Sweet Thursday by John Steinbeck
Anyone untrained in tom-wallagers might well have been startled.... Eddie waltzed to the rumba music, his arms embracing an invisible partner. Wide Ida lay on the floor Indian wrestling with Whitey No.2, at each try displaying acres of pink pan ties, while a wild conga line of dwarfs and animals milled about....
Mack and Doc were swept into the conga line. To Doc the room began to revolve slowly and then to rise and fall like the deck of a stately ship in a groundswell. The music roared and tinkled. Hazel beat out rhythm on the stove with his sword until Johnny, aiming carefully, got a bull's eye on Hazel. Hazel leaped in the air and came down on the oven door, scattering crushed ice all over the floor. One of the guests had got wedged in the grandfather clock. From the outside the Palace Flop house seemed to swell and subside like rising bread.
This festive carnivalesque passage, which occurs in what Mack calls a "veritable fairyland," is one of Steinbeck's most pleasurable fictive moments. It revels in a sense of fancifulness, in luxurious staging and fluid movement that join sacred and profane experience in memorable ways. Steinbeck's reversals of gender expectations and his conscious abdication of the "fabric of sweet reality" account for the exaggerated swelling house, the improvisatory instances of cross-dressing ("all over the Row the story was being rewritten to fit the wardrobe"), and the homosociality and sexual impersonation ("one of the queerest scenes Steinbeck ever imagined," scholar Leland Person claims); and they reflect the unpredictable loops and digressions of the novel's structure, its topsy-turvy abandonment of overtly linear or "literary" progression in favor of a quantum randomness, and its one-dimensional (but not necessarily simplistic) characterizations. This hilarious scene is an example of Steinbeck's belief that "technique should grow out of theme," as he told Pascal Covici in early 1956, and his advice to humorist Fred Allen: "Don't make the telling follow a form."
Furthermore, Steinbeck's postwar change of aesthetic sensibility made all the difference between his treatment of Doc, whose "transcendent sadness" and essential loneliness closed Cannery Row, and this portrayal, which ends with the partially incapacitated but romantically redeemed Doc riding off with the no less reformed and eager Suzy (she is driving) into the sunset of a day that is "of purple and gold, the proud colors of the Salinas High School." Steinbeck continues, "A squadron of baby angels maneuvered at twelve hundred feet, holding a pink cloud on which the word J-O-Y flashed on and off. A seagull with a broken wing took off and flew straight up into the air, squawking, 'Joy! Joy!'" That over-the-top moment gives Sweet Thursday the same fanciful, buoyant quality Steinbeck found in The World of Li'l Abner: "such effective good nature that we seem to have thought of it ourselves." Inevitably, Doc and Suzy's fairy-tale relationship is not so much a smarmy act of denouement as it is a proof of Steinbeck's belief in the necessity for human beings to willingly open themselves to the demands of mutual love, and his abiding sense of the "joy" of creative drives to address human desire. Sweet Thursday conjoins writing and sexuality, which creates an exquisite "satisfaction" that comes when "words and sentences" and "good and shared love" combine, as he announced in a short essay called "Rationale." "Believe me, I have nothing against fairy tales," he told Otis and his drama agent Annie Laurie Williams on April 7, 1962. "God knows I've written enough of them. My point is that no fairy tale is acceptable unless it is based on some truth about something. You can make it as light and airy and full of whimsy as you wish but down underneath there has to be a true thing." Love, considered emotionally, physically, and as a form of creativity, Steinbeck suggests, is the "true thing" that has the potential to heal the split between man and woman, self and world, language and life, text and audience. The pejorative Time magazine review was only partly--and unintentionally--correct in its assessment of Sweet Thursday. Steinbeck did "comic-strip" his characters of reality, but that was his desire; far from being proof of his decline into an undifferentiated Saroyanesque landscape, his appropriation of Al Capp's free-form inventiveness, vivid technique, exaggerated scenarios, and "dreadful folk poetry" helped further in the novel what Steinbeck saw in Li'l Abner: a "hilarious picture of our ridiculous selves."
