Journal of a Novel

by John Steinbeck

  And I guess that is about all now. I will get to work.

  June 26, continued

  Well, there’s today’s work. And I hope you will like it. Is it too talky? Samuel has always been a talky man. Is it interesting? And did I get over his secret life well without ever having him say it?

  Now tomorrow I will have a final statement of my theme and it will never again be mentioned in the book. With the death of Samuel the whole tempo of the book is going to change just as the tempo of the times changed. It will speed and rage then. You’ll see. I manage to stay excited about this book. It has never been dull to me. I hope it will not be for other people. I feel both humble and proud about this book. It’s an odd feeling. I’ve never felt quite so about anything of mine. I’m trying to write the microcosm. I have a little feeling that I am succeeding. Some of tomorrow’s work is going to be very funny, I think. A really amusing venture in scholarship. But I must leave space for certain words which I have asked you to give me. I’ll fill the word in later together with the definition you will find for me. And that is all for today and I am satisfied with today’s work.

  June 27, Wednesday

  Very early to work. Always a problem. One with the boys right now. But we’ll work it out. I think Pascal can help us to work it out. That’s why I wanted his address. He has learned a great deal and I should like his help. I think I noted earlier in these pages that I had never done anything without having a problem. And this is no exception. But we’re going to beat this one.

  Now to thoughts of work. It is raining today, by the way, and the boys cannot go outside. This makes for quite a lot of noise. Noise is bad only sometimes. At others one can work under a cement mixer and never hear it. I don’t know how it is going to be today. We’ll just have to see. I’m a little nervous because of last night’s crisis but not too badly nervous. I can take care of nearly anything now. In the matter of the boys, I just wish I knew more. And there’s where Pascal can help me. I keep getting back to that subject. It must be deeply on my mind. I think I will write Pascal today and enclose it in a note to you. That way he will get it quicker.

  I know you must have got last week’s mss. by now. This week’s work is shaping up. Seems to be having the roundness I want it to have. If you will look over the meeting of Adam and Samuel in yesterday’s work, you will find it packed with information both about the men and about the story. I think it was pretty good work. It was talky but it had to be I guess. There is no physical movement in memory. But it must be interesting. I will soon be wanting someone who knows nothing about it at all to be reading the whole thing. Jean Ainsworth read the first part and never spoke of it—not one word. I didn’t ask her of course. But she is not communicative. She read From Here to Eternity in page proof and had only one comment—that it was too long. I haven’t read it but I gather that this was good criticism. Now I want E of E to be long but not too long. And as you will notice, I am trying to get away from a feeling of length by constant change of pace. You went back and read all so far in one clump. Did you find it long? Before much time, I should like Pascal to read what is done so far. He will have a clear eye for flaws. I must have at least four hundred and fifty pages now. Do you remember how many mss. (typescript) pages there were in Grapes? I’m under the impression there were about 600 or 650. I now think this book will be 800 typescript pages. It may be slightly more or less.

  Now, I think I indicated, but I will reiterate—after the death of Samuel, the whole tempo and tone of the story is going to change. It will speed and leap toward the future. And now I guess it is time to get to the work of today and I hope you will find it good.

  June 28 [THURSDAY]

  I am delighted that you are coming to the island even though it is a month off. And we will have fun. I should have another hundred pages done by then. But I will not take any time off for you. There is no need. I go to work about eight and it’s a rare day when I am not finished by one. And since we will have no reason to roister at night I can continue that and we still will have a fine time. I think we are winning the battle of Tom but it will be very gradual. I am really quite worried about him. He needs help and right now. Sometime I will tell you about the talk I had with him yesterday. I talked to him as though he were an adult or at least my equal and I think a lot more got through than you can imagine.

  Last night I read the first three days of this week to Elaine and she says she likes it the best in the whole book. Certainly I do not think that the Cain-Abel story has ever been subjected to such scrutiny. Nor has any story been so fruitful of meaning. Today, I am filled with lassitude. I wanted Lee’s statement of faith to be so simple and so beautiful that there could be no doubt of its truth. I know it needs polishing but I think the thought is down. And I am a little drained. But that’s all right. One is never drained by work but only by idleness. Lack of work is the most enervating thing in the world.

