john steinbeck | Guy Portman's Blog

My Top 5 Novellas

Jun 19 2015

This week’s blog post is dedicated to my top 5 novellas. For anyone not familiar with this literary form, a novella is a fictional, prose narrative that is longer than a short story but shorter than a novel. Novellas are generally about 20,000 – 50,000 words.

Here are my 5 favourite novellas in ascending order.

5 – The Legend of the Holy Drinker by Joseph Roth

This is a compact and compassionate novella about an alcoholic tramp. Its author, Joseph Roth, succumbed to a premature alcohol related death shortly after finishing this allegorical tale about seeking redemption.

My Review: The story is about an alcoholic tramp by the name of Andreas, who lives under bridges of the river Seine. Andreas finds himself in luck when he is given two hundred francs by a stranger, … (More)

4 – The Old Man And The Sea by Ernest Hemingway

This is a carefully constructed and evocative novella written in Hemingway’s trademark simple, concise, economy of prose style. It is a memorable story that I would strongly recommend to anyone who hasn’t read it.

My Review: Set in the Gulf Stream off the coast of Cuba, this is a tale about an old man, a boy and a colossal Marlin. The old man, Santiago, is a veteran fisherman, who is on a run of bad luck having been eighty-four days without catching a fish. (More)

3 – The Pearl by John Steinbeck

Unlike most of Steinbeck’s novels, The Pearl is set in the Gulf of Mexico, not the Salinas Valley. It is a captivating and disturbing parable about the darker side of human nature that illustrates how riches can be illusory.

My Review: Steinbeck’s novella, The Pearl, is a story about a destitute Mexican pearl diver by the name of Kino, who leads a simple, predictable existence with his wife Juana and baby son Coyotito. One day … (More)

2 – Junky by William S. Burroughs

Junky is a semi-autobiographical novella that adeptly captures the obsessive nature of addiction. Its detached journalistic approach is in stark contrast to the rambling, stream of consciousness style found in some of Burroughs’s later works.

My Review: Set in 1950s America and Mexico, Junky is a confessional novella about drug addiction. Its protagonist Bill Lee chronicles his drug-centred existence, which entails searching for his daily fix, scoring, and … (More)

1 – One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Whilst the morose subject matter (Gulags) will not appeal to everyone, this reader, an avid Solzhenitsyn fan, is of the opinion that One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich is one of the best books ever written.

My Review: Ivan Denisovich Shukhov is a former POW serving a 10 year term in a Gulag on the Kazakh steppe for being a spy. He is innocent. The book chronicles a single day of his existence, beginning with a 5 a.m. reveille. (More)

7 Politically Inclined Authors

May 08 2015

This is a post that I wrote a while back about famous authors who held strong political opinions.

The following 7 authors were all politically inclined:

Hunter S. Thompson

(July 18th 1937 – February 20th 2005)

The father of Gonzo journalism was an iconic figure in the counter-culture. Despite his love of firearms and ardent support of the Second Amendment, Thompson’s politics were firmly entrenched in the far-left. A sworn enemy of Richard Nixon, he was vociferous in his support of George McGovern in the 1972 presidential election. He covered the election in dispatches for Rolling Stone, which laid the foundation for his book Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail ‘72.

Click here to read my review of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.

John Steinbeck

(February 27th 1902 – December 20th 1968)

John Steinbeck was a prolific novelist and short-story writer, and one of the most acclaimed literary figures America has ever produced. The author was very critical of capitalism and a supporter of unionisation, recurring themes in many of his books. His most famous work, The Grapes of Wrath, was viewed as so controversial at the time of its publication due to its criticism of the nation’s economic plight that it was burned on 2 separate occasions in the author’s hometown of Salinas.

Click here to read my review of In Dubious Battle.

Zora Neale Hurston

(January 7th 1891 – January 28th 1960)

Zora Neale Hurston was an American folklorist, anthropologist and author, who wrote 4 novels and more than 50 short stories, plays and essays. Her most famous novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, was published in 1937. The highly opinionated Hurston could probably best be described as a conservative libertarian. Unlike many of her Soviet sympathising colleagues in the Harlem Renaissance, Hurston, a staunch patriot, was vehemently anti-Communist. She often referred to them as ‘commies’ and ‘reds’ in her writing.

Maxim Gorky

(March 28th 1868 – June 18th 1936)

Maxim Gorky is one of Russia’s most popular authors. His opposition to the Tsarist regime led to him being arrested on numerous occasions. Gorky, who associated with many revolutionaries, became a friend of Lenin. Later he provided financial support to the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party. Widely accepted as being the first famous Russian writer to emerge from the proletariat, Gorky is remembered as being a lifelong supporter of the Bolshevik cause and the founder of the Socialist realism literary method.

