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Steinbeck: A Life in Letters

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Steinbeck left an autobiography of sorts when he died, a collection of personal letters to his friends. His widow and his friend worked together to gather the letters from everyone they could. They edited them for clarity and published them in chronological order.

The result is the personal story of a very creative, complex writer who worked every day with his hands. When he wasn't writing novels using pencils and a legal pad, he was mending the fence or fixing the roof. He loved people as much as he loved solitude, so he began each day by reaching out with these letters to his friends around the world. He talked about his surroundings and his thoughts and his ongoing projects.

All of this would be enough to make a wonderful book, but there's the added benefit of Steinbeck's writing style. Steinbeck used as few words as possible, always trying for a poetic effect without pretension. He wanted to be honest and accurate, but he knew the value of capturing an image or feeling with a colorful use of words. As a result, this massive book is a pleasure to read, from start to finish. Steinbeck's writing style keeps you interested but never overwhelmed.

I highly recommend this book to anyone who has enjoyed a few Steinbeck novels. Aspiring writers should read it, as well. When you're done, read the Steinbeck chapter in 'Alcohol and the Writer' and Jackson Benson's books on Steinbeck. You'll be glad you did.

An unbelievable recount of a man's life through his own eyes. I didn't think that a collection of letters would amount into a good read, but I was blown away by Steinbecks determinedly honest prose. The candor and focus that Steinbeck displays in his interaction with friends, family, and associates is outstanding. Steinbeck once again wields his magical touch and inspires thought and introspection without preaching. A truly great writer, and a truly great book. This collection takes you through Steinbecks journey from college dropout, to published author, to two time divorcee, to Pulitzer Prize winner. My only criticism is that there were too few moments of rage, anger and outburst, which is difficult to capture in letter form. However, it is a raw, honest, and unforgiving account of a man's walk through life, as it serves as inspiration for any aspiring writer out there. The ending letters are excellent, and it is definitely worth your time.

How can a book of letters be as fascinating as a John McPhee book, as well-written as a Steinbeck novel, as educational as the Iowa Workshop, as well as being fun, witty, and never pretentious? This book of letters will kick-start your brain and make you say "Man, could this fellow write!"

John Steinbeck wrote his own autobiography without intending to. He left us richer with his novels .... but getting to know him through his letters should be required reading. What an insight into someone who was following his passion. I could not put the book down. It's one of my most treasured and recommended.

Can't put it down in any sense. This collection goes right through Steinbeck's life, from his twenties into old age, and contains many letters to key people in his life interspersed with helpful commentaries by his wife to give the reader a sense of what Steinbeck was facing when he wrote. Highly recommended, and very moving in many places, whether humorous, joyful, or passionately angry.

"I learn that all of my manuscripts have been rejected three or four times since I last heard. It is a nice thing to know that so many people are reading my books. That is one way of getting an audience." -- JS

"One very funny thing. Hotel clerks here [Monterey] are being instructed to tell guests that there is no Tortilla Flat. The Chamber of Commerce does not like my poor efforts, I guess. But there is one all right, and they know it." -- JS in the years before the Chamber of Commerce boosted Cannery Row as a tourist shrine

"I'm trying to write history while it is happening and I don't want to be wrong." -- JS before penning the Grapes of Wrath

This 900-page tome contains rare insights into Steinbeck's life and his views on writing and the creative process. Well worth the time if one is interested in these subjects.

The content is chiefly Steinbeck's letters; so he is the author, but editorial comments are carefully distributed throughout, along with occasional excerpts from related correspondence. This is a selection of correspondence initiated by Steinbeck, chosen and edited with loving care by Elaine, his third wife, and Robert Wallsten. This is the meat, the good stuff, including the intimacies he was willing to reveal to those closest to him.

What has been left out is as important as what was included; therefore Elaine's bias must be taken into account. To the extent possible, what is revealed is the Steinbeck that she wanted remembered. For example, I expected something of the highly public flirtation of Carol, Steinbeck's first wife, with Joseph Campbell, and of Campbell's influence on Steinbeck's writing style. There was no mention of Campbell nor the affair, which I find highly dubious, given how painful the matter was.(John's revenge, an academic told me, was to model a character in SWEET THURSDAY after Campbell.)

This book of letters tells the story of Steinbeck's life. As his third- wife the book's co- editor Elaine Steinbeck makes clear in her introduction Steinbeck was a life- long letter-writer. Steinbeck usually started his day writing letters to his friends, and business- associates. They were the warm-up for his real writing.
Steinbeck speaks frequently in these letters of his love of writing. He writes with a refreshing frankness and directness. The book tells in no doubt an incomplete way the story of his struggle for literary success, of his three marriages, of his relation to his parents, children and a number of friends.
Steinbeck seems in these letters a fundamentally decent, loyal , hardworking person. However one of the interesting elements in the letters is seeing how his relation to certain people, most notably his wives, changes in time. His first wife Carole in the early years is described and written about almost exclusively in superlatives. After his divorce from her he speaks about those years as ones in which each was angry at the other much of the time. His second wife, the mother of his children left him after five years, and his initial enthusiasm for her naturally cooled. Though he vowed not to marry again when he met Elaine SCott, who was then the wife of the actor Zachary Scott he found apparently the great love of his life. In one especially moving letter he will thank her for their life together and for her especially good relation to his two sons. Another exceptionally good letter is written to Elaine's daughter who is about to marry. His advice to her again shows him to be caring and non- conventionally wise.
One especially notable set of letters are those he wrote to his lifelong friend Carlton A. Sheffeld( Duke). Another are those to his publisher Pascal (Pat)Covici.
I have never been a special fan of Steinbeck, but reading these letters I have a sense I somehow did not fully appreciate his work. So these letters will probably move me to reading more of his work.

John Steinbeck never wrote an autobiography, but his letters probably reveal more about the writer and the man than an autobiography could have hoped to.
We have the time in which he lived to thank for the Steinbeck letters. For the art of spontaneous letter writing was on the wane and these letters are a good reminder of that great loss. Phone calls and emails are not very good substitutes, for while they do suffice the moment they don't sustain over time.
John Steinbeck was everyman, suffered every weakness, stood up to every task, doubted his own talent, feared every beginning and grew with every experience.
In one of his early letters he admitted his shortcomings when he was cornered by academia. He hated the idea of proper spelling and punctuation for a clean manuscript in his first draft. He said, `I put my words down for a matter of memory. They are more made to be spoken than read. I have the instincts of a minstrel rather than those of a scrivener... when my sounds are in place, I can send them to a stenographer who knows his trade and he can slip the commas about until they sit comfortably and he can spell the words so that schoolteachers will not raise their eyebrow when they read them. There are millions of people who are good stenographers but there aren't so many thousand who can make as nice a sound as I can.'
That letter should give heart to storytellers that are challenged in the ways of Steinbeck.
Here's a scene written in 1936 that reoccurs throughout the book. He speaks of being scared to death, as usual, miserable, sick feeling of inadequacy as he begins a new work. But says he loves it once he gets down to work.
He also has trepidations about dealing with death. In a letter to a friend that has just lost his mother Steinbeck shares a feeling of inadequacy that most of us feel when he says, `there's nothing for the outsider to do except stand by and maybe indicate that the person involved is not so alone as the death always makes him think he is.'
On April 29, 1948 he says he's about to embark on a marathon book about the Salinas Valley. `It is what I've been practicing to write all my life. Everything else has been training. I feel that I'm about ready to write it. It may take three years to write and it will be the best that I have learned and a lot that I have never even indicated.'
It is obvious that Steinbeck used a long period of time to work up to that major project for it was more than two years later, August 30, 1950, when he mentions the Salinas Valley story again as he talks himself toward the beginning.
Then in a letter written to Mr. and Mrs. Elia Kazan from Nantucket July 30, 1951 Steinbeck is six hundred pages into the book with about three or four hundred pages to go. In that letter he gave the title as East of Eden and goes on to tell how perfect it is for the book. It comes from the first sixteen verses of the Fourth Chapter of Genesis. The title comes from the sixteenth verse, but he says the whole passage is applicable.
In a letter written to Kazan on October 14, 1958 he sums up his love for writing. `...I like to write. I like it better than anything. That's why neither theatre nor movies really deeply interest me. It's the fresh clear sentence or thought going down on paper for the first time that makes me pleased and fulfilled.'
In a letter April 18, 1952 he mentions Kazan and the House Un-American Activities Committee. Said he read his full statement to the congress and hoped that the communist and second raters don't cut him to pieces.
Then on June 17, 1952 he said Kazan called that morning from Paris said he was absolutely crazy about East of Eden and wants to do it. He also said the American communist and the Hollywood left had done their best to destroy him, but he could live with the truth.
In 1955 Elia Kazan produced and directed the film, East of Eden.
Steinbeck was generous in sharing his thoughts and methods he used when writing with other writers.`...Write freely and as rapidly as possible and throw the whole thing on paper. Never correct or rewrite until the whole thing is down. Rewrite in process is usually found to be an excuse for not going on. It also interferes with flow and rhythm, which can only come with a kind unconscious association with the material. `
`...the more one learns about writing, the more unbelievably difficult it becomes. I wish to God I knew as much about my craft, or what ever it is, as I did when I was 19 years old. But with every new attempt, frightening though it may be, is the wonder and the hope and the delight.'
Those are just a few notes from a writer's perspective that I came away with and I'm sure you'll come away with a set of your own.
The book is so rich in day to day living that you almost forget that you are in the presence of a man that over his writing career had won a room full of awards along with the Nobel Prize for literature in 1962.
Tom Barnes author of `Doc Holliday's Road to Tombstone,' The Goring Collection,' `The Hurricane Hunters and Lost in the Bermuda Triangle.'

This is the only review I've ever written for Amazon, if that lends you an idea of how much I think about this book... This book is incredible. If you are a lover of Steinbeck, and/or if you are an aspiring writer, this book will feed both needs. The pages are an incredible view of Steinbeck's day-to-day life which reveal, not surprisingly, that his life was really so much more than day-to-day. While I enjoy his correspondence and the history presented in this book, what I appreciate more is the ability to really intimately understand how to come up with ideas and write well. I recently came across the page (as I'm not yet finished with the book) where Steinbeck and William Faulkner correspond via letter(s). I was so wooed by this that I simply sat and stared at the two names on the pages, together. If you enjoy the feeling you get when you read 'Grapes of Wrath' or 'As I Lay Dying,' please don't pass this book up. This would also be a MUST for any lover of Steinbeck. You can't go wrong.

I really enjoyed this book. It is a must read for the ones interested in his life as well as in his writings.