  There needs today to be the end of the kind of music which is Samuel Hamilton. It has to have first a kind of recapitulation with full orchestra, and then I would like a little melody with one flute which starts as a memory and then extends into something quite new and wonderful as though the life which is finishing is going on into some wonderful future. I want Samuel to go out with wonder and interest. This man must not be defeated even though he may feel defeat all around him. It is the fashion now in writing to have every man defeated and destroyed. And I do not believe all men are destroyed. I can name a dozen who were not and they are the ones the world lives by. It is true of the spirit as it is of battles—the defeated are forgotten, only the winners come themselves into the race. And Samuel I am going to try to make into one of those pillars of fire by whom little and frightened men are guided through the darkness. The writers of today, even I, have a tendency to celebrate the destruction of the spirit and god knows it is destroyed often enough. But the beacon thing is that sometimes it is not. And I think I can take time right now to say that. There will be great sneers from the neurosis belt of the south, from the hard-boiled writers, but I believe that the great ones, Plato, Lao Tze,how the hell do you spell Bhudda, Christ, Paul, and the great Hebrew prophets are not remembered for negation or denial. Not that it is necessary to be remembered but there is one purpose in writing that I can see, beyond simply doing it interestingly. It is the duty of the writer to lift up, to extend, to encourage. If the written word has contributed anything at all to our developing species and our half developed culture, it is this: Great writing has been a staff to lean on, a mother to consult, a wisdom to pick up stumbling folly, a strength in weakness and a courage to support sick cowardice. And how any negative or despairing approach can pretend to be literature I do not know. It is true that we are weak and sick and ugly and quarrelsome but if that is all we ever were, we would millenniums ago have disappeared from the face of the earth, and a few remnants of fossilized jaw bones, a few teeth in strata of limestone would be the only mark our species would have left on the earth. Now this I must say and say right here and so sharply and so memorably that it will not be forgotten in the rather terrible and disheartening things which are to come in this book; so that although East of Eden is not Eden, it is not insuperably far away.

  Does this chapter52 seem to go on too long? There are so many things I want to say in it. And so at the risk of being over-long, I am going to carry it through and finish this chapter perhaps tomorrow. But maybe not. But I am sure I will finish it tomorrow because I want to send it to you in one piece. I want you to feel it or reject it as a whole. It is necessary to my book because my book is about everything. What you had today was the full orchestra I spoke of. Now tomorrow I will take up the little flute melody, the continuing thing that bridges lives and ties the whole thing together, and I will end with a huge chord if I can do it. I know how I want it to sound and I know how I want it to feel and I know how I want you to feel when you have read it. And do you know I think as I go on that this is the only affirmation in writing in a very long time.
And now I am going out in the boat to fish and to think about my melody. And I will put my melody in the mail for you tomorrow.

  June 29 [FRIDAY]

  Your letter came yesterday and I am very glad you like last week’s work. I am coming now to the end of another week’s work and I don’t know whether I will finish today or not. If not I will finish tomorrow and you should get it Monday. Today’s work is very difficult. You will have noticed that my flute passage of yesterday took a sharp and terrible new melody—that Samuel did something new and surprising, something you didn’t expect he would do. Now, today perhaps you will see why. And today there must be affirmative statement. And I don’t know whether I have the strength to do it all today. I’m a touch run down. Elaine and I stayed up reading and talking and arguing until five this morning. Great excitement in discussion. But the result is that we are a little tired today and I don’t know whether I have the energy to finish the chapter. However, I will try. Yesterday was very cold and windy. We were going fishing but decided not to because the wind was icy and the waters can be dangerous in this weather. Today is sunny and we may go late this afternoon. I feel very willy-nilly today. Isn’t that strange. I have never been more excited in my life about a chapter than I have been in this one which is just now concluding. I must say that. In the doing, that is. I haven’t gone back over it. I know it needs lots of work but the form and the content of it seem right to me and right for the design of the book. I have the same reluctance you have to lose Samuel except that we won’t lose him. That is one of the theses that I tried to put in my book of notes yesterday and some of which I am going to try to transpose into my story, either now or later. I need power today. I need very quiet but very strong power. And I’d better get to some of it now.

  Later. Well that’s the end of the chapter and I will send it this afternoon. And I hope you like it.

  July 2, Monday

  Now, how did it get to be this time of the year. The last time I looked up it was March. And in other ways I seem to have been writing on this book forever. I guess the last is true. I have been writing on this book all of my life. And throughout, you will find things that remind you. of earlier work. That earlier work was practice for this, I am sure. And that is why I want this book to be good, because it is the first book. The rest was practice. I want it to be all forms, all methods, all approaches.

