WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.329 --> 00:00:02.429 Nicholas Taylor: But it will pop up a little 2 00:00:06.480 --> 00:00:07.740 Nicholas Taylor: A little box for everyone. 3 00:00:09.120 --> 00:00:09.599 William Souder: Got it. 4 00:00:10.200 --> 00:00:10.590 So, 5 00:00:14.009 --> 00:00:24.090 Nicholas Taylor: I have to imagine I've never written a biography myself, but I have to imagine that in order to keep you interested for five, the five years it takes to write a book like this. 6 00:00:24.960 --> 00:00:31.290 Nicholas Taylor: There has to be some amount of discovery in it for you. In other words, you wouldn't want to write about a biography about someone 7 00:00:32.520 --> 00:00:48.540 Nicholas Taylor: That you know everything about right. That's right. So, so I wanted to ask you, what aspect of Steinbeck's life or what incidents in his life. What themes surprised you as you moved through your research that maybe you didn't know when you started 8 00:00:49.740 --> 00:00:55.200 William Souder: Wow, that's a great question. You know, I think what probably surprised me the most was 9 00:00:56.880 --> 00:01:11.310 William Souder: This obsession that he had with more Arthur and with the Arthurian legend. And the reason I think that he was so engaged by that story. Obviously, it had captivated. 10 00:01:11.760 --> 00:01:24.060 William Souder: His imagination, when he was about 10 years old when he got a children's version of Mallory's story, but of course he you know he tried to incorporate 11 00:01:25.830 --> 00:01:31.530 William Souder: That story into some of his books, certainly in tortilla flat. Nobody else could see how 12 00:01:32.250 --> 00:01:40.530 William Souder: Danny and his friends were Knights of the Round Table but Steinbeck certainly thought it was obvious and and then of course you know later in his life, his attempt to 13 00:01:41.220 --> 00:01:54.720 William Souder: To translate or or rejuvenate Mallory in some sort of modern lexicon or syntax that he didn't complete in his lifetime, and was very frustrated by 14 00:01:55.530 --> 00:02:11.130 William Souder: But there's a very telling letter that he wrote, so he had gone to England to work on this project and and he'd written a little bit, and he and he said back to his to his editor and his agent in New York, and he heard right away from 15 00:02:12.420 --> 00:02:22.590 William Souder: From his agent who didn't like it at all. And, and, of course, Steinbeck was was upset about this and he wrote back and said, 16 00:02:24.510 --> 00:02:39.120 William Souder: I don't think I can give up on this. He said there's there's something terribly sad in the story. I just know there is. And I think when I read that letter, a lot of things kind of fell into place for me. 17 00:02:41.280 --> 00:02:58.320 William Souder: Steinbeck's great talent was to deploy this empathy that he can deploy for people who were otherwise displace dispossessed invisible marginalized. They show up again and again in many of his books. 18 00:03:01.680 --> 00:03:07.380 William Souder: Once Steinbeck tried to write the grapes of wrath. Initially he started out with a different book and a different approach. It was he was 19 00:03:07.740 --> 00:03:17.010 William Souder: initially thought it was a story about the landowners and the techniques that they were using the vigilante groups and other other means, they were using to kind of keep the migrants under control. 20 00:03:17.700 --> 00:03:26.580 William Souder: And he couldn't make that book work and he finally tore it up and and it only fell into place as The Grapes of Wrath when he kind of turned the telescope around and 21 00:03:27.120 --> 00:03:40.860 William Souder: And and looked in the other direction at the migrants and realized that they were the story and that that was the frame of reference. And so the job family comes into existence. Well, I think that that Steinbeck's interest in 22 00:03:43.560 --> 00:03:53.820 William Souder: Life difficult chapters and how they play out in people who aren't often noticed and often aren't heard from was kind of the key to understanding 23 00:03:54.840 --> 00:04:04.800 William Souder: How he worked. Now as the title suggests, he also had this innate anger at in justice at he hated bullies. He hated anybody being taken advantage of. 24 00:04:05.910 --> 00:04:07.890 William Souder: He hated people that were more powerful. 25 00:04:09.060 --> 00:04:19.440 William Souder: Than the rest of us. And so that was a big part of it, but I really think that it was his affinity for for human suffering. 26 00:04:21.030 --> 00:04:27.810 William Souder: Even if the humans who were suffering didn't perceive themselves as being particularly unfortunate and so 27 00:04:28.860 --> 00:04:35.070 William Souder: That that sort of surprised me. I mean, very early on, I've kind of have that title for this book. Almost from the beginning. 