John Ernst Steinbeck Jr. ( ; 27 February 1902 - December 20, 1968) is an American writer. He won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1962 "for his realistic and imaginative writings, combining when they performed sympathetic humor and sharp social perception." He has been called the "American letter giant," and much of his work is considered a classic Western literature.
During his writing career, he wrote 27 books, including 16 novels, six non-fiction books, and two short stories. He is widely known for the novel comic strip Tortilla Flat (1935) and Cannery Row (1945), the epic multi-generation East of Eden (1952), and novels of The Mice and Men (1937) and The Red Pony (1937). The Pulitzer Prize Winner The Grapes of Wrath (1939) is considered the masterpiece of Steinbeck and part of the American literary canon. In the first 75 years after it was published, it sold 14 million copies.
Most of Steinbeck's works are located in central California, especially in the Salinas Valley and California Coast Ranges. His works often explore the themes of fate and injustice, especially those applied to oppressed protagonists or others.
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Steinbeck was born on February 27, 1902, in Salinas, California. He is of German, English, and Irish descent. Johann Adolf GroÃÆ'Ÿsteinbeck (1828-1913), grandfather of Steinbeck's father, shortened his surname to Steinbeck when he immigrated to the United States. Family farms in Heiligenhaus, Mettmann, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, still called "GroÃÆ'Ÿsteinbeck."
His father, John Ernst Steinbeck (1862-1935), served as treasurer of Monterey County. John's mother, Olive Hamilton (1867-1934), a former school teacher, shared Steinbeck's love for reading and writing. Steinbeck was a member of the Episcopal Church, though Steinbeck later became agnostic. Steinbeck lives in a small rural town, no more than a border settlement, located in some of the world's most fertile land. He spent his summers working at the nearby farms and then with migrant workers at the Beet Spreckels sugar farm. There he learns from the more violent aspects of migrant life and the dark side of human nature, which gives him material expressed in works such as Of Mice and Men . He scours around, walking through local forests, fields, and farms. While working at Spreckels Sugar Company, he sometimes worked in their lab, which gave him time to write. He has a great mechanical talent and fondness for improving his possessions.
Steinbeck graduated from Salinas High School in 1919 and went on to study English Literature at Stanford University near Palo Alto, leaving without a degree in 1925. He traveled to New York City where he took a job while trying to write. When he failed to publish his work, he returned to California and worked in 1928 as a tour guide and guard at Lake Tahoe, where he met Carol Henning, his first wife. They married in January 1930 in Los Angeles, where, with his friends, he tried to make money by producing plaster mannequins.
When their money runs out six months later due to a slow market, Steinbeck and Carol move back to Pacific Grove, California, to a hut owned by his father, on the Monterey Peninsula a few blocks outside the city limits of Monterey. Old Steinbeck gave John free housing, paper for his manuscript, and from 1928, a loan that allowed him to write without looking for a job. During the Great Depression, Steinbeck buys a small boat, and then claims that he can live with the fish and crabs he collects from the ocean, and fresh vegetables from his farm and local farms. When those sources fail, Steinbeck and his wife receive prosperity, and on rare occasions, stealing meat from the local product market. Whatever food they have, they share it with their friends. Carol became a model for Mary Talbot in the novel Steinbeck Cannery Row .
In 1930, Steinbeck met with marine biologist Ed Ricketts, who became a close friend and mentor to Steinbeck over the next decade, taught him much about philosophy and biology. Ricketts, usually very quiet, yet pleasant, with self sufficiency in and encyclopedic knowledge of various subjects, became Steinbeck's focus of attention. Ricketts has taken a lecture course from Warder Clyde Allee, a biologist and ecological theorist, who will continue to write the earliest classical textbook on ecology. Ricketts is a proponent of ecological thinking, in which man is only a part of a large chain of existence, trapped in a net of life too large for him to be controlled or understood. Meanwhile, Ricketts operates a biology lab on the coast of Monterey, selling biological samples of small animals, fish, rays, starfish, turtles, and other sea shapes to schools and colleges.
