Reviewed by: The Moral Philosophy of John Steinbeck Brian Railsback (bio) The Moral Philosophy of John Steinbeck Ed. Stephen K. George. Lanham, Maryland: Scarecrow Press, 2005. 199 pp. Click for larger view View full resolution Figure 1. Steinbeck during his visit to Hungary in 1963 with wife Elaine and Edward Albee, as part of a Cultural Exchange Trip at the request of President Kennedy. [End Page 138] Many reviewers and critics of John Steinbeck's works are irritated by or at least uncomfortable with the author's desire to insert, in a sometimes heavy-handed way, moral meaning into his books. Steinbeck's natural impulse to instruct the reader on moral ideas became an increasingly overt element in his work as he grew older. His last novel, The Winter of Our Discontent, is a study of moral disintegration and possible redemption; the last book published in his lifetime, America and Americans, is an unabashed sermon to his fellow citizens. I count myself among those critics who see Steinbeck's moral didacticism as a weakness, mercifully suppressed in his greatest works. The Moral Philosophy of John Steinbeck is a collection of very interesting essays that bravely encounter Steinbeck's moral philosophizing head-on. Aside from criticism from reviewers and scholars for occasional moralizing, Steinbeck's work suffered at times in an entirely different way. As Allene M. Parker's essay, "Of Death, Life, and Virtue in Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men and The Grapes of Wrath," indicates, the disturbing but important ethical questions Steinbeck raises may account for much of the suppression or outright banning of his works. For some time we have needed a book that provides a careful reckoning of the moral philosophy associated with Steinbeck and his work. Now we have it. The Moral Philosophy of John Steinbeck has been thoughtfully structured by eitor Stephen K. George (he acknowledges help overall on the project from his editorial board, consisting of Richard Astro, Patrick K. Dooley, Richard E. Hart, and Luchen Li). The Foreword and Introduction neatly define the book's [End Page 139] operating definition of "moral philosophy." Part I consists of broad applications of the terminology, with five essays that take a sweeping look at Steinbeck's moral philosophy through several books. In Part II, the eight essays are more focused on moral implications in particular works or characters—The Winter of Our Discontent and Cathy/Kate of East of Eden rightfully figure prominently in this section. In his Foreword, Hart observes that in a time of "applied" philosophical ethics and explorations of literature and morality, we are overdue for a careful look at the author: "John Steinbeck has not been rigorously examined or fully appreciated as a contributor to moral philosophy." What the contributors to this volume collectively demonstrate, Hart asserts, is "that Steinbeck was not just a superb experimental stylist, social critic, and, in many ways, the conscience of America. He was, as well, a moral philosopher who probed deeper than nearly any other American writer the contours of individual and societal ethics." This statement may overstate the case a bit (many great American authors have examined individual and societal ethics), but it does set up the intention of the book well. The Introduction by George and Li adds weight to Hart's assertion by noting Steinbeck's readings in moral philosophy, his high moral purpose, and his ability to make readers thoughtfully live in his characters' ethical failures and successes. What is refreshing about the Introduction and the book that follows is the lack of any apology for Steinbeck's overt moral viewpoint—this volume clearly embraces it. Possibly one of the best definitions of Steinbeck's moral philosophy is offered in the first essay, "John Steinbeck's lower-case utopia: Basic Human Needs, a Duty to Share, and the Good Life" by Patrick K. Dooley. For both Aristotle and Steinbeck, Dooley writes, "genuine moral goodness, genuine human happiness, and genuine human development are three ways to describe the same thing: a well-lived and fulfilling human life in a good society." The possibility or frustration of this life depends on the benign or malignant wants created by individuals or a society. Dooley...

