As others read us: American fiction abroad; John Steinbeck, part two

This is I think a predicament that concerns all of us. The function of the end of vigilant society has become entirely irrational and senseless. Man is isolated within a tremendous scene and so are these people. The Okies the machine the tractor appears as a balun intermediary preventing a sensuous and reciprocal relationship between man and us and thus accomplishes the disintegration of the rational character of our society and of the rational and emotional relationship between the individual and the land. As an indication of this predicament this passage seems to me most important. As such it expresses a utopian predicament as well. Krul even much earlier in all expressionistic and surrealistic writings before during and after the first world war. What strikes the European leaders particularly impressive is that these people despite their estrangement form the land and their lack of understanding of the social forces behind it do not give way to hopelessness or passive acceptance. They do

not submit to the command of the machine. They fall back on the world to resist this non-acceptance is an order of freedom which won so the entire book the world to go on is a defense against the trial experience. There's a cow in the unsettled. We certainly had a great many other books that dealt with American crisis. Would you say something about Mister Steinbeck's particular handling of this theme in comparison to other writers. I'll try to do so Mr. Bailey. It seems to me that Mister Steinbeck's treatment of crisis is to define a crisis authentically as he sees it and if it is always not his distinction is that he finds the crisis partly because Mr loner implied in terms of universals underlying the tensions of the moment. He does not solve the great crisis incidentally. Oh many books of comparable ilk especially if they are strongly propagandist in

nature tend to become obsolete when a particular crisis at hand changes into another one. As it is bound to do it won't simply stop. But the passage just read is both local and general sufficiently Oklahoma for artistic purposes but provocative of general reflections. It will be a long time before people wherever will cease to be interested in the spectacle of two good men with equally valid motivations fearfully at odds with each other as in the passage just read. Do you know whether a man owns a property or the property as the man in the dehumanisation wrought by machinery. Note the phrase by the way writing without passion shades of Mr Elliot in the problem of finding the real enemy. This is a problem that James Jones also encountered spoke of in from here to eternity

and in mustering the will to carry on as Mr. Lauder said whatever or whoever the enemy. Well a crisis presumes a cure Mr. Steinback has his idea of the cure. Let him read it. In the evening a strange thing happened. Twice and I speak a morning show we were sure of all the last of all became what it was and go on trying to do with this one dream very interesting to the spirit. Hearts of 20 families of a hundred people that are Burberry can't cause a hundred people to be quiet and off through the night and killed a hundred people with their birth join a mourning. Family which the night before or been lost in the people might search out it's good to find a present for a new baby in the evening sitting about the fire the 21. They grew to be units of the camp's

units in the evenings. It's a guitar rag from a blanket until and the songs because they're all the people are so nice men saying the words that were going around to every man the world created complete with furniture. Friends made enemies established a world complete with bravery to cowardice with quiet. It was humble now commanding him. Every night relationships of medical world established and every morning in the world like a circus. At first the families were to meet in the building in time little worlds but rarely the technique of building worlds began there to me then the meters they were lover made and codes came into being. And of the world googled westward there were more complete and more furnished for their belief or experience in building the family is guarded by rights must be observed the right to privacy in a tent

directed Future Past black inner directed truck A-list director refused help we accepted to offer help or to go to the planet. The writer side of the court room door because there are a hundred to be fair the rights of the private sector transcend our writers. And the families who are. No one told them what rights or monstrous must be destroying the rectitude of our privacy the right to be noisy whether camp slept there or seduction or rape the right of adultery affair and murder is right for Christ because the world could not exist for even a night with these raids alive and that the world schooled Wesker route became lost although no one told the families. It has done a lot of flour to the camp. It is unlawful in any way to flower drinking water it is unlawful eat good rich food near where was Hillary and as

he is asked to share and with all of the publishers and there were only two quick and worse fight or ostracism after some of the horrors for one broke the laws his name his face plant where they really have no place in a world where created in the world a social calendar became fixed and rigid so the man must say good morning when asked for it so that a man might have a willing girl if he stayed with her. If a father of your children protected them. But there might not one girl next for this to endanger the world. The family has moved westward and the technique of building the world's improved so that people could be saved in their worlds. And of course all thanks to the family acting in the rules knew it was safe and the rules there grew our government or world leaders whatevers. Man with wise that