Between 1930 and 1936, Steinbeck and Ricketts became close friends. Steinbeck's wife began working in the lab as a secretary's bookkeeper. Steinbeck helps informally. They formed a bond together based on their love of music and art, and John studied Ricketts' ecology and philosophy of ecology. When Steinbeck became emotionally sad, Ricketts sometimes played music for him.
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Steinbeck's first novel, Cup of Gold , published in 1929, is loosely based on the life and personal death of Henry Morgan. It centers on Morgan's attacks and Panama city sacking, sometimes referred to as the 'Gold Cup', and in women, fairer than the sun, which is said to be found there.
Between 1930 and 1933, Steinbeck produced three shorter works. The Pastures of Heaven, published in 1932, is composed of twelve interconnected stories about a valley near Monterey, discovered by a Spanish corporal while pursuing an escaped Indian slave. In 1933, Steinbeck published The Red Pony , a 100-page tale, four chapters preserved in Steinbeck's childhood memories. For the Unknown God , named after the Vedic hymn, follows the life of a homestead and his family in California, depicting a character with idolatrous and pagan worship over the land where he works. Though he has not reached the status of a famous writer, he never doubts that he will achieve greatness.
Steinbeck achieved his first critical success with Tortilla Flat (1935), a novel made in post-war Monterey, California, which won the California Commonwealth Club Gold Medal. It describes the adventures of a group of classless and generally homeless young men in Monterey after World War I, just before the US ban. They are portrayed in ironic comparisons with the mythical knights in a search and reject almost all the customs of American society standards in enjoying a moral life devoted to wine, lust, friendship, and petty theft. In presenting the Nobel Prize in 1962 for Steinbeck, the Swedish Academy quotes "spicy stories and comics about a group of paisanos, asocial individuals who, in their wild revel, are almost caricatures of the Knights of King Arthur of the Round Table. in the United States this book came as a welcome antidote to the gloom of the depression that prevailed at the time. " Tortilla Flat was adapted as a 1942 film of the same name, starring Spencer Tracy, Hedy Lamarr and John Garfield, a Steinbeck's friend. With some results, he built a summer farmhouse in Los Gatos.
Steinbeck began writing a series of "California novels" and fictional Dust Bowl, arranged among ordinary people during the Great Depression. It includes In The Unbelievable Battle , From Mice and Men and The Grapes of Wrath . He also wrote an article series titled The Harvest Gypsies for San Francisco News about the fate of migrant workers.
Of Mice and Men is a drama about the dreams of two migrant farm workers in California. It was critically acclaimed and the 1962 Nobel Prize excerpt Steinbeck called it a "little masterpiece". His stage production became a hit, starring Wallace Ford as George and Broderick Crawford as George's companion, who was mentally childish, but physically strong as Lennie's farm laborer. Steinbeck refused to travel from his home in California to attend any shows during a performance in New York, telling director George S. Kaufman that the drama was in his own mind is "perfect" and whatever is presented onstage will only be a disappointment. Steinbeck wrote two more stage plays ( The Moon Is Down and Burning Bright ).
Of Mice and Men was also adapted as a 1939 Hollywood movie, with Lon Chaney, Jr. as Lennie (she has filled a role in the Los Angeles stage production) and Burgess Meredith as George. Meredith and Steinbeck became close friends over the next two decades. Another film based on the novel was made in 1992, starring Gary Sinise as George and John Malkovich as Lennie.
Steinbeck follows this wave of success with The Grapes of Wrath (1939), based on a newspaper article on migrant farm workers he wrote in San Francisco. This is generally considered his greatest job. According to The New York Times, it was the bestseller of 1939 and 430,000 copies were printed in February 1940. That month, he won the National Book Award, a favorite fiction book of 1939, selected by members of the American Booksellers Association. Later that year, he won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and was adapted as a film directed by John Ford, starring Henry Fonda as Tom Joad; Fonda was nominated for the best actor Academy Award. Wine controversial. Steinbeck's new view of political views, negative portrayals of aspects of capitalism, and sympathy for the suffering of workers, led to reactions to writers, especially near homes. Claiming that the book was an indecent and wrong condition in the county, the Kern County Supervisory Board banned the book from government-funded schools and libraries in the country in August 1939. This prohibition lasted until January 1941.