Thus "Sweet Thursday" functions as a double signifier--at once private and public utterance, reference and object, process and product. The name refers to a "magic kind of day" when all manner of unanticipated, random events occur on Cannery Row (to which Steinbeck devotes three contiguous, titled chapters--19, 20, 21--at the midpoint of his novel, and one--39--at the very end). Then, refracted, "Sweet Thursday" (a time, a place in the mind, a historical context) becomes, like Hawthorne's symbolic "Scarlet Letter" or Melville's multimeaning "Moby-Dick," the title of the book Steinbeck brings into being. The title operates in turn as a looking glass, a hole in reality, that reflects, distorts, enlarges, and/or magnifies the implicit ethereality and quantum activities of the "magic day" by borrowing a sense of its own disruptive form from the uninhibited carnival quality of life on the Row and from a number of literary texts that play into the mix. That inherent duality and fluid interchangeability of word and world and fiction and fact symbolizes Steinbeck's imaginative concerns and method. When in chapter 20 Fauna tells Joe Elegant, "When a man says words he believes them, even if he thinks he is lying," she is suggesting that language (not only experience) is a reality, and a seductive one at that.
Far from being a pooped-out failure because he abandoned critical realism after The Grapes of Wrath, Steinbeck was a prophetic postmodernist, a journeyer in a literary fun house, and a traveler in the land behind the mirror of art. In Sweet Thursday the mirror had become nearly silverless, so that we see his hand at work behind the curtain of realism, calling attention to the house of words he is building. For that reason, traditional disciplinary literary criticism won't work effectively with a textual construct like Sweet Thursday or, for that matter, with much of what Steinbeck wrote in the last phase of his career. Authoring these texts, he authored himself anew and vice versa.
Perhaps Sweet Thursday is not an overstuffed turkey but more like the gull that presides over the novel's conclusion--earthbound on occasion but still capable of some startling flights of fancy, humor, and goodwill. Pascal Covici was correct--the novel sold with abandon--and while its commercial success justified Covici's faith in Steinbeck as an enduring popular writer, just as its success fueled some critics' scorn, there is, as with all Steinbeck's work, a historical and personal context that provides background for understanding this delightful satiric novel. Sweet Thursday, the last book Steinbeck ever wrote about California, became at once an elegy to the departed Ricketts and a demonstration of creativity, as well as an homage to Steinbeck's newly found emotional existence with Elaine and a farewell to the beloved landscape of his native state.
ROBERT DEMOTT
Suggestions for Further Reading
PRIMARY WORKS BY JOHN STEINBECK
Note: Steinbeck's long-lost handwritten manuscript of Sweet Thursday and a portion of early drafts of its predecessor, "Bear Flag," which he gave to Broadway producer Ernest H. Martin, were discovered among Martin's possessions in 2004 and subsequently auctioned by Pacific Book Auction Galleries in 2007. See https://www.pbagalleries.com. The typescript, carbon copy, and unrevised galley proofs of Sweet Thursday are housed at the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, University of Texas, Austin, in Works, 1926-1966, Box 8, Folders 2-5. See https://www.hrc.utexas.edu/research/fa/steinbeck.html#works.
Steinbeck, John. "About Ed Ricketts." The Log from the Sea of Cortez. New York: Viking Press, 1951, vii-lxvii.
------. Cannery Row. New York: Viking Press, 1945.
------. "Critics, Critics, Burning Bright" (1950). Steinbeck and His Critics: A Record of Twenty-five Years. E. W. Tedlock and C. V. Wicker, eds. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1957, 43-47.
------. "Introduction." The World of Li'l Abner by Al Capp. Foreword by Charles Chaplin. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Young with Ballantine Books, 1953, i-vi.
------. "Introduction Mack's Contr
------. "Rationale." In Tedlock and Wicker's Steinbeck and His Critics, 308-9.
Steinbeck, John, and Edward F. Ricketts. Sea of Cortez: A Leisurely Journal of Travel and Research. New York: Viking Press, 1941.
CORRESPONDENCE, INTERVIEWS, ADAPTATIONS
Fensch, Thomas. Steinbeck and Covici: The Story of a Friendship. Middlebury, VT: Paul S. Eriksson, 1979.
Rodgers, Richard, and Oscar Hammerstein II. Pipe Dream. New York: Viking Press, 1956.
Steinbeck, John. Conversations with John Steinbeck. Thomas Fensch, ed. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1988.
------. Letters to Elizabeth: A Selection of Letters from John Steinbeck to Elizabeth Otis. Florian J. Shasky and Susan F. Riggs, eds. Foreword by Carlton Sheffield. San Francisco: Book Club of California, 1978.
------. Steinbeck: A Life in Letters. Elaine Steinbeck and Robert Wallsten, eds. New York: Viking Press, 1975.
Ward, David S. Cannery Row. Hollywood: MGM, 1982. 120 mins.
BIOGRAPHIES, MEMOIRS, BACKGROUND, AND APPRECIATIONS
Note: An exhaustive chronology of Steinbeck's life is available in Robert DeMott and Brian Railsback, eds., Travels with Charley and Later Novels, 1947-1962 (New York: Library of America, 2007), 955-73. Chief Internet sites devoted to John Steinbeck are https://www.steinbeck.sjsu.edu/home/index.jsp at the Martha Heasley Cox Center for Steinbeck Studies at San Jose State University, and https://www.steinbeck.org at the National Steinbeck Center, Salinas, California. The Cannery Row Foundation, Monterey, California, maintains a useful Web site relevant to the setting, history, and background of Steinbeck's Monterey novels, https://www.canneryrow.org. Search https://www.topix.net/who/john-steinbeck for regularly updated news on John Steinbeck.
Astro, Richard. John Steinbeck and Edward F. Ricketts: The Shaping of a Novelist. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1974.
Benson, Jackson J. The True Adventures of John Steinbeck, Writer. New York: Viking Press, 1984.
Davis, Kathryn M. "Edward F. Ricketts: Man of Science and Conscience." Steinbeck Studies 15 (Winter 2004): 15-22.
DeMott, Robert. Steinbeck's Reading: A Catalogue of Books Owned and Borrowed. New York: Garland Publishing, 1984.
Hemp, Michael Kenneth. Cannery Row: The History of Old Ocean View Avenue. Monterey, CA: History Company, 1986.
Leonard, Elmore. "Elmore Leonard on John Steinbeck." In 20 Years of Publishing America's Best. Preface by Cheryl Hurley. New York: Library of America, 2002, 9-11.
Parini, Jay. John Steinbeck: A Biography. New York: Henry Holt, 1995.
Ricketts, Edward F. Breaking Through: Essays, Journals, and Travelogues of Edward F. Ricketts. Katherine A. Rodger, ed. Foreword by Susan F. Beegel. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006.
------. Renaissance Man of Cannery Row: The Life and Letters of Edward F. Ricketts. Katharine A. Rodger, ed. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2002.
Sheffield, Carlton. John Steinbeck, the Good Companion. Terry White, ed. Introduction by R. A. Blum. Berkeley, CA: Creative Arts, 2002.
Shillinglaw, Susan. A Journey into Steinbeck's California. Photographs by Nancy Burnett. Berkeley, CA: Roaring Forties Press, 2006.
Tamm, Eric Enno. Beyond the Outer Shores: The Untold Odyssey of Ed Ricketts, the Pioneering Ecologist Who Inspired John Steinbeck and Joseph Campbell. New York: Four Walls Eight Windows, 2004.
CAREER OVERVIEWS, REVIEWS, AND REFERENCE WORKS
Ditsky, John. John Steinbeck and the Critics. Rochester, NY: Camden House, 2000.
Li, Luchen, ed. John Steinbeck: A Documentary Volume. Volume 309 of Dictionary of Literary Biography. Detroit: Thomson Gale, 2005.
McPheron, William. John Steinbeck: From Salinas to Stockholm. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Libraries, 2000.
Railsback, Brian, and Michael J. Meyer, eds. A John Steinbeck Encyclopedia. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2006.
Riggs, Susan F. A Catalogue of the John Steinbeck Collection at Stanford University. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Libraries, 1980.
Schultz, Jeffrey, and Luchen Li, eds. Critical Companion to John Steinbeck: A Literary Reference to His Life and Work. New York: Facts on File, 2005.
CRITICAL COMMENTARY ON SWEET THURSDAY
Note: An extensive bibliography of secondary sources on Steinbeck, prepared by Greta Manville for San Jose State University's Martha Heasley Cox Center for Steinbeck Studies, is accessible at https://www.steinbeckbibliography.org/index/html.
Astro, Richard. "Steinbeck's Bittersweet Thursday." Steinbeck Quarterly 4 (Spring 1971): 36-48. Reprinted in The Short Novels of John Steinbeck: Critical Essays with a Checklist to Steinbeck Criticism. Jackson J. Benson, ed. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1990, 204-15.
DeMott, Robert. "The Place We Have Arrived: On Writing/Reading toward Cannery Row." In Beyond Boundaries: Rereading John Steinbeck. Susan Shillinglaw and Kevin Hearle, eds. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2002, 295-313.
------. "Steinbeck's Typewriter: An Excursion in Suggestiveness." In Steinbeck's Typewriter: Essays on His Art. Troy, NY: Whitston Publishing, 1996, 287-317.
Ditsky, John. "'Stupid Sons of Fishes': Shared Values in John Steinbeck and the Musical Stage." Steinbeck Studies 15 (Winter 2004): 107-16.