Click here to read my review of My Childhood.

Leo Tolstoy

(September 9th 1828 – November 20th 1910)

Russian novelist Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy is widely regarded as being one of the greatest writers of all time. His most famous works are War and Peace and Anna Karenina. Tolstoy was a Christian Anarchist, who believed that non-resistance was the only way to achieve a Utopian society. His beliefs influenced Martin Luther King Jr. and Mahatma Gandhi. Tolstoy’s argument that peaceful anarchy could only be brought about by non-violent revolution is explained in his essay On Anarchy (1900).

Kurt Vonnegut

(November 11th 1922 – April 11th 2007)

Vonnegut was an American author, whose writing incorporated science fiction, black humour and satire. He was a pacifist intellectual and supporter of the American Civil Liberties Union. When he died in 2007 The New York Times described him as ‘the counterculture’s novelist’. His seminal work, Slaughterhouse-Five, is a satire about a survivor of the notorious firebombing of Dresden in World War II. Its anti-war rhetoric has resulted in it being banned by numerous US schools and libraries.

Click here to read my review of Slaughterhouse-Five.

George Orwell

(June 25th 1903 – January 21st 1950)

Author and journalist George Orwell was interested in social injustice, opposed to totalitarianism and committed to democratic socialism. So strongly was Orwell opposed to Fascism that he even volunteered to fight in The Spanish Civil War. His experiences there gave rise to his book, Homage to Catalonia (1938). Orwell’s most famous works, Nineteen Eighty-Four and Animal Farm, both warned of the dangers of totalitarianism. They were perceived as being a thinly disguised attack on Stalin and banned in the Soviet Union.

Click on the links to read my reviews of Down and Out in Paris and London and The Road to Wigan Pier.

Happy Birthday John Steinbeck

Feb 27 2015

John Steinbeck would have been 113-years-old today. As it is his birthday, I am devoting this week’s blog post to him.

(February 27th 1902 – December 20th 1968)

Born in Salinas, California, John Steinbeck went on to become a prolific novelist and short-story writer, and one of the most acclaimed literary figures America has ever produced. Steinbeck’s accolades include The Pulitzer Prize for Fiction (1940) and the Nobel Prize in Literature (1962).

Steinbeck’s most famous book and my favourite novel is The Grapes of Wrath. As most of you probably already know it is about a poor family of Oklahoma sharecroppers, the Joads, driven from their land during the 1930s’ Dust Bowl and The Great Depression. The book was viewed as so controversial at the time of its publication due to its criticism of the nation’s economic plight that it was burned on 2 separate occasions in the author’s home town of Salinas.

Steinbeck was very critical of capitalism and a supporter of unionisation. These are recurring themes in many of his books, most notably in In Dubious Battle (Click on the link to read my review). In Dubious Battle is set to be adapted for the silver screen. It will be directed by James Franco.

Steinbeck is the master of character development. This is on full display in his short novel The Wayward Bus, one of my favourite Steinbeck novels.

My Review – An unlikely group of characters are travelling through rural South California by bus. In his unique style Steinbeck proceeds to explore each personality in intricate detail; their inhibitions, motivations, intimate thoughts and hopes for the future … (More)

Another Steinbeck that I would recommend if you haven’t read it already is The Pearl. Unlike the majority of his books which are set, at least in part in the Salinas Valley, it is set in Mexico. The Pearl is a parable about the darker side of human nature – greed, jealousy, social divisions, the unjust nature of the world and how we are all prisoners of circumstance. Click here to read my review.

One of Steinbeck’s lighter and more optimistic novels is Sweet Thursday. Whilst readers would undoubtedly enjoy this book more having read the prequel Cannery Row first, it is not essential to do so. Click here to read my review.

I stopped reading Steinbeck’s books a couple of years ago as I wanted to save some for my later years, although I am planning to read the episodic novella The Red Pony soon. I hope to visit the Salinas Valley next time I am in the U.S.

I look forward to hearing about your Steinbeck reading experiences.

Controversial Authors (Part 4)

Aug 23 2013

I initially said that Part 3 of the Controversial Authors Series would likely be the final instalment, but I have since changed my mind. It seems fairly likely that there will also be a Part 5, possibly next week.

John Steinbeck

(February 27th 1902 – December 20th 1968)

Notable works: Of Mice and Men, The Grapes of Wrath, East of Eden

Steinbeck was and still is, though to a lesser extent, regarded as a very controversial author. Arguably his greatest work, The Grapes of Wrath, has been banned by many school-boards down the years. The book was even burned on two separate occasions in the author’s home town of Salinas. According to The American Library Association, Steinbeck was one of the ten most frequently banned authors from 1990 to 2004.