From the controversy, Steinbeck wrote, "My forgery here from the landowners and bankers is so bad, the latest rumors started by them that Okies hate me and threaten to kill me for lying about them." I am afraid of the power that rolling from this damned thing. It's completely out of control; I mean some kind of hysteria about the book growing unhealthy. "
The film version of The Grapes of Wrath and Of Mice and Men (by two different movie studios) was produced simultaneously, allowing Steinbeck to spend a full day on the set of The Grapes of Wrath and the next day set Of Mice and Men.
Ed Ricketts
In the 1930s and 1940s, Ed Ricketts greatly influenced Steinbeck's writings. Steinbeck often made small trips with Ricketts along the California coast to give himself a break from his writing and to collect biological specimens, which Ricketts sold for a living. Their joint book on collecting expeditions to the Gulf of California in 1940, which is part of the journey and part of natural history, published just as the US entered World War II, never found an audience and did not sell well. However, in 1951, Steinbeck republished the narrative portion of this book as the Log of the Sea of ​​Cortez , under his name only (though Ricketts has written some of it). This work is still printed today.
Although Carol accompanied Steinbeck on the journey, their marriage began to suffer, and ended a year later, in 1941, even as Steinbeck worked on the manuscript for the book. In 1942, after his divorce with Carol, he married Gwyndolyn "Gwyn" Conger. With his second wife, Steinbeck had two sons, Thomas ("Thom") Myles Steinbeck (1944-2016) and John Steinbeck IV (1946-1991).
Ricketts is a Steinbeck model for the "Doc" characters in Cannery Row (1945) and Sweet Thursday (1954), "Friend Ed" in Burning Bright , and characters in Dub Dub Battle (1936) and The Grapes of Wrath (1939). The ecological theme reappears in the Steinbeck novels of that period.
Steinbeck's close relationship with Ricketts ended in 1941 when Steinbeck moved from Pacific Grove and divorced his wife, Carol. Ricketts' biographer Eric Enno Tamm notes that, except for East of Eden (1952), Steinbeck's writing declined after Ricketts's death in 1948.
1940s 1960s work
Novel Steinbeck The Moon Is Down (1942), about the spirit of resistance that Socrates inspired in a village occupied in Northern Europe, was made into an immediate film. It is estimated that the unnamed country is Norway and the Nazi invaders. In 1945, Steinbeck received the Haakon VII Cross of freedom for his literary contribution to the Norwegian resistance movement.
In 1943, Steinbeck served as World War II war correspondent for the New York Herald Tribune and worked with the Office of Strategic Services (CIA's predecessor). At that time he was friends with Will Lang magazine, Jr. of Time / Life . During the war, Steinbeck accompanied the commando attack from Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. program. Beach Jumpers, which launched a small unit diversion operation against the German-held islands of the Mediterranean. At one point, he accompanied Fairbanks in the invasion of an island off the coast of Italy and helped capture Italian and German prisoners, using Tommy Gun. Some of his writings from this period were included in the documentary Once There Was a War (1958).
Steinbeck returned from the war with a number of bullet wounds and some psychological trauma. He treats himself, as always, by writing. He wrote the movie Alfred Hitchcock, Lifeboat (1944), and the movie, Medal for Benny (1945), with screenwriter Jack Wagner about paisanos from Tortilla Flat
After the war, he wrote The Pearl (1947), knowing it would be finally filmed. The story first appeared in the December 1945 issue of Women's Home Companion as "The Pearl of the World." It is illustrated by John Alan Maxwell. This novel is an imaginative story of a story Steinbeck had heard in La Paz in 1940, as it relates in the Log From the Sea of ​​Cortez , which he described in Chapter 11 as "very similar to the almost non-parable can ". Steinbeck travels to Mexico for filming with Wagner who helps with the script; In this journey he will be inspired by the story of Emiliano Zapata, and then write a movie script ( Viva Zapata! ) directed by Elia Kazan and starring Marlon Brando and Anthony Quinn.