  When I finished last week’s work, I thought it was the end of the era. But there is one thing more. And it must come today. Maybe it will be longer because it is very important. And when I finish it, there will be definitely the end of Part II. 53 That generation will be done. And it will be time for the second or rather the third generation. And I think I will have a cleaner start at it if only I make the next Part III. This means that there will be four parts to this book instead of three. And that is perfectly all right with me. I am not going to put artificial structures on this book. The real structures are enough, I mean the discipline imposed by realities and certain universal writers. Oh Lord I hope it is good. Maybe you won’t like the piece I am going to do today. It must go in, however. It really must. There will be some revelations in it that will explain other things. Anyway it is going down.

  This morning is the most beautiful sunny, clear morning. But the clouds are beginning to drift in and maybe the whole day will not be this way. The boys are better this week. Maybe they are leaping over the transition time. They do seem better to me. Maybe I am better, too. I hope I am.

  I am going through pencils at a great rate. The damp air here seems to make the leads softer although that hardly seems possible. Anyway, I only have three dozen out of the six dozen you got me. So I guess you had better be prepared to buy me another six dozen. I had thought that this six dozen would finish the book but it will probably take another 12 dozen. This is one hell of a long book.

  Now I had better get into today’s work. It is full of strange and secret things, things which should strike deep into the unconscious like those experimental stories I wrote so long ago. Those too were preparation for this book and I am using the lessons I’ve learned in all the other writing.

  I will be so anxious to know Harold’s reaction to the book thus far. Do please let me know what it is as soon as you can. I am wondering what effect its slow and roving method will have on him. It might leave him absolutely cold. This book is either going to have a great impact or none at all. I don’t think there will be anything in between. And now to the work.

  July 3, Tuesday

  It is a most beautiful day. Elaine has taken the boys on a picnic leaving me with a long day to work. It is the loveliest of days, bright sun but cool and beautiful. And I look forward to time. And today I am going to need it. I suppose I am becoming a monomaniac about the book. Everything takes place about it from the blackest of magic to the purest of science. Maybe silly. I think of things like this: East of Eden is dominated by E’s. Elaine is sometimes called E and so signs her name. Therefore the letter is lucky. I think of the book as E.

  Last night I hardly slept at all. It was one of those good thinking nights. Until 12 I carved a paddle for Tom to use on his rubber boat. Then to bed to think all night. Over the week end I realized a great lack in this book. It is to fill that lack that this chapter which yesterday I called an envoi is designed. But it turns out to be much more than an envoi. It turns out to be one of the most important chapters in the book (I almost said boat). And it was about that I was thinking all night. When you read this chapter you will realize how catastrophic it would have been to have left it out. One whole note or melody would not be there. Isn’t it strange? And I think I have worked it out, as you will see in today’s work. But again it is one of those growing chapters and I am by no means sure that I can finish it today. It must be superbly well done and I want to take plenty of time with it. Here two forces meet and for the first time the good force wins a temporary victory. But it is real warfare.

  Tomorrow is the 4th of July. I do not see any reason to take it off. I would take any personal holiday but it is nonsense to me to take public ones. In the first place I want to stay off the roads. The tourists are beginning to come in. But one thing is true. Not a great increase of cars so the highways are not cluttered, nor is Siasconset, but Nantucket will be a complete madhouse. I will stay at home and work. And maybe finish this chapter if I do not today. I am nervous about today’s work. I get up and do other things which seem to need to be done. And I have just cut the finger that holds the pencil, not badly but enough so it is clumsy. This is usually a proof of a fear of work. And I don’t know why it is because I think I am well prepared for this chapter. And maybe if I stop talking about it and just start it, it will be all right. I’ll try that and now.

  July 4, Wednesday

  And I have a desire not to work today which I must not indulge. I don’t know why this ferocious discipline but it seems good to me. I repaired my cut finger with nail polish to protect it from the pencil and it is just drying now. That’s why the handwriting is strange. A bandage feels strange but clear nail polish is a fine covering.

  Couldn’t find any fireworks, not even sparklers. Next year I am going to have a cannon even if I have to make one. I don’t know what to make of your letter with the Hebrew word. I’ll have to know much more about the word than that. Maybe when you read the chapter, you will know more about what I want to know. May is a curious word in English. In the negative it is an order but in the positive it allows a choice. Thou mayest not is definite but thou mayest implies either way—do you see? But I can fill that in any time and I will have to be sure of my etymology before I do because such a passage will invite the closest scrutiny. Also I will be glad to know what you think of the passage. If the book is read, it will start great arguments and the best scholarship will be brought to bear.

  The work today is very tense. In fact I do not know whether I can get the quality in it I want. It scares me a little. I guess I should plow right into it but I am not quite ready yet. I don’t
know why.

  I had a good letter from Pascal which I will answer some time this week. But it will require thought and my thinking is pretty much taken up this week with my book. But I might as well get to it.