcends the concept of “phalanx” and is more accurately represented by a “network of connected ideas that define the Steinbeck's biopolitical imagination”—the “relationship between our biological selves and our political climate, between contagion and human community.” Drawing on Steinbeck writings from the 1930s, Jones analyzes their message that “public health has a politics, and that politics can impact public health…. Both are defined by concepts of infection and transmission.” He concludes his article with observations on two works of Steinbeck from the 1940s: “If Steinbeck's biopolitical vision … veers into a contemplation of extinction in Sea of Cortez, then The Pearl leaves us with a fragile sense of hope that the healthy individual can lead the group in the right direction.”Debra Cumberland's “Border Crossings: Jenny Erpenbeck's Gehen, Ging, Gegangen as a Response to The Grapes of Wrath” presents a comparative study of two migration novels. Cumberland identifies and describes the multiple parallels between Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath (1939) and Erpenbeck's German-language novel Gehen, Ging, Gegangen (published in 2015, translated into English two years later under the title Go, Went, Gone). These similarities began prior to writing, as Cumberland calls attention to the extensive field research conducted by both Steinbeck and Erpenbeck on the migratory experience. This article focuses on the motif of borders permeating both novels—borders that are “geographical, political, as well as interpersonal”—and describes the parallels in character actions, aspirations, and perceptions in the respective communities to which they migrate. Cumberland also notes the shared humanistic goals of these paired works: “Both novels spring from a deep belief in the power of writing to foster insight and understanding by making the experiences of others known.”In “Of Wrath and War: The Grapes of Wrath in the Armed Services Editions,” Fredrik Tydal chronicles the arguably controversial selection of Steinbeck's novel for inclusion in the Armed Services Editions, the library of books accessible to World War II soldiers through the efforts of the Council on Books in Wartime. Acceptance into the Armed Services Editions could be seen as surprising in light of the fact that “Steinbeck … was deemed unfit to serve in the military, largely due to his perceived politics”—“politics” that, as reported by Tydal, led to bannings and burnings of Grapes, along with an FBI file on the author. The initial distribution of the Armed Service Edition in 1943 met with “markedly positive response” sufficient to call for a reprint of an additional 155,000 copies two years later. Tydal credits the content of the “paratextual elements” of the Armed Services Edition for the novel's acceptance. These elements “actively preempt any negative views the soldiers may have of both the novel and its author, while also emphasizing the sociopolitical dimensions of the work.” Specifically, the paratextual content underscores the “quality of the novel”; its “popular and critical success”; “Steinbeck's dedication to the war effort” through the publication of Bombs Away (1942); his work as a war correspondent in England; and an emphasis on the author's Irish (rather than German) ancestry.The Intercalary section of this issue of Steinbeck Review begins with Susan Shillinglaw's tribute to fiction writer and nature essayist Barry Lopez, who died on Christmas Day 2020. According to Shillinglaw, Lopez, who attended summer camp in the 1950s with Steinbeck's two sons, saw Steinbeck as a “boyhood model” and major influence on his writing. Lopez saluted Steinbeck as “a writer … curious about the tangible world, especially the natural world, … someone alert to the numinous and mythic import of human passion; someone perennially disturbed by social injustice, especially where working people were involved.” For Lopez, “Steinbeck made a lifetime of writing seem possible.” Next, Christopher Seiji Berardino's “‘A Man in a Group Isn't Himself At All’: Revisiting Steinbeck's Phalanx Theory” asserts that Steinbeck's original concept of the group man, codeveloped with Edward Ricketts and rooted in “scientific objectivity,” eventually drifted to “subjective sociological appraisal.” In response to this metamorphosis, Bernardino introduces the concept of the “phalanx potential”—its “capacity for either destruction or creation” ironically “determined … by the actions of a single individual.” Berardino cites two of Steinbeck's 1930s writings, In Dubious Battle (1936) and “The Vigilante” (1938), as exemplars of the “destructive phalanx”—failure of the group due to a lack of strong leadership. These stories are contrasted with two later works of Steinbeck—The Grapes of Wrath (1939) and Cannery Row (1945), in which the virtues and strengths of central characters foster a “positive, creative phalanx.”“The Influence of John Steinbeck on Algerian Culture,” cowritten by Chaker Mohamed Ben Ali and Cecilia Donohue, provides an overview of Steinbeck's lasting influence on classroom, journalistic, popular, and literary reading in Algeria. Since excerpts from The Pearl (1947) have been anthologized in a seventh-grade French language textbook, Algerian students are exposed to Steinbeck's writing in middle school. Readers of Algeria's quotidian periodicals are likely to encounter multiple mentions of Steinbeck's oeuvre: “Steinbeck's works, most notably Of Mice and Men (1937), The Long Valley (1938), The Grapes of Wrath (1939), and The Pearl (1947), are frequently referenced by the Algerians in their widely read, French-language daily newspapers. His writings are highly recommended reading throughout Algeria, and parallels have been drawn between Algeria and Steinbeck's fictional settings.” Echoes of themes and characterizations reminiscent of Steinbeck have been identified in the writings of Mohamed Dib and Kateb Yacine. And in an expansion of Steinbeck's accessibility to Algerian readers, Mohammed Ben Ali and Donohue report that three of these Steinbeck titles—The Pearl, Of Mice and Men, and The Grapes of Wrath—are being translated by Aeki Boudif into Kabyle (also known as Tamazight), a Berber language spoken by the Kabyle people in north and northeast Algeria.While William Ray's Spring 2021 edition of Steinbeck Today laments the COVID-caused closures and cancellations of Steinbeck-related locales and events, it nonetheless reports the various virtual presentations and information exchanges. Of particular note is the release of William Souder's biography of John Steinbeck, Mad at the World: A Life of John Steinbeck. Other Steinbeck-centered news runs the gamut from yet another incident of censoring Of Mice and Men to ninety-nine-year-old actress Betty White's fond memories of meeting the author.Coincidentally, Souder's Steinbeck biography is critiqued in this issue of Steinbeck Review. Reviewer Scott Pugh cites flaws in the text such as an inconsistency in the “titular emphasis on anger”; limited informational value in the “background descriptions of history, geography, and politics”; “uninspiring” summaries of the plots of Steinbeck's works; and “comments on character, theme, and literary value” that rehash previously published observations. Nonetheless, Pugh sees value in the biography for the fledgling reader of Steinbeck who would benefit from the historic and geographic background Souder provides, as well as for the seasoned scholar who would appreciate the extensive listing of “archival materials used in researching the story.” Overall, Pugh praises the biography as “diligently researched, carefully crafted, ambitious, and wide-ranging.”Also critiqued in this issue of Steinbeck Review is a volume focusing on what reviewer Tom Barden calls an “underappreciated jewel” in John Steinbeck's oeuvre. Anthony Amelio's self-published Bibliographia Dystopia, Volume 1: John Steinbeck's The Moon Is Down is a comprehensive study of the publication of John Steinbeck's novella-turned-play. Barden states, “You will learn a great deal about the making of books, book covers, and dust jackets and the world of textual criticism.” In this history of the “various editions” of Steinbeck's story of Nazi-invaded Norway, readers learn that after World War II The Moon Is Down was published in forty languages—“from the expected—German, Italian, Russian, French—to the very obscure—Faroese, Malay, and Marathi/Hindi.” While Barden takes issue with the multiplicity of typographical errors and what he calls the “big hot mess” of a cover, he nonetheless pays this book and its author Amelio a compliment of high magnitude: “I wish he had submitted this … book to an actual university or trade press … he would have found a publisher.”Rounding out the content of this issue of Steinbeck Review are Peter Van Coutren's detailed compilation of the 2019–2020 Steinbeck bibliography and Nick Taylor's timely listing of announcements.Julie Lambert, Journals Manager of Penn State University Press, announces that “in 2022, we have partnered with Duke University Press to be part of the Scholarly Publishing Collective! Backed by the Silverchair platform and joined by 62 other journals, we will begin publishing our online journals with a community of university presses guided by the marketing and sales expertise at Duke UP. Despite our long history and positive relationship with JSTOR, we are thrilled for this opportunity to partner with other university presses and renew interest in our impressive collection.” Editors of the Steinbeck Review are pleased to be a part of this new project and applaud all Julie's efforts in bringing it about. Steinbeck Review was also recently accepted into the European Reference Index for the Humanities and Social Sciences also known as ERIH PLUS, the most important and prestigious reference index in the European Union.Penn State University's Journals Marketing Manager Christopher Miller has provided his “2020 Year in Review” for Steinbeck Review. It is heartening to note the international outreach. A partial listing of nations includes Canada, China, United Kingdom, Germany, Japan, Singapore, France, Australia, India, Belgium, the Russian Federation, the Netherlands, Ireland, Spain, and others. And as discussed above, the current issue features an article from an Algerian writer, Chaker Mohamed Ben Ali.