John Steinbeck
Not that it is necessary to be remembered bu 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.
I think I know. It is fascinating how method assembles itself. The man who holds on to an impossibility is a frightening spectacle to many people and yet that is exactly what we all do more or less. It is simply a matter of degree.
He admired anyone who laid down his line and followed it undeflected to the end. I think this was because he abandoned his star in little duties and let his head go under in the swirl of family and money and responsibility. To be anything pure requires an arrogance he did not have, and a selfishness he could not bring himself to assume. He was a man intensely disappointed in himself. And I think he liked the complete ruthlessness of my design to be a writer in spite of mother and hell.
And now to the book. Today I am going into plans for the Salinas Valley. I am going to set down Adam's plans for his life. The fact that he isn't going to get even one of them has no emphasis whatever. Plans are real things and not experience. A rich life is rich in plans. IF they don't come off, they are still a little bit realized. If they do, they may be disappointing. That's why a trip described becomes better the greater the time between the trip and the telling. I believe too that if you can know a man's plans, you know more about him than you can in any other way. Plans are daydreaming and this is an absolute measure of man. Thus if I dwell heavily on plans, it is because I am trying to put down the whole man. What a strange life it is. Inspecting it for strangeness. There are strange things in people. I guess one of the things that sets up apart form other animals is our dreams and our plans. Now that is enough of that.
Steinbeck's letters to his editor, Pascal Covici, will help you write. Steinbeck whines and complains and crows and rejoices about all his struggles in writing
East of Eden. He also throws in a good bit of philosophy. Hopefully these letters will open your mind just a little into the vast ocean that is beneath every book.
The spots of gold on this page are the splatterings from beautiful thoughts.
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