is where it was needed in every camp. Man was a fool. Changes followed with his world and a kind of insurance developed and he's a nice man will fool very homely man and thus insuring yourself against hunger and in a very dire pile of silver coins through a door for anyone to be well buried since it has nothing else to live and or maybe learn to know others. There's a lot of there's this picture of an ideal society of much interest for Europe. And we saw Mr. Bailey I think that it has a special appeal to Europeans. And you might as well the member that the image of an ideal society the search for the best possible form of government has been one of the standard by ways of literature. It has been obvious before Pleydell although the form itself derives from the black tonic notion that every Wellesley phenomenon has an ideal form it found its last literary expression and the

grammars of German expressionism. And as far as I know and this chapter of John Steinbeck's novel it is the dream of the Europeans as can be seen from the frustrated idea of a united Europe which simply expresses that we should have one family and should build or try to build one world. Mr. Comey this question may seem a curious one but do you think we made any progress toward the attainment of that ideal. You want Mr. alone or Mr. Bailey may remember Doc's remarks in dubious battle that men have an idea that if you can establish a thing the job will be done. But you may remember Doc Adams. If you were able to put the idea into effect tomorrow it would start changing right away. Moreover whether it was in regard to help or the under-privileged not only is dying back but also all of those positives and Sherwood

Anderson and others. Have observed that when the underdog becomes the top dog he can be just as objectionable as the preceding incumbent. And I was thinking the other day of the remark of top Bill made over 100 years ago about the Americans these curious people. Said the Americans are crazy about equality. That was not his language but he said. I doubt if the Americans will ever get any equality with which they can be content. The real problem as Doc said is and I think his mistress done Bex later books imply he is internal It is in human nature. He's as mad and deep seated. So stand back every obstacle every enemy but one. He cannot win over himself. Nevertheless the goal remains and I agree to this extent that debate the goal remains Brotherhood

group achievement does bring relief if not progress. And as such it must be constantly nurtured. Thank you Mr. Kelly we will turn now to a discussion of what kind of novelist is John Steinbeck. We have asked him to read for this program a famous passage from The Grapes of Wrath the death of Grandpa. She took the skinny Orestes fears feeling proud of her. Oh yeah I was. Hysterical. Tory boys could not find her lips her speech speech. Casey joked Of course dropped her wrist. Please hear your grandpa or struggle to gain legal merit by his regime restlessly his hair stirred. He said almost a blur. There were no words and his face was red. The spiky white whiskers. Sherri

Wilson spoke spoke softly. Casey you know after all he looked at the burning face in the room below is doable I think so. Oh well case here might be wrong I would like to say. He looked back at the Cushing red face would you say. Maybe he's working up the stroke. I said yes and said I seen it three times before. Cross-eyed. Came the sounds of Camp meeting with chopping in the road. Pam's model of the flaps. Grandma wants to come in which you better the bridges. Sure does Fred if you don't say your right my hat. Casey should be here slower. Marlowe quickly down the struggling all Facebook blood powering through it. She drew up. Her voice came through. He's already gramma. He just take care of the rest

and around my house or saw what I was saying. He's a tricky devil. He would never let you know. She came scurrying through the flaps. She stood over the mess with America to feed Amanda Berry and again his eyes every story voiced his lips right. He saw because her grandma had to leave therapy. He was going to sneak away just mornings were going to come and this character she said to suggest he's just yesterday she he just thought I was you know wouldn't talk to nobody or kids she said yeah again saw Grandma. He said oh she look your Mary a secondary thing from what he had to serve and then Westy said buy into bran you're a British Ranger.