In 1947, Steinbeck made the first of many trips to the Soviet Union, this one with photographer Robert Capa. They visited Moscow, Kiev, Tbilisi, Batumi and Stalingrad, some of the first Americans to visit many parts of the Soviet Union since the communist revolution. Steinbeck's 1948 book about their experience, A Russian Journal , is illustrated with Capa photographs. In 1948, the year when the book was published, Steinbeck was elected to the American Academy of Art and Literature.
In 1952, Steinbeck's longest novel, East of Eden , was published. According to his third wife, Elaine, he took it as his magnum opus, his best novel.
In 1952, John Steinbeck appeared as the narrator on the 20th Century Fox movie screen, O. Henry's Full House . Although Steinbeck later admitted he was uncomfortable before the camera, he gave an interesting introduction to some short story adaptations by the legendary author O. Henry. At the same time, Steinbeck recorded some of his short stories for Columbia Records; the tapes provide a deep sound recording, Steinbeck resonance.
Following the success of Viva Zapata! , Steinbeck collaborated with Kazan on East Of Eden, the debut film James Dean.
Traveling with Charley: In Search of America is a 1960 travel journey with Charye poodle. Steinbeck complained about his lost youth and roots, giving criticism and praise for America. According to Steinbeck's son, Thom, Steinbeck went on his way, because he knew he was dying and wanted to see the country for the last time.
Last Steinbeck novel, The Winter of Our Discontent (1961), examines the moral decline in America. Ethan protagonist grew dissatisfied with his own moral decline and the people around him. This book has a very different tone from unscrupulous attitude and ecological Steinbeck in previous works such as Tortilla Flat and Cannery Row . It was not a critical success. Many reviewers acknowledge the importance of this novel, but are disappointed that it is not another Grapes of Wrath . In the presentation speech Nobel Prize next year, the Swedish Academy quote it very well: "Here he achieve the same standard that he set in The Grapes of Wrath. Once again he held the position as the exponent independent of the truth with no bias. Instinct for what really American, good or bad. "
Apparently shocked by the critical reception of this novel, and critical criticism when he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1962, Steinbeck published no more fiction within the next six years before his death.
Nobel Prize
In 1962, Steinbeck won the Nobel Prize for literature because "his writings are realistic and imaginative, fused as do the sympathetic humor and the sharp social perception." The election was strongly criticized, and described as "one of the biggest mistakes of the Academy" in a Swedish newspaper. The reaction of American literary critics is also harsh. The New York Times asked why the Nobel committee honors a writer whose "limited talent, in his best books, is made easier by a ten-level philosophy," notes that "[T] he is an international character of appreciation and the weight attached to it raises questions about the selection mechanism and how close the Nobel committee is to the mainstream of American writings.... [W] e thinks interestingly that the greeting was not given to the author... whose significance, influence and mere body of work have made an impression which is more profound in the literature of our time ". Steinbeck, when asked on the day of the announcement whether he deserved the Nobel Prize, replied: "Frankly, no." The biography of Jackson Benson noted, "[T] His honor is one of the few in the world that people can not buy or profit by political maneuvers, because the committee makes judgments... on its own criteria rather than striking into the 'mainstream of American writing' defined by a critical stance, that the award has value. "In his acceptance speech at the end of the year in Stockholm, he said:
the author is delegated to declare and celebrate man's proven ability for greatness of heart and spirit - for gallantry in defeat, for courage, compassion and love. In an endless war against weakness and despair, this is the flag of hope and competition rallies. I would argue that a writer who does not believe in human perfection has no dedication or membership in literature.
In 2012, (50 years later), the Nobel Prize opened its archives and it was revealed that Steinbeck is a "compromise choice" between short lists consisting of Steinbeck, British writer Robert Graves and Lawrence Durrell, French Drama Jean Anouilh and Danish author Karen Blixen. Unclassified documents show that he was voted the best of the bad. "There is no clear candidate for the Nobel Prize and the prize committee is in an unpleasant situation," writes committee member Henry Olsson. Although the committee believes Steinbeck's best work was behind it in 1962, committee member Anders ÃÆ'-sterling believes that the launch of his novel The Winter of Our Discontent shows that "after some signs of slowing in recent years, [Steinbeck has ] regained his position as an authentic social-truth interviewer [and is] an authentic realist totally equivalent to his predecessor, Sinclair Lewis and Ernest Hemingway. "
Though simple about his own talent as a writer, Steinbeck speaks openly of his own admiration for certain authors. In 1953, he wrote that he considers the cartoonist Al Capp, the creator of satire Li'l Abner , "probably the best writer in the world today." At his first Nobel Prize conferences, he was asked by his favorite writer and worked and replied: "Hemingway's short story and almost everything Faulkner wrote."