28 00:04:35.850 --> 00:04:42.270 William Souder: Because I thought that that was really important understanding his best work is most important and most enduring work which kind of grew out of 29 00:04:43.170 --> 00:04:51.420 William Souder: The social injustices and economic and Justices of the the catastrophe that was the great depression that was clear to me but 30 00:04:52.350 --> 00:05:00.240 William Souder: This kind of feeling that I think he had in the pit of the stomach for people that caused him to appreciate them in a way that most of us don't 31 00:05:00.690 --> 00:05:09.540 William Souder: I think that was probably what the maybe the thing that I learned that was I think the most, the most telling you know there's a there's a wonderful scene and 32 00:05:10.290 --> 00:05:24.240 William Souder: Cannery Row where doc says, Why is it that all the character characteristics that we tend not to like, and people read Self centeredness. 33 00:05:24.960 --> 00:05:41.250 William Souder: meanness selfishness exploited the willingness to exploit others. Why are those the keys to success when all of the things that we tend to value generosity loyalty honesty guilelessness innocence. 34 00:05:42.300 --> 00:05:50.280 William Souder: Tend to be the things that mark you for failure in life. And I think he saw that equation as a fundamentally sad proposition. 35 00:05:52.500 --> 00:05:56.130 Nicholas Taylor: I wonder if that was part of the sadness. He saw on the more Arthur 36 00:05:57.540 --> 00:06:00.060 William Souder: I think it more darker. That was part of it, but I think that 37 00:06:01.140 --> 00:06:04.290 William Souder: You know, he also felt that it's it's 38 00:06:06.840 --> 00:06:17.730 William Souder: humankind's destiny to fall short, and even the greatest strongest, most Virtuous Night was destined to kind of fall short, in whatever 39 00:06:18.360 --> 00:06:30.570 William Souder: Quest was that issue, and he certainly felt that was his own life. He felt that writers are like nights, they are on a quest for the perfect story. The perfect novel. 40 00:06:31.800 --> 00:06:40.500 William Souder: The perfect phrasing that you could never quite made you all what you're destined to fall short and and always to fall short. 41 00:06:41.580 --> 00:06:43.230 William Souder: As just as you run out of time. 42 00:06:45.780 --> 00:07:02.490 Nicholas Taylor: I now, this may be I may be too close to the subject here given my job, but I tend to think of Steinbeck as having different phases like Elvis. You know, there's like young Elvis there's there's old Elvis Sag Harbor Steinbeck you know 43 00:07:02.550 --> 00:07:02.910 Yeah. 44 00:07:04.080 --> 00:07:21.480 Nicholas Taylor: And I thought you did such a great job i mean i i thought you did a great job with the entire chronology. But I was especially captivated by the the your narration of his struggles as a as a beginning writer, not only 45 00:07:22.500 --> 00:07:32.610 Nicholas Taylor: In high school, and at Stanford, but also in that period in New York when he moved there. And then, of course, when he moved back to California after that. 46 00:07:34.650 --> 00:07:38.010 Nicholas Taylor: And I think what made that aspect of the book. So 47 00:07:39.060 --> 00:07:46.260 Nicholas Taylor: So affecting to me is that you also described the incredible rise of his career. 48 00:07:47.610 --> 00:08:03.690 Nicholas Taylor: Well, you know, if in fact you describe this five years, beginning with tortilla flat. So in 1935 you call that the most productive period for any American writer, which is, that's quite a statement. You want to talk us through that. 49 00:08:03.780 --> 00:08:07.620 William Souder: Well, if you look at the books from one year to the next, you have 50 00:08:08.880 --> 00:08:19.380 William Souder: tortilla flat and dubious Battle Of Mice and Men. The Long Valley, which assembles his stories and then the grapes of wrath. So from 1935 to 1939 51 00:08:20.670 --> 00:08:30.150 William Souder: Every year Steinbeck delivered a book that just kind of took readers by storm. It was a tour de force. 52 00:08:32.670 --> 00:08:49.620 William Souder: There's no doubt that other writers have had very, very productive fertile periods. I just think it is striking that he was able to go from one year to the next. Just kind of dazzling readers and critics. I was really interested in that. 53 00:08:50.850 --> 00:08:58.860 William Souder: Even though you know he's big success in his, you know, mid 30s, but but at the same time did have this kind of long apprenticeship. 54 00:08:59.370 --> 00:09:09.570 William Souder: And there are a bunch of reasons for that. It's just the way he was wired. It was the way he was put together the way that he was made as a writer. It took him a while to find his way. 55 00:09:10.170 --> 00:09:18.810 William Souder: But some other factors that go into that are that one. He missed the war. So he was not a casualty and by casualty. I mean, 56 00:09:19.410 --> 00:09:31.230 William Souder: Not so much in the literal sense, but in the kind of metaphorical sense. It wasn't a casualty of the cataclysm of the Great War as the last generation writers were he hadn't seen 57 00:09:32.340 --> 00:09:47.370 William Souder: He has kind of literary lineage sort of jerked out from underneath them ripped away in the same way that Fitzgerald and and some of his contemporaries had and so Steinbeck had to kind of, and he was he was on the west coast. 58 00:09:48.660 --> 00:10:00.030 William Souder: You know, he was he was a Western writer. He was isolated from what was happening in New York and what was happening in Europe, and so he had to find he had to make his own way. 59 00:10:00.750 --> 00:10:10.020 William Souder: And it took him a while to figure out what way that was going to be, you know, for for Hemingway and for Fitzgerald does pass us 60 00:10:10.380 --> 00:10:20.550 William Souder: It just seemed the most natural thing in the world to kind of reinvent literature out of this kind of rubble that they were kind of kicking around and after the war and 61 00:10:21.720 --> 00:10:32.700 William Souder: And by finding the best their own best subjects were themselves and and Steinbeck didn't see it that way for a long time. The first book was about pirates. So 62 00:10:34.470 --> 00:10:37.080 William Souder: He didn't naturally fall into 63 00:10:38.820 --> 00:10:53.820 William Souder: This category post war writer, that was so important to literature, the time. And so he was he was an outlier and but he was, but he was an interesting outlier. And when he found his way. 64 00:10:55.080 --> 00:11:10.350 William Souder: I think he occupied a very unique niche in in American letters during that time. And that's another reason why that those books of the 1930s are so striking nobody else was doing anything quite like that. And, at least not among 65 00:11:11.430 --> 00:11:15.000 William Souder: Major novelists and short story writers are certainly people writing 66 00:11:16.350 --> 00:11:20.160 William Souder: Works of social protest. I don't mean to minimize that, but 67 00:11:22.950 --> 00:11:30.660 William Souder: Really nobody so much in the mainstream that Steinbeck was that was interested in what was actually happening on the ground. 68 00:11:31.830 --> 00:11:33.150 William Souder: In the depths of the depression. 69 00:11:34.530 --> 00:11:45.030 Nicholas Taylor: So on the call. We have a lot of a lot of scholars. A lot of people whose work I admire and read and and so I want to nerd out for a minute, if you'll let me 70 00:11:46.050 --> 00:11:48.210 Nicholas Taylor: I, I really enjoyed 71 00:11:49.350 --> 00:12:06.900 Nicholas Taylor: The your, your style of citation and notes in this book, I, I found it to be incredibly clean and readable, that the way that your notes were listed by page at the end, but they weren't called out with with 72 00:12:08.310 --> 00:12:22.710 Nicholas Taylor: With numbers or footnotes or anything within the text. And so, it allowed you to read without interruption. But if you wanted to know where you found these facts or anecdotes, it was so easy to find in the back of the book, I 73 00:12:23.490 --> 00:12:37.890 Nicholas Taylor: I think we should all use this technique. I think it's tremendous and and coupled with the extensive Bibliography that you've included here. I think this is a kind of book that I would like to assign to students. 74 00:12:39.600 --> 00:12:42.570 Nicholas Taylor: For its structure and format as much as for the 75 00:12:44.160 --> 00:12:45.660 Nicholas Taylor: For the content. 76 00:12:47.400 --> 00:12:49.200 Nicholas Taylor: Did you come up with this. Where did you find 77 00:12:49.200 --> 00:12:50.370 William Souder: That out. Now this is 78 00:12:50.820 --> 00:13:06.360 William Souder: Actually pretty, it's just, it's exactly the way it did book in the Audubon and and and Carson biographies and it's pretty standard among biographers it's a I believe it's called the following phrase, so there's a little italicized phrase that 79 00:13:06.360 --> 00:13:06.780 William Souder: Tells me 80 00:13:06.810 --> 00:13:07.440 William Souder: What what 81 00:13:08.580 --> 00:13:19.290 William Souder: Passage is being referred to in the text, I can tell you that I know a lot of biographers and we all share one common trait which is that when we look at 82 00:13:19.890 --> 00:13:34.710 William Souder: A Biography by someone some other writer, the very first thing we look at is the back of the book we go right to the acknowledgments. We go right to the bibliography. We go right to the notes because that's where you show your work and and 83 00:13:35.760 --> 00:13:46.530 William Souder: Their gold mine of information. But I think what you want to do with a book like this is which is intended for a general audience, but which is also intended to 84 00:13:47.700 --> 00:13:56.970 William Souder: Is also based on, you know, serious research. I think you want to leave a breadcrumb trail for anybody that is going to read it in the future and 85 00:13:58.470 --> 00:14:02.430 William Souder: Have some thought about how to use the