KC strawberries are blundered over to Grandpa written after I told you no picture no more prairie where she already knew all this stuff by heart. I came said Casey. I don't know what to pray for right. Grandma's eyes wandered away in a funeral style Sary he will pray for their €10 he prayed with he was a little scare. So it's not only me John asleep or bread or my soul of evil. When she got there a couple of bears of course not a man as a joke but she did their share of the time I walked into the tent in the sun. Grandpa seemed to be struggling all his muscles twist and suddenly jar is all under a heavy blow pressed out. Casey looked up the old man's face and saw that it was career purpose black Syrian test case the shoulder she was this time. He's done his time.

Case you know didn't get in front of Graham he said and he cried it tears your heart reached into the old man's throat for him to do thier rattling breath came out in a sobbing represented Casey about a stink over her time with her and even read about it. Grandma talked about their children pray she said pray prayer Sara or bear prairie Jarius crater grammar cases are no more. The rest the rest came louder. More on even me if I were a man. I would be the name Glory. Oh yes my crying just terror for he was

going to grandpa and they were clear and he had a very you know I don't know any serious hello or you know. Could you put your. Sensitive European reader what the OPM likes about Steinback and this is not only to offer embattled and Hemingway as well and so many others that these wider than the first place able to tell a story which has almost become impossible with a European novelist. There's too much reflection and European novels too much metaphysics too much analysis. Secondly that he gives by depicting O Eternal scene of America mall as universal image of our situation he is furthermore lie as something for his article that wasn't ation of social

problems his ability to grasp the essence of events and for his approach to these events form a human angle he is like who is believe in fraternity and for his account of life as it is with out too many intellectual considerations. A fine friend of mine. A poet wrote me I don't think that Steinbeck's description of the less pleasant aspects of the United States are used by the European public as a political argument although it balances Luckily the Hollywood propaganda picture. It is a good thing in a way because it shows to the european that the American man in the street is a simple human being like himself and not a stuffed art angle of all that is why good and beautiful as Mr dollars wants to make us believe. What is more the I WOULD YOU WOULD BE AWARE is much less interested in a possible political deduction of a book. Certainly less so than the American leader. The simple human

psychological aspect appealed to him much more than the political one. And this was back to a statement by Germany's foremost living poet got for a ban about the matter about the modern American novel is very illuminating advancers to these or it is given to make art and what is more to make epic art which in Europe nobody is any longer gifted or talented. The novel A OPM creation which began around eighteen hundred successes of the comedy it attains over there once more its great style and what impresses Ben in particular. Part in all of these novels and at the end I'd like to mention the fact which is very often often denied by all peons that the young you will peon nowadays as far as he is a writer looks to America if you want to learn how to write. Why as

up to the trendiest 1920s I should say it was the other way around that time the American went to Europe. Mr. Cohen what would you say was new in Mister Steinbeck's work what has caused his impact on American readers. Well what is new is to be saved to be not so much a use of a new religion as alive as well a. After all Mr. Faulkner has never taught a county that has a peculiar mixture of his materials. I say a mixture rather than bland but I don't think with the Steinbeck you feel my talking as if I knew him 100 percent. I don't think Mr. Steinback ever reconcile the two principal aspects of his thinking. Though dominated by his observations of the biologist where there is stark emphasis on the basic commandment of our survival and his intuitions as a mystic. Don't back the naturalised is at the mercy of is

Marine findings. But just as fundamental in him I think. Is this perhaps the Celtic inheritance coming out in him I believe. Irish and German. Is perhaps and maybe naive. Some people call it that but certainly deeply lodged mysticism with a hint of. Reassuring prophecy reacting against each other these too often result in violent and apparently arbitrary changes of tone. It is certainly not the naturalist who writes that the land is more than its analysis and that man is more r than his chemistry. Biology as such does not account for the compassion for human suffering. That is felt in Mister Steinbeck's books or for the humor that often clears the air in one of his early books Mr Steinbeck said that civilization civilization splits a man up.