Notes From The Director Paul Douglass Professor Susan Shillinglaw stepped down as Director of the Center for Steinbeck Studies last May (2005), and I was honored to be invited to fill in for a time, while certain projects got done and a search could be mounted for a permanent Director. I once performed this duty for two semesters—but that was more than ten years ago, and a great deal has changed in the world of Steinbeck Studies, including the maturation of a journal by that name. That and much more is owing to Professor Shillinglaw's great labors. For eighteen years she has shepherded the Center, as it moved from the sixth floor of the old Wahlquist Library down to the third floor to join Special Collections, then to temporary quarters, and finally into its new and wonderful digs in the Martin Luther King, Jr., Library, an award-winning joint project of San José State University and the city of San José. Under her leadership the Center expanded its holdings (see the article on Lee Richard Hayman's donation in this combined issue of Steinbeck Studies), acquired new resources, consolidated its collections, and offered scores of programs to scholars, teachers, and students in San José, in California, and across the nation. During the period when the centennial of Steinbeck's birth was being celebrated, she gave dozens of presentations in and out of the U.S. Over the past several years she has also produced a really mind-boggling number of articles, books, edited anthologies, and editions. Moreover, she has fostered the careers of numerous scholars. This spring will see the launch of an online, searchable bibliography on the website of the Center for Steinbeck Studies. You can find it at www.steinbeck.sjsu.edu. [End Page 11] A major change is also coming to Steinbeck Studies and its subscribers. Beginning with the spring 2006 issue, the journal will merge its operations, editorial boards, and editors with those of The Steinbeck Review. The journal will become a joint function of San José State University and the institutions sponsoring Steinbeck activities, including Brigham Young University in Idaho, Ball State University, and others. Those familiar with both journals will observe that the new "merged" journal (to be titled The Steinbeck Review in order to avoid confusion with the Steinbeck Studies journal published in Japan) combines the best features of both: refereed scholarly articles and reports, numerous illustrations, and "intercalary" sections of the type Professor Shillinglaw included during her editorship of Steinbeck Studies. Subscription renewal details are included in this issue, so if you haven't already renewed, do so now. You won't want to miss what's coming up, including an essay by Richard Hoffstedt titled "Steamy Steinbeck"! Copyright © 2005 Martha Heasley Cox Center for Steinbeck Studies

"That's him. That shiny bastard.": Jim Casy and Christology Stephen Bullivant Click for larger view Illustration 1 Thomas Hart Benton's depiction of Jim Casy, from The Grapes of Wrath [End Page 14] In a letter dated 19 November, 1948, Steinbeck expresses his desire to do "one more film—the life of Christ from the four Gospels—adding and subtracting nothing."1 The task would have been a formidable one, and it comes as no surprise that his wish was never fulfilled. Not only do the gospels provide us with four different (sometimes very different) lives of Christ, but to a certain, significant, extent they provide us with four different Christs. Mark, for example, depicts a very "human" Jesus—a Christ subject to pity and compassion, as well as fear, despair and anger. John, on the other hand, emphasizes Jesus' divinity: his dignified aloofness, his serene foreknowledge. These differing portrayals of Jesus are known as christologies.2 Had Steinbeck attempted to bring his wish to fruition he would have been faced with the decision of whether to adopt the christology of a particular evangelist, or, by amalgamating the portrayals of all four, create a new christology of his very own. In neither event could he rightly be said to be "adding and subtracting nothing." Steinbeck's own take on the "greatest story ever told" would, no doubt, have been an intensely interesting piece of work. Our disappointment that his plan was never realized is not, however, without its consolations. According to Steinbeck scholars Christ-like figures pervade his literary output: Joseph Wayne (To a God Unknown), Jim Nolan (In Dubious Battle), and Juan Chicoy (The Wayward Bus) to name just three. Among Steinbeck's characters, however, it is The Grapes of Wrath's Jim Casy in whom the imitatio Christi may most fully be discerned; and it is he who shall form the basis of this study. [End Page 15] Ever since the "Christlike" depiction of Casy was noted by the more perceptive of the book's early reviewers,3 literary critics have delighted in combing the novel for gospel allusions. Not only (we are told) does Casy share Jesus Christ's initials, but both become disillusioned with contemporary "piety," fall foul of the authorities, and die a martyr's death for the supposed advancement of a greater good; and it is a death both might have avoided. Jesus, we are told, has legions of angels