The author’s left-wing leanings are a reoccurring theme in much of his writing. Steinbeck was very critical of capitalism and a supporter of unionisation, as witnessed in In Dubious Battle and The Grapes of Wrath. Unionisation was highly controversial at the time of their publication, as it was viewed by many Americans as being inherently communist, a label incidentally often levelled at Steinbeck himself.

Steinbeck’s most famous book, The Grapes of Wrath, is about a poor family of Oklahoma sharecroppers, the Joads, driven from their land during the 1930s’ Dust Bowl and The Great Depression. In The Grapes of Wrath, Steinbeck advocates for the under-privileged, concentrating on social injustice, poverty and criticism of the nation’s economic plight, something that was fiercely debated at the time of its publication and beyond.

Click on the links to read my reviews of In Dubious Battle, The Wayward Bus and Sweet Thursday.

George Orwell

(June 25th 1903 – January 21st 1950)

Notable works: Animal Farm, Nineteen Eighty-Four

Born Eric Arthur Blair in British occupied India, author and journalist George Orwell was interested in social injustice, opposed to totalitarianism and committed to democratic socialism; ideals that resulted in the author often courting controversy, something which appears to have appealed to the opinionated writer. So strongly was Orwell opposed to Fascism that he even volunteered to fight in The Spanish Civil War against the Fascists. His experiences there gave rise to his book, Homage to Catalonia (1938).

Orwell’s most famous work, Nineteen Eighty-Four, a book that warned of totalitarian censorship, has been viewed as controversial since its publication due to its themes of nationalism, censorship and sexual repression. The book was banned in Russia shortly after the translated version came out there, as it was deemed to be a thinly disguised attack on Stalin’s Soviet Union. Ironically however in 1981, parents in Jackson County, Florida, challenged that the book was ‘pro-communist’ and contained ‘explicit sexual content.’

Animal Farm, a blend of animal fable and political satire was finished in 1944, but so controversial was the subject matter that it was not published until more than a year later, so concerned were the British government that the content would offend the country’s communist allies. The book is widely viewed as being an attack on Stalin and his totalitarian rule. Not surprisingly Animal Farm was banned in Soviet countries due to its perceived political content. The book was often used for propaganda purposes by anti-communist factions in the U.S., something that concerned the author greatly.

It was not only his two most famous works that were viewed as being controversial. Orwell’s portrayal of the life of English industrial workers, particularly coal-miners, in his book, The Road to Wigan Pier, was regarded as such at the time of its publication in the U.K.

Click on the links to read my reviews of The Road to Wigan Pier and Down and Out in Paris and London.

Click here to read Part 3.

In Dubious Battle

Jan 04 2013

My introductory blog post of 2013 takes the form of a review for the first book that I have read this year, In Dubious Battle by John Steinbeck.

In Dubious Battle by John Steinbeck

InDubiousBattle

In Dubious Battle is a politically engaged novel that was, at the time of its publication at the height of the 1930’s Depression, highly controversial. The book follows Jim Nolan, a young man from poverty stricken circumstances, who is disillusioned with a system that he perceives as unjust, in which his father fought a losing battle for justice all his life, while his mother futilely sought salvation in a God that does not exist. Joining a group of communists determined to bring about a new world order, Jim is desperate to prove his devotion to their ideals and an opportunity soon presents itself. It has been announced that pay rates have been reduced for the apple pickers in the orchards that year, this after the arrival of itinerant workers at the site. The organisation decides to manipulate this disharmony to bring about a general strike amongst the workers. Jim is to serve as an apprentice to the experienced Mac McLeod, a shrewd, idealistic and courageous labor organiser and campaigner.

As the ensuing strike develops it becomes apparent that the radicals are less interested in whether the strike is successful and more in mobilising support for the ongoing war that lies ahead. Steinbeck is adept at capturing the turmoil of the times in his description of the escalating hardships of the disenfranchised migrant workers; the poverty, hunger, the fear of the police and the ever present threat of vigilantes, as the strike rises in intensity, destruction and ultimately ends in tragedy. The worker versus capital confrontation is described in great depth from the tactics deployed by both sides to the psychology of manipulation, the importance of gathering public support and the significance played by propaganda, factors that have lost none of their relevance today.

This thought provoking novel is perhaps one of Steinbeck’s most compelling works, in which the author skillfully resists the temptation for commentary, leaving the reader to reach their own conclusion on where the real exploitation lies and whether its deployment is justifiable as a means to an end.

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My Top 5 Novellas

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7 Politically Inclined Authors

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Happy Birthday John Steinbeck

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Controversial Authors (Part 4)

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In Dubious Battle

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