Back to Cannery Row

 “Sweet Thursday” by John Steinbeck, 1954

This obscure book was written later than Steinbeck’s famous trio of labor novels – In Dubious Battle, Of Mice and Men and The Grapes of Wrath. It was published in 1954, after Steinbeck had made several visits to the USSR which disappointed him, in the context of the rabid McCarthy period and a downturn in the labor movement.  His writing took a turn towards humor, simple characters and a purely humanist tack as a result.  The Lit professor who wrote the intro to the Penguin edition, Robert DeMott, made an absurd plea that the book is ‘post-modernist.’  It is not. It is a sequel to 1945’s Cannery Row, based in the same harbor-side street in Monterey, California, about a group of ‘down-and-out’ characters, with perhaps a bit more internal dialog than in the past.  Normal 'naturalist' fiction, so to speak.

Remember pocket books?

The lead character is an isolated and sad ‘scientist,’ Doc, who experiments with sea animals, sells slides and tries to write an academic paper on his work.   He ‘owns’ a run-down lab called the Western Biological. Others are the dishonest, money-grubbing owner of a grocery across the street, Joseph & Mary Rivas (one person); an independent prostitute newly arrived in town, Suzy; the clever madam of the local house of ill repute The Bear Flag, Fauna (formerly Flora); and Doc’s thoughtful drinking buddy Mack.  A rich lunatic named Old Jingleballicks visits later.  The crews at the whorehouse, the local Palace Flophouse and the local bar, Wide Ida’s, are all involved too. 

The plot is that Doc is sad and maybe needs a woman. He’s beloved of the residents due to his kind temperament and helpfulness, and also a class above them, so they want to help. The other plot is that Joseph & Mary owns the Palace and might force the denizens there to pay rent, so Mack is hatching a plot.  Mack understands that Joseph & Mary needs Cannery Row to like him and patronize his store in order to make money.  And he also might not know what he owns.

It all leads up to a big multiple shindig on a "sweet Thursday," which Steinbeck calls a "bull-bitch tom-wallager" - jargon from 1950's for a gargantuan party.  It does not go as planned.

As you can tell, this is a pretty thin plot.  You could probably write what is going to happen yourself.  It ends with a true-blue happy ending, a picaresque of the PhD and the hooker.  The story is really based on the characters.  “Character-based” fiction has some problems, especially now.  There are billions of people on the planet and each of them has a ‘character.’  In fact we have a surfeit of characters.  All these billions are not necessarily wise, strong or admirable, but sometimes the reverse, sometimes just quirky, or a mix of all.  Human, you see. The sheer number of possibilities and similarities makes the continual focus on individualist uniqueness less so - less interesting, less significant, less worth writing about, in fact almost beside the point.  We've all been there. 

This book saves itself with some humor and psychological insight.  Here are a few gems: *"Lay off your opinions because you really ain't got any."  *"Nobody listens..."  Most people ignore what you say because they "are too busy thinking about themselves."  *"The best way to defend yourself is to keep your dukes down."  *"A whole lot that passes for talk is just running off at the mouth." *"People who don't take advice from a friend will blindly follow the orders of the planets."  (About astrology and other bullshit.)

On the issue of 'post modernism' Steinbeck gets in his licks.  He makes fun of a cook at the whorehouse, Joe 'Elegant,' who is writing a "book of moods" and "decaying dreams" full of symbols and myths, called "The Pi Root of Oedipus."  If you aren't chuckling, you should be.  Steinbeck even gets a character to say that over-explaining details, atmosphere, clothing, the scene - leaves little room for the imagination of the reader.

But it’s a weak brew overall.  Steinbeck had written East of Eden and The Pearl right before this.  The early book Tortilla Flat is similar to both Cannery Row and Sweet Thursday in the focus on Monterey and the characters who inhabit it, so this is nothing new.  But at this point, Steinbeck’s best work was mostly behind him, though later he did write several famous works like Travels With Charlie and the screenplay for Viva Zapata.

**Books like this come into our used/cutout section on a regular basis.

Prior blog reviews on this subject, us blog search box, upper left, to investigate our 15 year archive, using these words or terms:  “In Dubious Battle” and “Viva Zapata,” (both by Steinbeck); “Polar Star,” “Hell’s Kitchen,” “Hollywood,” “Romance of American Communism” (Gornick); “The Lower Depths” (Gorky); “The Visit” (Durrenmatt); “The Cradle Will Rock” (Blitzstein); “Red Baker,” “Factory Days,” “American Rust,” “Confederacy of Dunces,” “Child of God,” “Suttree” and “All the Pretty Horses” (all 3 by McCarthy) or the word ‘poverty.’ 

And I bought it at 2^nd Story Books, Ely MN

The Kultur Kommissar

July 5, 2022