at his disposal should he wish to escape (Mt 26.54); Casy (admittedly rather less well-equipped) is said to duck "down into the swing" (my italics) which kills him—suggesting, perhaps, a deliberate act.4 Furthermore, Casy sets out west with twelve of the Joads, one of whom (Connie) ends up "betraying" the group in pursuit of the "thirty pieces of silver" earned daily by the Oklahoma tractor drivers he wishes he had joined (on the reckoning that thirty silver dimes equals three dollars5 ). His funeral oration to Grampa recalls, albeit in "Okie speech," Jesus' command to "Let the dead bury their own dead" (Lk 9.60).6 In a neat piece of literary irony, Casy himself seems vaguely aware of the parallels between them. His grace at Uncle's John's place begins "I been thinkin'. . . I been in the hills, thinkin', almost you might say like Jesus went into the wilderness to think His way out of a mess of troubles" [82-3],7 and (in perhaps the most striking affinity between the two) he twice tells those about to kill him "You don' know what you're a-doin'" [401], paraphrasing Jesus' words of Lk 23.34. This—for the most part8 —is all well and good, but by itself leaves only a superficial understanding of Casy's "christlike" nature. As was mentioned above, any attempt to depict Christ presupposes a commitment to a certain "christology"; that is to say, a certain notion of the "Person" of Jesus. The same applies to "Christlike...

Adapting Steinbeck: Tortilla Flat in the Information Age—an Interview with Screenwriter Bill U'Ren Charles Raymond Fowler Click for larger view Figure 1 Hedy Lamarr and John Garfield in a still shot from the film of Tortilla Flat (1942), directed by Victor Fleming. Garfield as the Happy-go-lucky Danny has broken in on Dolores "Sweets" Ramirez' job in the fish cannery. Hedy Lamarr, as the fiery Portuguese girl, refuses to be bothered by her suitor unless he reforms [End Page 56] It is often said that the world of adaptation involves more complications than any other field related to the artistic process. The writer undertaking the project—whether converting source material for theater, film or other medium—is already one level removed from the core and yet must work simultaneously to preserve the integrity of the original material and fulfill criteria specified by the project's producers. This often relegates the adapter to a likely Catch-22 scenario, and sometimes added to that are the potentially debilitating issues of estate control over artistic vision. Occasionally, an even greater complication featuring estranged heirs surfaces, and property control in general is put at issue. Adapter Bill U'Ren encountered a little of both once John Steinbeck's Tortilla Flat had been finalized for San Diego-based Canum Entertainment. The studio had successfully completed a selective process to option one of John Steinbeck's first commercially successful books, but complications seemingly emerged after Elaine Steinbeck's death in April of 2003, some of which were likely related to a civil suit filed by other heirs regarding future control of Steinbeck's properties. At last report, the production appears to be in legal limbo for the time being. When the adaptation was first underway, I was able to convince Bill U'Ren to discuss Tortilla Flat's conversion, citing the relevance of the artistic process to both Steinbeck fans and critics. He agreed that all deserved an inside look at the concerns involved with adapting one of the esteemed writer's earlier works. The Q&A text that follows is culled from that original session [End Page 57] in Washington, D.C., not far from where Mr. U'Ren teaches screenwriting for John Hopkins University's Odyssey Program. CF: How did the Tortilla Flat project begin taking shape? BU: The producer, John Moores, fell in love with the book many years ago, and when his production company, Canum Entertainment, got off the ground in San Diego, Tortilla was one of the first books he wanted in terms of securing rights. We did the adaptation together, with each of us taking a swing at the script and then doing ensuing drafts as a team. CF: It seems like there would be serious pressure adapting a John Steinbeck novel. BU: Yes, [think of] the legions of Steinbeck aficionados out there. It's not like working on a project with an author who doesn't have a following. One of my first adaptation assignments out of UCLA was a book called Box 100. It was a crime novel written by a guy who'd committed suicide not too long after it was published. Working on that project really had no built-in expectations. With a canonical author like Steinbeck, you have so many people watching your every step, that it could become almost paralyzing if you thought about it every day. CF: How did you escape that? BU: Mostly, we tried to envision it as a story that we'd been tossing around like it was something original and not an historical artifact, hoping this would free us up to work. This is harder than you might think. You really have to break down the piece into plot points and look at it from a practical narrative perspective. "Does this work here?" "Would this character cry here?" and so on. If you keep thinking about each question in the context of...

Reviewed by: John Steinbeck's “Of Mice and Men”: A Reference Guide Mimi Gladstein (bio) John Steinbeck's “Of Mice and Men”: A Reference Guide Barbara Heavilin Praeger, 2005. 134 pp. Barbara Heavilin's study of and guide to John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men has much to recommend it. She provides interesting and informative chapters on the Contents, Texts, Contexts, Ideas, Narrative Art and Reception of the novel/play. There is also a brief bibliographical essay. Having gone over some of this same ground in my years of teaching what I consider a well constructed, almost perfect work of narrative art, it is always pleasing to me to find a writer who brings something new to the criticism, makes me look at the novel in a fresh way and gives me more ideas to introduce in the classroom discussion. Heavilin's particular strengths are demonstrated during her explications of the narrative art of Steinbeck's novel. Particularly refreshing is her comparison of Steinbeck and Wordsworth, which is part of her more comprehensive argument about the poetic quality of the novel. She writes: "Steinbeck's intentions in writing his novel parallel the British Romantic William Wordsworth's stated purpose in Preface to the Lyrical Ballads: to write about 'humble, rustic people, using their own language or dialect' " (61). Heavilin then adroitly continues the comparisons, highlighting characterizations and poetic language. Her emphasis on the shared qualities of poetry and drama are right on point. In a subsection of the chapter on "Ideas," Heavilin introduces the idea that Steinbeck wrote "lovingly and carefully" about some characters that society might consider "grotesques in their midst" (47). These she identifies as "the old and feeble, the mentally ill and mentally handicapped" and also those who might be considered grotesque because of gender or race. It is an interesting [End Page 145] image, one that Heavilin connects to Wordsworth's conception of the poet. I was surprised, however, that there was no discussion of Sherwood Anderson, whose influence on the writers of Steinbeck's generation was significant. Steinbeck considered him one of the inventors of the modern novel and was familiar with Winesburg, Ohio, in which Anderson coins the usage of the term "grotesque" to describe the people in his fictional small town who have been variously stunted or negatively affected, mostly psychologically, because of the familial and societal limitations of their environment. "The Book of the Grotesque" serves as an introduction to the novel. Heavilin's use of the term stimulated me to see many parallels in Steinbeck and Anderson, not only in Of Mice and Men, but also in the portrayal of characters in Pastures of Heaven and The Long Valley. Heavilin's volume is brief, although there is a certain irony in the fact that it is longer than the work it is studying. While the brevity is not a problem in chapters such as the one on Content, other chapters might have benefited considerably by expansion. The bibliographical essay is particularly troublesome since this work is sub-titled "A Reference Guide" and as such should be a resource for students, writing papers and/or larger research projects. In the bibliographical chapter Heavilin produces a "Works Cited" list of only twenty-seven sources, which in itself might not be problematic if her "Works Cited" had been followed by a more comprehensive bibliography. There are brief lists of "Works Cited"' after each chapter, but there is none for the work as a whole. With nearly seven decades of criticism to draw from, a bibliographical essay that has such a meager bibliography is disappointing. The discussion of the criticism she does cite is adequate although Heavilin privileges the readings of Charlotte Hadella and Louis Owens, devoting half, some seven pages in a fourteen page section of the chapter called "Critical Trends," to their readings. Owens and Hadella have added much to the scholarly dialogue on Of Mice and Men , and I am a great admirer of their work, but by weighting the chapter so heavily toward two critics, many important essays are ignored. Just off the top of my head I note the absence of Mark Spilka, William Goldhurst, Anne Loftis, Marilyn McEntyre...