In September 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson gave the Medal of Presidential Presidential of Freedom.
In 1967, on the orders of Newsday magazine, Steinbeck went to Vietnam to report the war. He thinks of the Vietnam War as a heroic venture and is considered an eagle for his position in war. Her children served in Vietnam before her death, and Steinbeck visited a son on the battlefield. At one point, he was allowed to become a man with machine guns at night in firebase while his son and the other members of his platoon were asleep.
Personal life
In May 1948, Steinbeck returned to California on an emergency trip to be with his friend, Ed Ricketts, who was badly injured when a train hit his car. Ricketts died a few hours before Steinbeck arrived. Upon returning home, Steinbeck is confronted by Gwyn, who asks for the divorce, which became the final in August. Steinbeck spent the year following Ricketts's death in deep depression.
In June 1949, Steinbeck met stage manager Elaine Scott at a restaurant in Carmel, California. Steinbeck and Scott finally started a relationship and in December 1950 Steinbeck and Scott married, within a week of Scott's own divorce from actor Zachary Scott. This third marriage to Steinbeck lasted until his death in 1968.
In 1962, Steinbeck began acting as a friend and mentor to young writer and naturalist Jack Rudloe, who sought to set up his own biological supply company, now the Gulf Sea Specimen Laboratory in Florida. Their correspondence continued until his death.
In 1966, Steinbeck went to Tel Aviv to visit the Mount Hope site, an agricultural community founded in Israel by his grandfather, whose brother, Friedrich Grosssteinbeck, was killed by Arab robbers in 1858 in what is known as Anger at Jaffa.
Death and inheritance
John Steinbeck died in New York City on December 20, 1968, due to heart disease and congestive heart failure. She's 66, and has been a lifelong smoker. An autopsy shows an almost complete occlusion of a major coronary artery.
In accordance with his wishes, his body was cremated, and buried on March 4, 1969 at the Hamilton family's grave in Salinas, with parents and maternal grandparents. His third wife, Elaine, was buried in a gang in 2004. He had written to his doctor that he felt deeply "in the flesh" that he would not survive his physical death, and that the biological end of his life was the ultimate goal. therefore.
The day after Steinbeck's death in New York City, Charles Poore's reviewer wrote in The New York Times: "John Steinbeck's first book was his last great book, but God what it was and: The Grapes of Wrath. "Poore recorded" sermons "in Steinbeck's work," as if half of his literary heritage came from the best of Mark Twain - and half of the worst from Cotton Mather. " But he insisted that "Steinbeck does not need a Nobel Prize - Nobel judges need it."
The incomplete Steinbeck novel based on King Arthur's legendary Malory and the other, the King Arthur and His Honorable Knight, was published in 1976.
Many of Steinbeck's works need to be read in American high school. In the United Kingdom, Of Mice and Men is one of the key texts used by the AQA inspection body for its English GCSE. A study by the Center for Literature Learning and Teaching in the United States found that From Rats and Men is one of the ten most frequently read books in public high schools. Counter-wise, Steinbeck's works have often been banned in the United States. The Grapes of Wrath was banned by the school board: in August 1939, the Kern County Supervisory Board banned the book from government-funded schools and government libraries. It was burned in Salinas on two different occasions. In 2003, the school board in Mississippi banned him for indecent reasons. According to the American Library Association, Steinbeck was one of the ten most frequently banned authors from 1990 to 2004, with Of Mice and Men being the sixth of 100 such books in the United States.