Well I think the split and Steinbeck occurs in response to the exasperating and to him intolerable relationships of good and evil in the universe. The good principle and the evil principle appear to have set up in him a perpetual warfare. A warfare almost zero history and in its terms. And the tension created by this internal struggle is communicated to his novels. I read a phrase in the Sea of Cortez which comes back to me is the phrase the tragic miracle of consciousness the tragic miracle of consciousness. I believe this is a kind of key to Mr. Steinback. Well more often than not he seems to stress. The inherent unaccountable and possibly predetermined evil in things sometimes those French critics have noted with overtones recalling the Greek tragedy. What is

basic is that the good and evil seem to be interlocked with each other like two animals united in a desperate embrace unable to kill each other but unable to separate. Some readers wish to detach the good the so-called sentimental from the bad. But it won't work. Just as they are beginning to feel good about humanitarian things in general. Along comes some shattering revelation of cruel or irrational behavior. Is this I think Mr Bailey that gives Steinback unique quality and it is partly his intractable honesty in detailing this interlocking action which attracts a lot also horrifies an open reader an open minded reader in quest of meaning in life. And the Garantie of his honesty is a style which dispenses with all the words ya city in favor of an idiom which will do the work required by the

subject. It is a style of great tensile strength and just the right amount of flexibility. It's just done beggars capable of Mr loaners said of lyric moments and certainly poetic rhythms and epic sweep. But his more prevailing mode it seems to me is that of a modified brain ocular a sturdy low slung sometimes even squat style. Which I hope I can be excused for saying sometimes reminds me of a jeep like a jeep. It doesn't advertise elegant lined elegant glowing lines. But like the jeep it is capable of going where the author has to go. Well these two things are just a barely dual vision of a man and his command of the various voices of America seem to me to account for the impact of Mr. Steinberg books on the American public.

We have been discussing Mister Steinbeck's perhaps classical novels but what of the future and how it is to be to some extent so it Thursday his latest book show clearly that Steinbeck's interests are not static. Here is a change toward a more complex view of humanity and its problems. While I'm at the very early I don't know where the East of Eden actually implies a more complex that your humanity and its problems are the authors of your own dubious battle aren't quite off Ras couldn't recall simple a simple one with all its intricacies quoted. But East of Eden is I believe definitely a more mature one based perhaps on certain insides on the realisation that author docs believe and political ideologies have failed. East of Eden definitely voices in the Figaro. Really the believe in the free trials of the individual and his ability to determine between good and evil. This is. As the European sees

it. Something different form for instance not in dubious battle. Who does not believe in the cause is skeptical about it but who believes in man. When I see some need help I just do it. Dart believes that materialism is the trouble with the world and redemption can only be secured so man's laugh. Oh man. So a redirection of our humanity by humanity and for humanity. All best to be sure still in East of Eden. But it goes a step further and Lee also goes further than Casey the most significant character and the Grapes of Wrath. Case is the basic objective is neither animalistic non-materialistic part human humanitarian and humanistic. Being aware of the human condition of the social evolution that takes place is dedicated to the spiritual and physical leave of his fellow man. As such he believes to use the fires of Patna and holding the earth intact

in the communal anonymity of brotherhood. This is more than the skeptical view of dark and in this really is first cousin to him for the believe in man is in all three probably as at the root of things at the very problem that concerns all of us today. We believe in the importance of the individual man and his responsibility in man's free choice which is a confirmation of man's free will and which finds its expression in the new explication of the Cain and Abel story from the Bible. Now my list instead of the Lao shell and do flower evokes the dignity of man the glory of Charles with all its implications with the implication of taking punishment and being crucified for one's belief. The admission of guilt and the acceptance of suffering and grief. All that makes man a man. With that Lee and Steinbeck for that matter provides man again with I'm all about

ethical conscience. Whatever the defection of that ethical voice whatever its shortcomings as long as it is based on the fleet choice of mine and is voiced in the lobby of tool the American novel and American literature no less I believe it will be in quotation marks the primitives are ours not up let alone a ghost. Thank you extremely for this discussion. The discussion you just heard on the foreign reputation of John Steinbeck is the seventh of a series of programmes and titled as others read us American fiction abroad produced and recorded by the Literary Society of the University of Massachusetts under a grant from the educational television and radio center. This program is distributed by the National Association of educational broadcasters. This is the end E.B. Radio Network.