material that's in there where it came from. 86 00:14:03.930 --> 00:14:17.970 William Souder: And and you also want to let people know that, you know, you don't. You didn't invent the stuff you actually, you actually have sources for what you're saying. And so it's a pretty standard way of doing it. I agree. It's very 87 00:14:19.920 --> 00:14:27.750 William Souder: Accessible and I don't like the idea of footnotes and I'm in a book like this, they're fine and in other kinds of books, but 88 00:14:29.010 --> 00:14:30.570 William Souder: To have super numerals and 89 00:14:30.570 --> 00:14:31.440 Nicholas Taylor: Attacks or 90 00:14:31.980 --> 00:14:40.920 William Souder: Footnotes at the bottom. I think would would interrupt the reader, if you if you'll bear with me for just very brief, I'll tell you a quick story that 91 00:14:42.120 --> 00:14:50.070 William Souder: May amuse, some of you because it absolutely horrifies my colleagues, but the way I do these notes is 92 00:14:51.210 --> 00:14:56.430 William Souder: Most people most biographers use their software programs. You can use it will keep track of. 93 00:14:57.090 --> 00:15:14.010 William Souder: Citations or at a minimum, people kind of as they go. Are you know putting down the citations. I've never been able to do that. I don't, I can't stop writing to you know make a note about where I got the information from I just don't do it. 94 00:15:15.060 --> 00:15:20.520 William Souder: It interrupts the flow. And I just, I don't like to be interrupted. So I write the entire book. 95 00:15:21.060 --> 00:15:26.190 William Souder: I worked from the I worked from the sources. I'm looking at the lettering question at the time, but I'm not making a note about it. 96 00:15:26.670 --> 00:15:43.530 William Souder: And when the book is done, and I've gone through at least once with my editor to make sure that it's kind of in semi final form, then I go back to page one, print it out and I highlight the first fact that needs a citation and then I go find that I go find out a letter I go find 97 00:15:43.530 --> 00:15:44.880 Nicholas Taylor: Fact, check your own book. 98 00:15:45.120 --> 00:15:48.000 William Souder: I fact check my own book. It takes about a month. 99 00:15:48.960 --> 00:15:50.100 Nicholas Taylor: That's it. Well, 100 00:15:50.130 --> 00:15:50.820 William Souder: About a month. 101 00:15:51.210 --> 00:15:53.280 William Souder: And it's grueling and 102 00:15:53.280 --> 00:15:59.820 William Souder: Again, when I tell them the biographers I could do it that way. They're absolutely horrified. They can't imagine, but 103 00:16:01.890 --> 00:16:03.750 William Souder: It allows me to write the book, the way I want to 104 00:16:03.780 --> 00:16:13.770 William Souder: Do. Yeah, first time through. And as you just suggested it is a an invaluable fact checking device because no matter how scrupulous you are 105 00:16:14.310 --> 00:16:28.080 William Souder: You make little mistakes you confuse dates or something. And so it's a it's a second chance. And we all need second chances. And in book writing to get things right. And so that's how you do it, it's cumbersome but but it works. 106 00:16:28.470 --> 00:16:34.260 Nicholas Taylor: Thanks for sharing that that's really fascinating to know that process. I 107 00:16:36.510 --> 00:16:42.030 Nicholas Taylor: It kind of leads me to another question that I wanted to ask you about sourcing, which is 108 00:16:45.120 --> 00:16:56.700 Nicholas Taylor: as you went along. Was there a period of Steinbeck's life that you wished had been better documented or for wish for which you wish there had been better sources. 109 00:16:57.990 --> 00:16:59.670 William Souder: Of why I don't think so, you know, 110 00:17:01.230 --> 00:17:16.740 William Souder: It's always true that the you know the early days, or that the documentation is the thinnest, you know, when money is quite young, and a lot of not much as survive that he that he wrote when he was, you know, in grade school and high school 111 00:17:18.690 --> 00:17:21.150 William Souder: So it might have been nicer. However, 112 00:17:22.620 --> 00:17:42.720 William Souder: At the at the National Steinbeck center in Salinas, there is a very unusual resource and it is this huge collection of recorded interviews that were done mostly in the 1970s, early 1980s by a librarian at the Salinas Public Library name calling. Pearson and Pauling was a 113 00:17:43.920 --> 00:17:59.820 William Souder: Great as a fan of john Steinbeck and very knowledgeable person about Steinbeck's life and work and she made it her business to interview people that had known john Steinbeck and grew up with john Steinbeck while they were still alive. And so there are 114 00:18:01.500 --> 00:18:07.650 William Souder: I think hundreds of interviews that are on tape there. They've never been transcribed. If you want to know what's in them. You gotta listen to them. 115 00:18:08.160 --> 00:18:19.230 William Souder: And I spent months listening to them. I ended up with 100 single spaced pages of notes from those interviews about 50,000 words. 