Opinions on Nobel Prizes
The 1962 Nobel Prize for Literature for Steinbeck is controversial in the United States. The award credits praise Steinbeck "for his realistic and imaginative writings, combining them because of their sympathetic humor and sharp social perception." Many critics complain that the author's best work is behind it. The New York Times contains an article by Arthur Mizener entitled "Is the Author with the Moral Values ​​of the 1930s Worthy of a Nobel Prize?" who claims that Steinbeck is not worthy of a prestigious prize because he is a "limited talent" whose work "is made easier by the tenth-grade philosophy". Many American critics now consider these attacks to be politically motivated.
The British newspaper The Guardian, in a 2013 article revealing that Steinbeck had become a compromise choice for the Nobel Prize, called it the "American Letter Giant". Despite ongoing attacks on literary reputations, Steinbeck's works continue to sell well and he is widely taught in American and British schools as a bridge to more complex literature. Jobs like Of Mice and Men are short and easy to read, and lovingly illustrate the relevant universal theme of the twenty-first century.
Literary influence
Steinbeck grew up in California's Salinas Valley, a diverse cultural venue with migration histories and rich immigrants. This education instilled a sense of regionalism in his writing, giving his many works a sense of a different place. Salinas, Monterey, and parts of San Joaquin Valley are home to many of his stories. This area is sometimes referred to as "Steinbeck Country". Most of the work initially relates to a subject familiar to him since his formative years. The exception is his first novel, Gold Cup , which concerns Henry Morgan the pirate, whose adventure has captured Steinbeck's imagination as a child.
In the following novels, Steinbeck finds a more authentic sound by exploiting the immediate memories of his life in California. Her childhood friend Max Wagner, Jack Wagner's brother and later film actor, became the inspiration for The Red Pony. Later, he used actual American conditions and events in the first half of the twentieth century, which he once dealt with as a reporter. Steinbeck often filled his story with struggling figures; his work examines the lives of working class and migrant workers during the Dust Bowl and Great Depression.
His later works reflect his broad interests, including marine biology, politics, religion, history, and mythology. One of his last published works is Travel Travel with Charley, a journey he took in 1960 to rediscover America.
Warning
The childhood home of Steinbeck, a Victorian-style building in downtown Salinas, has been preserved and restored by Valley Guild, a nonprofit organization. The lunch menu is still served from Monday to Saturday, and the house is open for tours during the summer on a Sunday afternoon.
The National Steinbeck Center, two blocks away on 1 Main Street is the only museum in the US dedicated to a single author. Dana Gioia (chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts) told the audience at the center, "This is truly the best modern literary temple in the country, and I have seen everything." "Steinbeckiana" includes "Rocinante", a camper truck where Steinbeck travels across the country described in Travel with Charley .
His father's lodge on Eleventh Street in Pacific Grove, where Steinbeck wrote some of the earliest books, also survived.
In Monterey, Ed Ricketts's lab survives (though not yet public) and in the corner Steinbeck describes in Cannery Row, as well as the store formerly belonging to Lee Chong, and the adjacent vacant lot frequented by the homeless Cannery Row. The Hovden Sardine Cannery site next to Doc's lab is now occupied by the Monterey Bay Aquarium. The road Steinbeck describes as "Cannery Row" in the novel, formerly called Ocean View Avenue, was named Cannery Row in honor of the novel, in 1958. Monterey City has commemorated by Steinbeck by way of flags depicting characters from Cannery Row, historical plaques, and sculptural statues depicting Steinbeck and Ricketts.
On February 27, 1979 (the 77th birthday of the author), the United States Postal Service issued a stamp featuring Steinbeck, initiating the Postal Service Literature Arts series honoring American writers.
On 5 December 2007, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and First Lady Maria Shriver installed Steinbeck to the California Hall of Fame, located in the Museum of History, Women and California Art. His son, author Thomas Steinbeck, received the award on his behalf.
To commemorate the 112th anniversary of Mr. Steinbeck on February 27, 2014, Google features an interactive doodle animation that includes illustrations depicting scenes and excerpts from some novels by its authors.
Steinbeck and his friend Ed Ricketts appear as fictional characters in the 2016 novel, Monterey Bay about the establishment of the Monterey Bay Aquarium, by Lindsay Hatton (Penguin Press).