Gladstein, Mimi. "Straining for Profundity: Steinbeck's Burning Bright and Sweet Thursday." In The Short Novels of John Steinbeck: Critical Essays with a Checklist to Steinbeck Criticism. Jackson J. Benson, ed. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1990, 234-48.
Levant, Howard. "Hooptedoodle." In his Novels of John Steinbeck: A Critical Study. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1974, 259-72.
Lisca, Peter. The Wide World of John Steinbeck. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1958, 276-84.
Mahan, Meghan. Sweet Thursday. 20th-Century American Bestsellers. https://www3.isrl.uiuc.edu/~unsworth/courses/bestsellers.
McElrath, Joseph, Jesse S. Crisler, and Susan Shillinglaw, eds. John Steinbeck: The Contemporary Reviews. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996, 406-25.
Metzger, Charles R. "Steinbeck's Version of the Pastoral." Modern Fiction Studies 6 (Summer 1960): 115-24. Reprinted in The Short Novels of John Steinbeck: Critical Essays with a Checklist to Steinbeck Criticism. Jackson J. Benson, ed. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1990, 185-95.
Millichap, Joseph. Steinbeck and Film. New York: Frederick Ungar, 1983, 172-75.
Morsberger, Robert. "Steinbeck's Happy Hookers." Steinbeck Quarterly 9 (Summer-Fall 1976): 101-15.
Newfield, Anthony. "Pipe Dream Memories." Steinbeck Studies 15 (Winter 2004): 117-28.
Owens, Louis. "Critics and Common Denominators: Steinbeck's Sweet Thursday." In The Short Novels of John Steinbeck: Critical Essays with a Checklist to Steinbeck Criticism. Jackson J. Benson, ed. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1990, 195-203.
------. "Sweet Thursday: Farewell to Steinbeck Country." In his John Steinbeck's ReVision of America. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1985, 190-96.
Person, Leland S. "Steinbeck's Queer Ecology: Sweet Comradeship in the Monterey Novels." Steinbeck Studies 15 (Spring 2004): 7-20.
Railsback, Brian. "Evolution of a Hero." In his Parallel Expeditions: Charles Darwin and the Art of John Steinbeck. Moscow: University of Idaho Press, 1995, 121-27.
Simmonds, Roy S. "Sweet Thursday." In A Study Guide to Steinbeck (Part II). Tetsumaro Hayashi, ed. Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press, 1979, 139-64.
Timmerman, John. "The Cannery Row Novels." In his John Steinbeck's Fiction: The Aesthetics of the Road Taken. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1986, 168-82.
Sweet Thursday
Prologue
One night Mack lay back on his bed in the Palace Flop house and he said, "I ain't never been satisfied with that book Cannery Row. I would of went about it different."
And after a while
"Like what?" said Whitey No. 1.
"Well," said Mack, "like this here. Suppose there's chapter one, chapter two, chapter three. That's all right, as far as it goes, but I'd like to have a couple of words at the top so it tells me what the chapter's going to be about. Sometimes maybe I want to go back, and chapter five don't mean nothing to me. If there was just a couple of words I'd know that was the chapter I wanted to go back to."
"Go on," said Whitey No. 1.
"Well, I like a lot of talk in a book, and I don't like to have nobody tell me what the guy that's talking looks like. I want to figure out what he looks like from the way he talks. And another thing--I kind of like to figure out what the guy's thinking by what he says. I like some description too," he went on. "I like to know what color a thing is, how it smells and maybe how it looks, and maybe how a guy feels about it--but not too much of that."
"You sure are a critic," said Whitey No. 2. "Mack, I never give you credit before. Is that all?"
"No," said Mack. "Sometimes I want a book to break loose with a bunch of hooptedoodle. The guy's writing it, give him a chance to do a little hooptedoodle. Spin up some pretty words maybe, or sing a little song with language. That's nice. But I wish it was set aside so I don't have to read it. I don't want hooptedoodle to get mixed up in the story. So if the guy that's writing it wants hooptedoodle, he ought to put it right at first. Then I can skip it if I want to, or maybe go back to it after I know how the story come out."
Eddie said, "Mack, if the guy that wrote Cannery Row comes in, you going to tell him all that?"
Whitey No. 2 said, "Hell, Mack can tell anybody anything. Why, Mack could tell a ghost how to haunt a house."
"You're damn right I could," said Mack, "and there wouldn't be no table-rapping or chains. There hasn't been no improvement in house-haunting in years. You're damn right I could, Whitey!" And he lay back and stared up at the canopy over his bed.