Archives for August 2018

Practicing Democracy with The Grapes of Wrath

August 27, 2018 by Leave a Comment

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Actions that endanger democracy make most Americans mad, so it’s appropriate that the people behind the Practicing Democracy Project chose John Steinbeck’s angriest novel, The Grapes of Wrath, to launch the We the People Book Club, an online discussion group open to anyone with a computer, a passion for democracy, and $24. Per the project announcement, “participants will receive a weekly email with insights on the week’s reading, questions to discuss in an online forum, recommended resources,” and a downloadable guide to the month’s book selection. The project, which has a spiritual as well as a political side, starts this week with The Grapes of Wrath and ends in August 2019 with Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God. If either side appeals to you, get out your credit card and sign up today.

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John Steinbeck Returns to Monterey Peninsula College

August 27, 2018 by 1 Comment

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Adult education programs at community colleges throughout America aim to serve local interests, and Monterey Peninsula College is no exception. The main campus of the two-year institution—founded in 1947 as part of the California Community Colleges system—is a familiar feature of the pleasing approach to Monterey and Pacific Grove from U.S. Highway 1. John Steinbeck did much of his writing in and about the area, so it’s no surprise that creative writing, creative writers, and Steinbeck’s life play a bigger role at Monterey Peninsula College than on most campuses of similar size. The latest example of this preoccupation is the adult education series Gentrain (for General Education Train of Courses), where Steve Hauk will discuss Steinbeck: The Untold Stories, short stories about Steinbeck’s life, from 1:30 to 2:30 p.m. on Wednesday, September 5, in Lecture Forum 103 at Monterey Peninsula College. Lisa Ledin, the weekend host for KAZU-FM radio, will read from the collection. Admission is free. Campus parking is $3.

Filed Under: Places & Events, Steinbeck's California Tagged With:

Vote Early and Vote Often for The Grapes of Wrath in 2018

August 10, 2018 by Leave a Comment

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The Grapes of Wrath, the book John Steinbeck finished writing in time to vote for Culbert Olson as Governor of California in 1938, is still running strong with readers, despite naysayers like the Los Gatos Republican who wrote a counter-novel, now forgotten, in 1940. This year The Grapes of Wrath has competition in the race for Great American Read—a project of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, with support from the Anne Ray Foundation, to encourage reading by allowing anyone over 12 to vote early and vote often for his or her favorite from a list of 100 novels, all in English, that polled well with viewers. The contest would probably appall Steinbeck, a one-man, one-vote Democrat who thought popularity pageants were stupid, especially where writers were concerned. Among the books we know he read was Two Years Before the Mast, a seagoing Grapes of Wrath written in 1840 by Richard Henry Dana, the Massachusetts lawyer and reformer who coined the phrase “vote early and vote often” in a letter about election rigging in his day. Great American Read rules permit repeat voting by the same person and reward social networking to spread the word about books, 21st-century style. So get with the program. Vote early and vote often for The Grapes of Wrath.

 

Filed Under: Places & Events, Steinbeck's America Tagged With:

Trump Relief: Bill Hader’s Riff on Of Mice and Men

August 3, 2018 by 1 Comment

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It’s a shame John Steinbeck didn’t live to see Saturday Night Live. The author of Of Mice and Men died in December 1968, six weeks after Richard Nixon was elected President; SNL debuted in 1975, fourteen months after Nixon resigned in disgrace. Much about Nixon’s America depressed Steinbeck, including Nixon’s party, but he kept his sense of humor and he understood the medium of television, Nixon’s undoing against Kennedy in 1960. If Steinbeck had lived longer he might have enjoyed SNL’s blend of comic relief and left-leaning satire, given his preference for politicians like Kennedy and Stevenson, the witty Democrat from Illinois defeated by Eisenhower in 1952 and 1956. Steinbeck critiqued Eisenhower’s thought (conventional), syntax (chaotic), and reading (cowboy fiction), so it’s easy to predict his reaction today to a worse-than-Eisenhower type like Donald Trump, or Rick Perry—brilliantly impersonated by Bill Hader, riffing on Of Mice and Men in this SNL sketch about the 2012 Republican candidate debate at which the man Trump made Secretary of Energy couldn’t remember the name of the federal department he now heads. If you need comic relief from Trump-induced depression, watch Bill Hader’s Rick Perry channel Lennie, with Mitt Romney as George at his side. Imagine John Steinbeck at your side and you’ll both die laughing.

Filed Under: Places & Events, Steinbeck's America Tagged With: