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John Steinbeck

pontalba said:
Muggle
Please don't feel sad about it, I wanted to try, and you simply nudged me over a bit. :) As Stewart mentioned, sometimes mood or any number of things make for the time not being right for a certain author. I don't intend to give up, I'll try another a bit later down the road.
Part of the "problem" is that I seem to be preoccupied with a certain Russian fella at the moment.......:rolleyes: ;) :cool: :D

Steinbeck is certainly not off the list or out of the stack. :)
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Tortilla Flat is a short book, not too many pages. May I urge you to give it a try to read completely, at a time that you feel may be right. Then if you don't like it I will take all the heat. :)

Heck, a person that likes Clete Purcell can't be wrong on Steinbeck. ;)
 
Steinbeck's son gets novel rights

The son and granddaughter of author John Steinbeck have been awarded publishing rights to his early novels by a US judge.


Rights for the 10 books, including Grapes of Wrath, had previously been held by publisher Penguin and heirs of Steinbeck's widow Elaine.

A lawyer for Thomas Steinbeck and Blake Smyle said they wanted to "protect and preserve the legacy of John Steinbeck".

Some of the novels published by Penguin will be affected by the ruling.
A spokesperson for the publishing company said it was disappointed with the ruling and was "evaluating its options".

Penguin is scheduled to turn over the rights to Of Mice and Men in 2012 and The Grapes of Wrath in 2014.

The lawyer for Steinbeck and Smyle said they planned to renegotiate contracts to publish the novels with Penguin or other publishers.

'High stature'

US District Judge Richard Owen said US copyright laws now recognised young writers like Steinbeck could not "predict the high stature they would attain" when they signed early contracts.

The law permits authors or their heirs to terminate contracts or renegotiate deals "allowing creators or their heirs appropriate rewards for their artistic gifts to our culture," he said.

The judge also awarded Steinbeck and Smyle the film rights for The Long Valley and The Red Pony, which previously belonged to Paramount.

John Steinbeck was born in Salinas California in 1902. His first novel, Cup of Gold, was published in 1929.

He died in New York in 1968, six years after he received the Nobel Prize for Literature.

His estate was originally bequeathed to his third wife Elaine on their marriage in 1950.

In the early 1980s the author's sons from a previous marriage sued for partial control and the case was settled out of court.


(Source: BBC News)​
 
Ranking update:

1.Grapes of Wrath (fantastic)
2.The Moon is Down (superb)
3.Of Mice and Men (A great read)
3.The Winter of Our Discontent (hard to find a worse work that he made)
 
SFG75 said:
3.The Winter of Our Discontent (hard to find a worse work that he made)
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While I've not got to that novel yet, I might tender The Short Reign Of Pippin IV to your attention. I got about ten pages in before just giving up, bored.
 
East of Eden I found to be his best written.
Grapes of Wrath: most powerful.
Cannery Row: most endearing.
Of Mice and Men/The Pearl: most over rated. (The latter is a nice-fable-story, but nothing special in the context of his other work.)

(For Steinbeckian humour, I would also recommend Travels With Charlie, and The Log From the Sea of Cortez).

Most people's first Steinbeck experience is OM&M. I was wondering what people thought of OM&M as an introduction to S.? (Also keeping in mind that it was an experimental play-novel.)
 
I got stuck not far into The Grapes of Wrath earlier this year, and couldn't face more Steinbeck for a while. I only turned to him again when I realised that my list of unread books is diminishing quite pleasingly and that a disproportionate number are by him. And so, in a cowardly fashion, to the shortest, The Moon is Down (1942).

I'm indebted to muggle, SFG and Thursday_Next for their intelligent comments on this book earlier in this thread, which I read with great interest and pleasure and recommend to everyone before reading my own thoughts below (and apologise for any repetitions of theirs). So here goes.