116 00:18:20.040 --> 00:18:34.200 William Souder: In a Word document that were taken from those recordings. And so, and these in many cases where people who know john Steinbeck when when they were in grade school and and as well as later on. So there was actually pretty good. 117 00:18:35.490 --> 00:18:43.800 William Souder: Material on his early life later in life john Steinbeck rarely let a day go by. They didn't write two or three letters to people. 118 00:18:44.250 --> 00:18:57.210 William Souder: And many of them, most of them probably have been preserved and and are archived and well curated at places like the cost center at Stanford at Berkeley in Salinas, and 119 00:18:58.890 --> 00:19:02.010 William Souder: And and there's also a wonderful collection of 120 00:19:03.060 --> 00:19:11.910 William Souder: Us editors of correspondence at the University of Texas down in Austin. And so I never felt like there wasn't 121 00:19:13.620 --> 00:19:21.480 William Souder: Enough. It was more. It was more occasionally a feeling that there might be too much almost more than you can handle. 122 00:19:22.770 --> 00:19:28.500 William Souder: But that was great. And it was it was. It's a wonderful resource. And so no, I didn't feel like it was a part of his life that 123 00:19:30.060 --> 00:19:37.020 William Souder: I couldn't access because it just didn't have the material and I was very fortunate in that I was allowed to read 124 00:19:38.820 --> 00:19:40.560 William Souder: Tony highlights collection of 125 00:19:42.570 --> 00:19:51.720 William Souder: His letters to a sister Mary Decker and and those were great and other scholars seen those but not very many. And so that was 126 00:19:52.800 --> 00:19:54.390 William Souder: That was, that was really great. 127 00:19:55.680 --> 00:20:06.630 Nicholas Taylor: Yeah, I was gonna say that I wanted to commend you on using those to those exact two sources. The Tony hyler letters from Mary Decker and or to marry Decker, and the 128 00:20:07.050 --> 00:20:17.130 Nicholas Taylor: The audio recordings at the National Steinbeck Center. I mean, the amount of diligence that you put into uncovering new sources is 129 00:20:18.660 --> 00:20:24.870 Nicholas Taylor: It's not what you would expect from a general interest nonfiction book. 130 00:20:25.710 --> 00:20:40.710 Nicholas Taylor: I mean that, with all respect, just, it's, it's the kind of intense scholarship that people in this world that the you know the academic scholarship world admire tremendously and understand deeply 131 00:20:41.250 --> 00:20:41.820 William Souder: Well, I 132 00:20:42.480 --> 00:20:51.240 William Souder: Really try you try to look in every possible direction. And I think it's Robert Carroll, who said that 133 00:20:51.870 --> 00:20:58.890 William Souder: The one thing a biographer has to do is make sure that he or she always turns the page, you should never skip anything 134 00:20:59.340 --> 00:21:11.310 William Souder: Never bypass something because you never know what you're going to find and in that letter that looks inconsequential and unimportant. And just like the last 20 letters that you read and there are there are big parts of 135 00:21:11.850 --> 00:21:24.630 William Souder: Steinbeck's paper trail that are like that, you know, in the when he and Elaine were traveling to Europe, you know, a couple times a year in the 1950s, there, there are these sort of travel letters from from fancy hotels all over the world that 136 00:21:26.220 --> 00:21:37.830 William Souder: They're all sort of similar and yet each one is is distinct from the other. So I read them all at least skim them all and to see what was in them and 137 00:21:38.970 --> 00:21:43.140 William Souder: Yeah, that's that kind of comes with I think that comes with the territory. If you're doing it right. 138 00:21:43.770 --> 00:21:51.930 Nicholas Taylor: Yeah, well, I want to invite people to put a note in the chat. Just right question. If you'd like to meet a call on you to 139 00:21:52.860 --> 00:22:08.010 Nicholas Taylor: To ask a question. And I want to start off with a question that was sent to me ahead of time from Dr Lim boozy in Congo and his question was, is this having gone through Steinbeck's life and work, what can 140 00:22:09.090 --> 00:22:13.440 Nicholas Taylor: What can you maintain in the end about Steinbeck's relation to racism. 141 00:22:18.600 --> 00:22:19.890 William Souder: Well, I think, like, 142 00:22:21.120 --> 00:22:26.250 William Souder: I think like a number of American writers in the mid 20th century. 143 00:22:27.420 --> 00:22:38.520 William Souder: Is a really fraught question because he's aware of the of the place that racism holds, not just in contemporary society, but in the 144 00:22:38.910 --> 00:22:58.200 William Souder: Kind of foundational history of the country, it's, it's our original sin. It's the unpardonable act that lives under you know underlies everything that America has striven to accomplish, you know, since it's since its founding and and before. And so I think that he is 145 00:22:59.820 --> 00:23:14.850 William Souder: I think like, like many American writers, he's he's, he understands this, and at the same time, mostly doesn't address it head on. You know, the probably the most sort of literal attempt to 146 00:23:15.960 --> 00:23:20.700 William Souder: Kind of lay bare the situation is, you know, the scene and travels with Charlie when he 147 00:23:21.840 --> 00:23:23.040 William Souder: Kind of visits. This 148 00:23:24.240 --> 00:23:27.720 William Souder: Anti integration rally and in New Orleans and 149 00:23:30.030 --> 00:23:36.420 William Souder: Pretty specifically reports on the kind of the vile attitude that that is present in that 150 00:23:37.800 --> 00:23:44.760 William Souder: He doesn't turn the same vision toward New York. I don't think or 151 00:23:46.560 --> 00:23:47.250 William Souder: Or really 152 00:23:49.050 --> 00:23:53.070 William Souder: Anywhere in his work in quite that literal kind of direct 153 00:23:54.540 --> 00:23:57.900 William Souder: You know, frontal way so 154 00:23:59.790 --> 00:24:02.250 William Souder: I never know how to answer this question because I think that 155 00:24:04.950 --> 00:24:10.800 William Souder: It's not as it's not a subject that seems to be central in his work. 156 00:24:12.960 --> 00:24:23.370 William Souder: You know, even when he's writing about non white people as he does in a tortilla flat. I don't think he I know he is addressing that as a 157 00:24:24.510 --> 00:24:36.900 William Souder: Kind of a racial equation. I think that he's fascinated by the pies Donald's because he's fascinated by these people that are part of a meal you that is intrinsic to his life and so 158 00:24:37.950 --> 00:24:41.160 William Souder: I don't think he avoids the subject, I don't think that he 159 00:24:42.180 --> 00:24:46.290 William Souder: I don't think that he approaches it very directly, except maybe in that 160 00:24:47.310 --> 00:24:53.520 William Souder: Passage and travels with Charlie and I know that's not a very satisfactory answer, I suppose. 161 00:24:54.600 --> 00:25:03.180 William Souder: The real answer is that the failure to address it more. He had on maybe says more about Steinbeck in the time he lived in than 162 00:25:03.570 --> 00:25:12.810 William Souder: Anything that he kind of overtly attempted to write about it, but it's a hard question. And I feel I don't have a good answer to it. Maybe that's because there isn't one. 163 00:25:15.210 --> 00:25:26.190 Nicholas Taylor: I have a question from Mike CURTIS Who went ahead and type the question into the chat. So I'll just read it to john Steinbeck ever comment about the internment of Japanese Americans during World War Two. 164 00:25:26.730 --> 00:25:27.900 William Souder: Yeah, he did. You know, 165 00:25:29.790 --> 00:25:31.320 William Souder: Ed records was really 166 00:25:33.000 --> 00:25:34.260 William Souder: Upset about what happened to 167 00:25:35.340 --> 00:25:47.040 William Souder: Japanese Americans during, during the war, and they were both in but now Steinbeck was in New York at the time, but he was aware of what Ricketts was doing records was organizing 168 00:25:48.870 --> 00:25:58.560 William Souder: To protest this and and in wrote about it and recognize that this has been a tremendous and justice, and I know that he communicated with with Steinbeck about it was certainly 169 00:25:59.460 --> 00:26:14.010 William Souder: Certainly will disagree, but he was he was on the East Coast at the time. So he was kind of separated from what was happening in California, but I certainly knew about it and and he knew that Ricketts was particularly upset about it. Yeah. 170 00:26:15.030 --> 00:26:28.560 Nicholas Taylor: Kevin hurl has a question. Some biographers attend intentionally introduced one or two inaccuracies in order to trip up future scholars who might use their work without citing them appropriately. Did you do that. 171 00:26:29.520 --> 00:26:35.340 William Souder: Well I, I will. I am going to confess right away that I've never heard that before. 172 00:26:35.820 --> 00:26:36.420 William Souder: I think it 173 00:26:36.480 --> 00:26:37.620 William Souder: I think it is. 174 00:26:39.660 --> 00:26:45.600 William Souder: Well, that's that i guess i i've never heard that said before, I don't know anything about that. 175 00:26:46.680 --> 00:26:53.820 William Souder: I did not do that. And I wonder what you know what would be the purpose. I mean, where's the satisfaction of knowing that you've 176 00:26:54.240 --> 00:27:05.490 William Souder: fouled up another, you know, hard working biographer at some point in the future. I don't. I'm a little skeptical of that i i do you have an example that we know of anybody that's actually done this. 177 00:27:06.720 --> 00:27:10.680 Nicholas Taylor: I don't know, maybe if you have an example, Kevin. 178 00:27:11.940 --> 00:27:18.300 Nicholas Taylor: Throw it into the chat. We'll come back to it. Nick Martinez has a question Nick. Hey, thanks. 179 00:27:18.570 --> 00:27:23.280 Nick Martinez: First of all, thanks for coming, talking to all of us. I read the book. This week I really enjoyed it. 180 00:27:24.570 --> 00:27:26.910 Nick Martinez: And I'm not coming from a, I would say. 181 00:27:27.960 --> 00:27:37.350 Nick Martinez: A very academic background I do teach at the university but I'm on the film side. That's what I teach, and I've always been a lover of Steinbeck I was reading the book. And one of the things that I noticed 182 00:27:38.610 --> 00:27:44.370 Nick Martinez: Was, you had a comment. You had a passage in the book. It talks about Fitzgerald and Hemingway being in Paris. 183 00:27:44.910 --> 00:27:55.110 Nick Martinez: And how they were in Paris, because that's the, you know, that's where it was okay to be poor or not have a lot of money and this lifestyle but john never did that. Do you think 184 00:27:55.440 --> 00:28:00.690 Nick Martinez: I immediately as soon as I heard you say that I thought you might follow up on it, but in my head. The first thing I thought was 185 00:28:01.260 --> 00:28:11.790 Nick Martinez: Was that what gave him his advantage that he stayed in America as a writer, as someone who's trying to develop his voice, and that's why he connected so much with the American people. 186 00:28:12.960 --> 00:28:18.510 Nick Martinez: And in really he could get the language down because he was living here. I was just wondering what your thoughts were on that. 187 00:28:19.050 --> 00:28:27.840 William Souder: Yeah, I think that's right. That's sort of what I was alluding to before, but talking about how Steinbeck had to kind of make his own way sort of define his own 188 00:28:28.560 --> 00:28:40.890 William Souder: Place in American literature, because he was not part of this kind of a lost generation movement. It was his professor at Stanford. These merlis was his 189 00:28:41.340 --> 00:28:55.590 William Souder: Favorite writing instructor at Stanford who told him he should think about, you know, moving to Europe because everything was cheap there and it was no shame to be poor. But then, of course, when 190 00:28:56.700 --> 00:29:03.270 William Souder: The bottom fell out of the economy and the Great Depression worse. And then everybody was broken. There was no shame in it at all. And so 191 00:29:04.350 --> 00:29:15.660 William Souder: The motivation for leaving wasn't there, you know, for for Hemingway and Fitzgerald. There was a there was a lifestyle in Europe that they appreciated, you know, 192 00:29:16.830 --> 00:29:25.320 William Souder: There was no prob. There was no prohibition in Europe. So you could you could drink freely there although you could drink pretty freely in America too, but it was more 193 00:29:25.740 --> 00:29:41.610 William Souder: Out in the open, I guess. And, but it wasn't expensive to do that, but I think you're absolutely right. I think that I think Steinbeck did gain some special leverage by virtue of the fact that he was not he was not part of that club and and as I said it earlier. 194 00:29:44.070 --> 00:29:52.650 William Souder: For a long time Steinbeck wasn't sure what to write about. And it took him a while to find his way. And when he realized what he could write about were 195 00:29:53.790 --> 00:30:07.020 William Souder: Were people that he understood and heard that a lot of other people didn't understand and didn't hear. And I think that I think that he was home free them and 196 00:30:08.610 --> 00:30:20.190 William Souder: So yeah, the fact that he missed the war he missed going to Europe, I think probably contributed. Usually you know enormously to success and he is finding his way. 197 00:30:22.530 --> 00:30:26.610 Nicholas Taylor: So next up is Jeremiah Davis Jeremiah do question. 198 00:30:27.330 --> 00:30:36.900 Jeremiah Davis: Yes, thank you. Ah, first, Mr solder. Thank you for doing this and I'm from Minnesota, so I can empathize with your conversation about that the snow. 199 00:30:37.950 --> 00:30:47.160 Jeremiah Davis: I wanted to ask, so what do you make of the academic reception of Steinbeck were there seems to be waves of interest, followed by periods of 200 00:30:47.880 --> 00:31:04.020 Jeremiah Davis: Popular academic opinion kind of viewing him as like a high school writer, where there's there's times where he's he's hot. And then there's times where he's not and there there's he's not as widely loved as maybe that people here would would like 201 00:31:06.330 --> 00:31:13.290 William Souder: Well, this is, this is one of the big questions and problems around Steinbeck and 202 00:31:14.430 --> 00:31:15.300 William Souder: There are 203 00:31:16.350 --> 00:31:23.970 William Souder: Very there was a famous, famous episode, I think it was 1989 what yeah what have been the 50th anniversary of the grapes of wrath and it was the 204 00:31:24.930 --> 00:31:35.670 William Souder: It was the, the National Steinbeck center was doing