Religious view
Steinbeck is affiliated with St. Episcopal Church Paul and he remain bound all his life for Episcopalianism. Particularly in his fictional work, Steinbeck is very conscious of religion and puts it into his style and theme. The formation of his character often refers to the Bible and the theology of Anglicanism, incorporating elements of Roman Catholicism and Protestantism.
Steinbeck distanced himself from a religious view when he left Salinas to Stanford. However, the work he produced still reflects his childhood language in Salinas, and his faith remains strongly influenced in his fiction and non-fiction work. His Episcopalian view is clearly shown in The Grapes of Wrath, where the themes of conversion and self-sacrifice play a central role in the Casy and Tom characters that achieve spiritual transcendence through conversion.
Political view
Steinbeck's contact with leftist writers, journalists, and union leaders may have influenced his writing. He joined the League of American Writers, a Communist organization, in 1935. Steinbeck was mentored by radical writer Lincoln Steffens and his wife Ella Winter. Through Francis Whitaker, a member of John Reed Club of the United States Communist Party for writers, Steinbeck met with strike strikes from the Union of Canning Industry and Agricultural Workers. In 1939, he signed letters with several other authors to support the Soviet invasion of Finland and the Soviet-formed puppet government.
The documents released by the Central Intelligence Agency in 2012 show that Steinbeck offered his services to the Agency in 1952, when planning a European tour, and Director of Central Intelligence, Walter Bedell Smith, eagerly accepted the offer. What work, if anything, Steinbeck probably did for the CIA during the Cold War is unknown.
Steinbeck is a close associate of playwright Arthur Miller. In June of 1957, Steinbeck took personal and professional risks by supporting him when Miller refused to name names in the session of the Un-American Activities Committee. Steinbeck calls this period "the most bizarre and terrible times that the government and people have ever faced."
In 1967, when he was sent to Vietnam to report the war, his sympathy portrayal of the US Army led the New York Post to denounce him for betraying his liberal past. Steinbeck biographer Jay Parini says Steinbeck's friendship with President Lyndon B. Johnson influenced his view of Vietnam. Steinbeck may also be concerned about his son's safety in Vietnam.
Government harassment
Steinbeck complains publicly about government abuse. Thomas Steinbeck, the eldest son of the author, said that J. Edgar Hoover, the director of the FBI at the time, could find no basis for suing Steinbeck and therefore used his power to encourage the US Internal Revenue Service to audit Steinbeck's taxes annually from his life, just to annoy him. According to Thomas, a true artist is a "mindless person, stands against stones of criticism, and speaks to those who are not given a real voice in the halls of justice, or in the halls of government." By doing so, people these people will naturally become enemies of the political status quo. "
In a 1942 letter to US Attorney Francis Biddle, John Steinbeck wrote, "Do you think you can ask Edgar's children to stop stepping on my heels? They think I am an enemy alien. The FBI denied that Steinbeck was being investigated.
Primary works
In Unexpected Battle
In 1936, Steinbeck published the first of what came to be known as the Dustbowl trilogy, which included Of Mice and Men
From Rats and Men
Of Mice and Men is a tragedy written as a play in 1937. The story is about two traveling farm workers, George and Lennie, trying to earn enough money to buy their own ranch/farm. As arranged in the 1930s America, it provides insight into The Great Depression, covering themes of racism, loneliness, prejudice against mental illness, and the struggle for personal freedom. Along with The Grapes of Wrath , East of Eden , and The Pearl , Of Mice and Men is one of Steinbeck's most recognizable works. It was made into a three-time film, in 1939 starring Burgess Meredith, Lon Chaney Jr., and Betty Field, in 1982 starring Randy Quaid, Robert Blake and Ted Neeley, and in 1992 starring Gary Sinise and John Malkovich.
The Grapes of Wrath
The East East of Eden
Steinbeck deals with good and evil in the saga of this Salinas Valley. The story follows two families: Hamiltons - based on the ancestor of Steinbeck's own ancestors - and Trasks, repeating the story of Adam and his biblical descendants. The book was published in 1952. It was made into a 1955 film directed by Elia Kazan and starred by James Dean.
Traveling with Charley
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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