Alexis' Book Blog

The Moon is Down

Author: John Steinbeck

Year Published: 1942

Stars: 5/5

Synopsis:

During World War II the Nazi’s invaded many small towns in Europe. In these towns, Nazi’s would force the townspeople to continue working, but allocate all resources to Germany. The Moon is Down is about one of these small towns that has been invaded. The location and exact year are not known and irrelevant. Colonel Lanser and his men have invaded a town with the help of the local shop-keeper.  The Nazi’s force the townsmen to work and, at first, expect little resistance. Mayor Orden and Doctor Winter are the prominent good guys and try to warn Colonel Lanser and his men that their town will always resist. Will the townspeople drive out the Nazi’s or will the defenseless people lose all hope?

Why I like it:

Steinbeck leaves much to the imagination. This novel is about 110 pages and could have been extended to 300 pages easily.  Instead of him writing six pages on the location of the story, he simply begins the story by stating that the Nazi’s had already taken over the town. The end of novel, which I won’t spoil, is classic. Steinbeck leaves a clear image of what  the future may hold but lets you decide for yourself how the story will end.

Character development in this novel tells the story. There is definitely a story line, but each character is so well-written that  they end up making the story. Colonel Lanser and Captain Loft are my two favorite characters. Captain Loft is a know-it-all and adds comic relief to situations that are rather serious. Colonel Lanser is a veteran of  World War I, and without saying directly, believes the Nazi party is wrong. Not wrong about the idea of taking over the world, but wrong about the way people should be treated once they have been defeated. I love character development and in my opinion John Steinbeck is the king of character development.

Last, I loved the dialogue between Mayor Orden and Colonel Lanser. Lanser is not a typical Nazi which allowed for meaningful dialogue between two ‘enemies’. Throughout the novel the Mayor is explaining to Lanser that no matter what the Nazi’s do the town will not give up. Each time they converse on the subject Lanser seems to somewhat agree with Orden but cannot say so, for obvious reasons. The last conversation between Orden and Lanser is my favorite. In this scene Orden has been arrested and the English have sent over dynamite, via parachute,  to help the townspeople slow down the mining. Lanser, to stop this, arrests Orden and is about to tell the town that if they use the dynamite, Orden will be shot. Colonel Lanser asks the mayor if this will control the people and Orden says no. Then Lanser asks Orden if he will plead to his people to not use the dynamite. Orden says…

“Yes, they will light it. I have no choice of living or dying, you see, sir, but- I do have a choice of how I do it. If I tell them not to fight, they will be sorry, but they will fight. If I tell them to fight, they will be glad, and I who am not a very  brave man will have made them a little braver. You see, it is an easy thing to do, since the end for me is the same.”

What I didn’t like: I wish it was longer.

Little Known Fact: John Steinbeck was married three times.

Fun Fact: The Grapes of Wrath, arguably the best Steinbeck novel, was banned in Oklahoma until 1941. Since the novel highlighted the negative aspects of the capitalism and Dust Bowl migrations, Oklahoma saw fit to ban it.

O Pioneers!

By Willa Cather

Book Review by Sandra Miller-Louden

Okay, right from the start I’m going to admit Willa Cather is one of my guiding literary (and yes, feminist) beacons.  I’m prejudiced and I know it. 

However, having stated that up front, O Pioneers!, Cather’s second novel—and to many Cather fans, her greatest (yes, even overtaking the famous My Antonia and Death Comes for the Archbishop)!—is one you simply have to read.  But before you read it, you also must understand that besides the human characters in this novel, there is another character—more powerful, more pervasive and more personal than any breathing human being could ever be—this character being, simply, Nebraska.

The prairie.  The land.  The dream.

Or, as Willa Cather so eloquently puts it in O Pioneers!: “We come and go, but the land is always here.  And the people who love it and understand it are the people who own it for a little while.”

In O Pioneers!, Nebraska is the land where Scandinavian John Bergson settles, John Bergson who “had the Old-World belief that land, in itself, is desirable.”  John and his wife had four children, three boys and a girl.  And, as in most Willa Cather novels, it is the girl, Alexandra, who shines.  In fact, second only in importance to Nebraska, this novel is about Alexandra.  She’s smarter and more innovative than her two brothers, Oscar and Lou—and dotes on her younger brother, Emil, in whom she sees the future.

When her father John and his wife pass away, Alexandra is the progressive one.  She goes against convention, planting alfalfa (when the male farmers say it folly to do so) and refusing to sell the land for expediency’s sake, believing in its ability to yield and make a livelihood for the family and its future generations.  Alexandra, however, is not without her personal, female side.  She has feelings for Carl Linstrum, a childhood friend, who doesn’t quite fit in the farmer-mold and who is scorned by her brothers Oscar and Lou as a gold digger, only out for Alexandra’s fortune.

O Pioneers! covers many years, scooting ahead rapidly as its characters—including the land—mature and take on new dimensions.  We see the tight Scandinavian and Bohemian community so prevalent on the prairie in the latter part of the 19^th century.  (Keep in mind that this book was written in 1913 and takes place starting in 1883).  We see people surrounded by harsh, killing winters and lovely, but short summers who take pride in their land, their animals and their sense of community.  All this, again, is set against an intolerably cruel, unforgiving climate that seems often to take more than it gives.

That isn’t all we see.  O Pioneers! is a story that slowly builds to a shocking, tragic conclusion; yet ultimately to a happy (even if that “happy” is relative and perhaps fleeting) ending. 

This is definitely not your 21^st century novel.  Emotions are implied rather than graphically described in detail.  In fact, if you’re not good at reading between the lines, don’t even attempt this novel.  Its greatness and charm often spring from what is left unsaid rather than that which is explicitly stated. 

In various review blogs, there are two main criticisms of this novel.  One, amazingly, is its title.  Apparently the exclamation point (yes, that’s a part of the title) is likened to a Broadway musical, akin to Oklahoma!  Okay, I’ll give you that.  A bit overstated, perhaps, but segues into the second criticism.

For some readers, presumably Willa Cather’s feminism isn’t quite strident enough to be acceptable.  I reject this judgment.  Keep in mind this novel was written in 1913—as women, we still couldn’t vote in the United States.  Those who slam Cather’s ideas, do so from a 2010 perspective—97 years after the fact.  Judging past works by today’s standards shows a decided lack of perspective.  Conjure up the most liberal position in today’s political arena you can imagine—this then is how 1913 readers envisioned Cather’s prose during the Woodrow Wilson administration (just to continue pushing the time frame in which this was written!)

As to Willa Cather herself, she’s an amazing lady.  Her 1922 book, One of Ours, won the Pulitzer Prize in 1923. Her 1927 book, Death Comes for the Archbishop, has been designated by Time Magazine as one of its picks for the 100 Best Books published in the English Language between 1923 and 2005.   In her time, she met and rubbed elbows with such greats as F. Scott Fitzgerald, Sarah Orne Jewett (to whose memory she dedicates O Pioneers!), H.G. Wells, D.H. Lawrence, F. Scott Fitzgerald,  Robert Frost and even an 18-year-old Truman Capote.  She received honorary degrees from such institutions as Yale.  An extensive website in her honor can be found at: www.willacather.org .

Put aside your 21^st century sensibilities and allow yourself to be transported back to a world no longer here, by an author in whose hands you are well served.  Allow yourself to be carried back in time to the time of O Pioneers! 

I promise you, you won’t be sorry.

In Dubious Battle

By John Steinbeck

Review by Sandra Miller-Louden

Think of In Dubious Battle as a time capsule, a curious and sometimes compelling story of a fascinating decade in America’s not-too-distant past.  The subject matter, the writing style, the language—and most important, the novel’s outlook—is vintage 1930’s Depression America. 
Written in 1936 and set, as are most Steinbeck novels, in California, In Dubious Battle tells the story of itinerant, unskilled laborers—apple pickers, in this case—who are being organized, guided and manipulated by “The Party.”  While the word “Communist” is never directly used, it’s clear who and what “The Party” is (the closest Steinbeck ever gets to actually coming out with it is his sparing use of the word “Reds”).

The novel starts with Jim Nolan who gets a letter telling him where to go and who to meet—this is the beginning of his involvement with the group of organizers, led by Mac.  Most characters here only go by one name—either first or last—which gives a transient, short-lived feeling to the novel.  The reader knows these characters in a way, yet she doesn’t and while certain characters such as Jim and Mac are mainstays, many others flit in and out at random.

Jim and Mac pick their “dubious battle” in a California valley where it’s time to pick apples.  The bosses have just slashed the wages after promising higher ones.  The men are angry, but without organization.  Mac’s job—and Jim’s as his pupil—are to get the men to strike and stop anyone from trying to break the strike by picking the apples at the low wage (known as “scabs”).  Mac and Jim fly by the seat of their pants, using any means that comes their way to cement the will of the workers and have them pull together as one.

I find this book fascinating for several reasons.  First, it’s by John Steinbeck, written three years before The Grapes of Wrath.  While there are definitely seeds being planted here that will take root and become his Pulitzer Prize masterpiece of 1939, they are still in their infancy in In Dubious Battle.   There are also scenes and references meant to shock—and by 1936 reading standards—they very well would have.  Today’s jaded reader, while identifying these references, can barely muster up distaste, let alone offense.  Steinbeck’s writing at times is also distracting and yes, a bit wooden.  “Jim laughed hopelessly,” and later Mac laughs “mirthlessly.”  Characters “mumble weakly” (“mumble” is defined as “speaking indistinctly and in a low voice”—ergo, “weakly”) and at one point Mac “gobbles his food quickly and hungrily.”  (Isn’t that what “gobbling” means?)  Characters are constantly “nodding their heads” (“nod” would suffice).  Writers today are admonished constantly to “show, not tell.”  There’s a lot of “telling” in In Dubious Battle.

While many of Steinbeck’s novels and novellas were turned into movies, In Dubious Battle has not been.  There’s enough action—and enough pathos—that it could have been.  That it was not, perhaps speaks volumes.  I liked it much better the first time I read it in the mid-‘90s.  This time around, I considered it quaint, often redundant (the same speeches and scenes restated three and four times), often overwritten—and yet, I can’t say I didn’t like it.  Steinbeck’s emotion is sincere and his take on men in groups, men in mobs as opposed to a single man is dead on. 

The ending is stark and effective.  While not a great novel, In Dubious Battle is still worth reading, if only to get an accurate time line on Steinbeck, his work, his views, his obvious sympathies.  He isn’t a National Treasure for nothing.