The Moon is Down is an unashamed piece of wartime propaganda. Don't let that put you off, as so after all were some of Powell and Pressburger's greatest films. So potent did it seem to the Fascist powers in Italy, that possession of a copy apparently was punishable by death. Which just goes to show that the worst thing about totalitarian regimes (well, sort of...) is their philistinism, because The Moon is Down is a slim masterpiece, and quite perfect. It tells the story of an unnamed north European country (reputed to be based on Norway) invaded by a foreign power, which wants to exploit its host's natural coal resources, and puts the local men in servitude to do so. The book is taken up by telling the story of the simmering resentment and slow revolt that follows from the point of both the invaders and the invaded (but not conquered) people.

And so the book has much to say, simply and not sentimentally, about repression and rebellion in any situation: from contemporary Second World War Europe to, frankly, Iraq in 2006. And the message is: rebellion cannot be quelled. Or as one character, the brave Mayor of the village, puts it to the invading army's Colonel:

You see, sir, nothing can change it. You will be destroyed and driven out. The people don't like to be conquered, sir, and so they will not be. Free men cannot start a war, but once it is started, they can fight on in defeat. Herd men, followers of a leader, cannot do that, and so it is always the herd men who win battles and the free men who win wars. You will find that is so, sir.
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And yet the underlying theme is the least of the novella's pleasures. Steinbeck's prose never spares a word, and veers quite fluently from dry comedy to tense sobriety and on to heartening sentiment. His sketching of characters could be used as a creative writing masterclass in laconic description:

Major Hunter was an engineer, and except in case of war no-one would have thought of giving him command of men. For Major Hunter set his men in rows like figures and he added and subtracted and multiplied them. He was an arithmetician rather than a mathematician. None of the humour, the music, or the mysticism of higher mathematics ever entered his head. Men might vary in height or weight or colour, just as 6 is different from 8, but there was little other difference. He had been married several times and he did not know why his wives became very nervous before they left him.
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In short, if The Moon is Down isn't one of Steinbeck's very greatest achievements, then ... well, point me to the next one.

5/5
 
East of Eden is my favorite Steinbeck so far. Read The Pearl and The Red Pony long ago, but read Eden 3yrs ago for my face to face book club. Wow, what a staggering read. The symbolism aside, the clarity of the prose and dialogue held me rapt for hours at a time. I glanced through this thread and saw mention of the dedication. Who was this for?
 
Interesting ruling!

Perhaps publishers rights should be like patents on pharmaceuticals. Patent protection is limited to a certain number of years, and then it enters public domain. At least, this is my understanding, though I am no lawyer.

I am under the impression that a legal contract is not valid unless it specifies some specific time interval and date of expiration, and involves some specific amount of money, however small. That is why one sees a contracts that specify "one dollar (or pound), and other valuable considerations" and why Hong Kong was leased for ninety nine years (which seemed like forever at the time of signing, I suppose).

It seems to me that no one individual or entity should be able to enter into a binding contract for perpetuity.

Just imagine if we had to pay royalties to that person, shrouded in the mists of antiquity, who invented the wheel, not to mention the brilliance whoever developed phonetic alphabets, the number zero, and the concept of spreading risk over a pool of individuals by means of insurance (thank you Ben Franklin).

We are all descendants of Adam or, if you will some African Bushman of 50,000 years ago. Yet what claim should we have on the genius of Adam (other than our share in original sin, and even the Greeks disagree on that point.)

Now, the native Americans could not foresee the future value of the island of Manhattan, when they sold it for those beads. Hence, perhaps the descendents of those indigenous peoples should be entitled to take it back, or enjoy some royalties?!

And, of course, every time a share of stock changes hands, it is sold by someone who conjectures that it will decrease in value, and it is purchased by someone optimistic with regard to a future increase in value. Yet neither buyer nor seller is in a position of omniscience to truly know the future history of the shares value. Should we conclude from this mutual lack of omniscience that neither party is fit to execute a permanently binding contract for it's sale?


Stewart said:
Steinbeck's son gets novel rights

The son and granddaughter of author John Steinbeck have been awarded publishing rights to his early novels by a US judge.


Rights for the 10 books, including Grapes of Wrath, had previously been held by publisher Penguin and heirs of Steinbeck's widow Elaine.

