Sweet Steinbeck

I returned to the well of my FAVORITE AUTHOR OF ALL TIME (hyperbole warranted), John Steinbeck, this week to read his lesser known sequel to Cannery Row (favorite book of all time) called Sweet Thursday. And maybe now that I'm reading it, I will quit mistakenly calling it "Sweet Tuesday" like Bryan accused me of doing the other day. We have strange arguments where I work.

The back story of the book is so tragic that even reading the happy parts almost make me cry. Steinbeck's best friend was a marine biologist named Ed Ricketts who in his way was a very influential guy in the field of Pacific marine taxonomy and conservation. There are a number of marine species named after him and even a few named after Steinbeck, who joined Doc in a collecting trip to the Sea of Cortez. The character of Doc in Cannery Row was based on Ricketts (he also inspired Jim Casey in The Grapes of Wrath and Slim in Of Mice and Men among others.) Cannery Row is essentially a roman a clef about Doc and life in Monterey. It was written in 1945. It also brought Ricketts a flood of tourists and unwanted fame.

In 1948, Ricketts died a horrible tragic death when he was hit by a train at a railroad crossing that, ironically, was dangerous because of a cannery warehouse that was built there which partially blocked the view(Ricketts had been a vocal opponent of the overfishing that caused the Monterey canning industry to collapse soon after the War.) By all accounts, Steinbeck was never the same.

Here's a link to an NPR story about Ricketts.

Anyways, Sweet Thursday was written in 1954 and Steinbeck said it would be his last book with a Ricketts character in it. He said it was life as he imagined it would have gone for Ricketts had he lived. Doc is certainly not exactly like Ricketts, who was married a few times as opposed to Doc's eternal romantic bachelorhood, nursed a stepdaughter through a fatal illness and was prone to a few suicidal depressions whereas Doc's melancholy and disconnection are only hinted at.

This is also the only Steinbeck book with chapter titles. As Mack says in the prologue:

"Suppose there's chapter one, chapter two, chapter three. That's all right, as far as it goes, but I'd like to have a couple of words at the top so it tells me what the chapter's going to be about. Sometimes maybe I want to go back, and chapter five don't mean nothing to me. If there was a just a couple of words I'd know that was the chapter I wanted to go back to."

And here's an early exchange between Mac and Doc, who has returned to Monterey after finally being discharged from the army a few years after the War ended. It's really heartbreaking when you know the backstory:

"Everything's changed, Doc, everything."
Doc looked around his moldy laboratory, and he shivered. "Maybe I'm changed too," he said.
"Hell, Doc, you can't change. Why, what could we depend on! Doc, if you change a lot of people are going to cash in their chips. Why, we was all just waiting around for you to get back so we could go on being normal."
...
"I'll try," said Doc, "but I have no confidence in it. I'm afraid I've changed."

Some have speculated, probably with reason, the Doc in this book is really in some ways more Steinbeck than Ricketts.

I've avoided reading this book for a while, partly because I've heard it doesn't measure up to its predecessor. But also, maybe like Steinbeck I wasn't ready to say goodbye to Ed Ricketts.

I get asked sometimes to explain why I love John Steinbeck so much. I love his deceptively simple writing and his belief in social justice. I love him for writing The Grapes of Wrath when he took such a beating for it-funny he's so celebrated as a tourist attraction now in California where they once burned his books. But most of all, he loved me first. He so obviously loves humanity that how can I not return that affection?