A lawyer for Thomas Steinbeck and Blake Smyle said they wanted to "protect and preserve the legacy of John Steinbeck".

Some of the novels published by Penguin will be affected by the ruling.
A spokesperson for the publishing company said it was disappointed with the ruling and was "evaluating its options".

Penguin is scheduled to turn over the rights to Of Mice and Men in 2012 and The Grapes of Wrath in 2014.

The lawyer for Steinbeck and Smyle said they planned to renegotiate contracts to publish the novels with Penguin or other publishers.

'High stature'

US District Judge Richard Owen said US copyright laws now recognised young writers like Steinbeck could not "predict the high stature they would attain" when they signed early contracts.

The law permits authors or their heirs to terminate contracts or renegotiate deals "allowing creators or their heirs appropriate rewards for their artistic gifts to our culture," he said.

The judge also awarded Steinbeck and Smyle the film rights for The Long Valley and The Red Pony, which previously belonged to Paramount.

John Steinbeck was born in Salinas California in 1902. His first novel, Cup of Gold, was published in 1929.

He died in New York in 1968, six years after he received the Nobel Prize for Literature.

His estate was originally bequeathed to his third wife Elaine on their marriage in 1950.

In the early 1980s the author's sons from a previous marriage sued for partial control and the case was settled out of court.


(Source: BBC News)​
Click to expand...
 
I can't fully express my admiration of this man. His writing is so powerful, that one has the experience of total immersion into his stories, one gets the feeling one knows his characters personally. He's super. It's ridiculous. I've just started East of Eden and I'm relishing every page. It's not that his use of language is so artful. It's not that his plots are so ingenious. I don't know what it is. He says things that have ocurred to me many times, but in a way that makes them unforgettable.
 
I also love Steinbeck. My first read of his was East of Eden Wonderful. But then I wanted more Steinbeck so I read Grapes of Wrath. Wow!! Absolutely loved it. I think he is a Naturalist writer similiar to Pearl S. Buck. His writing style is so full of images. I just had to rent the movies after the reads. Of course they weren't nearly as good, but it was interesting to see the adaptation to screen.
 
East of Eden

Whoa nellie mr/ms libre, it's always exciting to read of someone really effusing about a novel, but saunter over to this thread and slow down a bit for a discussion. What was it that pleased you so much about East of Eden?Is it Steinbeck's clear prose that takes huge images and renders them for you so plainly that the pages just turn and you see everything, the brothers, their home, their mother, etc. Or is it the biblical symbolism? Is it the scope of the story, the humor, the tragedy? Give us some specifics. Or maybe this post will be moved to your new thread?
 
I can't narrow it down to just one single quality. It's all that you said. But to discuss some specifics, I would say it is how Steinbeck breaths life into his characters - and as you follow them for years, feel that they are characters in your own life. The incredible clarity of his images too, heighten my sense of living in his world. Embedded into the fascinating story are gems of wisdom - lessons for living. The humor, the pathos. The surprising turns of the plot. Utterly unpredictable. It grabs you in the gut - you are powerless to resist. The confrontations that you wait for years to occur - and when they do, you are not disappointed. It's just masterful. I can't dissect it any further right now. Perhaps after I've finished it I will see it more clearly. But, I really don't want to know exactly how he does his magic - that might spoil it a bit.
 
Yes, I know how that is. Sometimes the immediate aftermath of a good novel is just too strong and it takes a few days to fully process. Sorry I didn't realize that you hadn't finished the story. It will be interesting to see your perspective from a few days out. I remember feeling as though I knew these men, like you said, "characters in your own life", and was aging along with them.
 
Well, I've finished East of Eden.
Sobbed like a baby right there in the coffee shop this morning as I read the last few chapters.
I'm now in that funk that happens after you read a great book, and have nothing else to replace it. So there is this void in my life now. Maybe I'll get a puppy.
Nah.
 
I hear you about Grapes, a darn good book. I really got into it when I read it a summer or two ago. I'm also a huge fan of The Moon Is Down and not so much of an admirer of The Winter of Our Discontent.
 
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