their annual festival and they invited Leslie Fiedler one of the foremost critics in the country to come and give the keynote address and 205 00:31:36.630 --> 00:31:46.830 William Souder: feelers stood up and horrified and annoyed, and in general pissed off the entire crowd by saying that Steinbeck was 206 00:31:47.340 --> 00:32:03.840 William Souder: His work was middlebrow Schlock and anybody who enjoyed reading john Steinbeck had a second rate mind. This is the keynote address at the annual Steinbeck festival. And I think that little story illustrates the depth of the animosity that 207 00:32:05.190 --> 00:32:18.240 William Souder: A significant portion of the academic community has towards john Steinbeck, which I think is undeserved and unfortunate and hard to explain, other than as a kind of snobbery and 208 00:32:19.740 --> 00:32:25.590 William Souder: You mentioned sign that kind of going in and out of fashion in academia. I think he's mostly out of fashion. 209 00:32:26.850 --> 00:32:43.620 William Souder: But I can tell you, and I want to, I want to alert everyone that there is a wonderful new book I've had a chance to read the galleys on that's coming from a Stanford professor and Gavin Jones and I think it will be out next year that I think is going to go a long way towards 210 00:32:45.360 --> 00:32:50.850 William Souder: Enhancing Steinbeck's reputation in academia and it may finally convince 211 00:32:52.020 --> 00:33:01.770 William Souder: Some college literature professors that he's worth teaching in college, not, not just in in middle school Steinbeck's crime. 212 00:33:03.120 --> 00:33:05.610 William Souder: Is that he is for many 213 00:33:06.900 --> 00:33:11.700 William Souder: American school kids. The first serious writer, they encounter. 214 00:33:12.780 --> 00:33:25.710 William Souder: You know, often in middle school, often with works like the red pony or or the pearl or mice and men are sometimes. The Grapes of Wrath maybe more in high school and so 215 00:33:27.450 --> 00:33:29.430 William Souder: He tends to be kind of 216 00:33:30.720 --> 00:33:33.210 William Souder: Left Behind, you know, in the amber of 217 00:33:34.530 --> 00:33:39.450 William Souder: Childhood Education for a lot of people, and I don't think that's right. I don't know why that is. 218 00:33:40.530 --> 00:33:44.820 William Souder: But it's, it's the case and so 219 00:33:46.410 --> 00:33:50.640 William Souder: Steinbeck's reputation is is in flux. 220 00:33:51.780 --> 00:34:07.560 William Souder: But I think it may be taking a turn for the better. If I'd helped it along with a little push, that would be great. But I think that Professor Jones. This book is going to go a long ways, and next year. So I commend it to all of you. I don't know what the final title is but 221 00:34:08.970 --> 00:34:11.670 William Souder: The working title is I was reclaiming Steinbeck so 222 00:34:12.660 --> 00:34:21.720 Nicholas Taylor: Great William Gilly asks the passage you read from Cannery Row about good versus bad qualities is an almost verbatim passage from Sea of Cortez 223 00:34:22.350 --> 00:34:32.340 Nicholas Taylor: Many of Steinbeck's ideas, including non teleological thinking are also embedded in grapes of wrath. Did you come across any other examples like this and you're reading and research. 224 00:34:34.080 --> 00:34:36.300 William Souder: Well, thank you, Dr. Kelly. 225 00:34:37.590 --> 00:34:49.680 William Souder: Bill galeas is a good friend of mine. I spent a lot of time with him when I was working on California and nobody knows more about the Gulf of California then then Kelly does 226 00:34:50.850 --> 00:35:08.790 William Souder: I don't know if I did. Now, what I will say, just to expand on what you just mentioned the, you know, there is this famous, famous passage and Sea of Cortez the the Easter Sunday sermon when when Ed Ricketts according to the according to the narrative. 227 00:35:10.530 --> 00:35:19.890 William Souder: The entire crew sort of hung over from the night before and but they're having a kind of philosophical discussion on the decks of the Western flair. Kind of like 228 00:35:20.790 --> 00:35:33.960 William Souder: Kinda like Socrates and his buddies in the symposium right so that's that's another hung over party that gets into very deep, deep water anyway records, it goes through this whole sort of non teleological 229 00:35:35.490 --> 00:35:45.420 William Souder: Thinking lecture which most of you probably know as a kind of promo existential concept that that the basic idea is 230 00:35:45.900 --> 00:36:02.160 William Souder: That the most important word in in comprehending our existence is simply is, we, we are things are and and although the universe changes and evolves. It doesn't strive towards some purpose and 231 00:36:04.260 --> 00:36:13.500 William Souder: Assign back presents that's in Sea of Cortez as if it actually happened. And in fact it didn't. That whole passage is lifted directly from an essay that 232 00:36:14.100 --> 00:36:22.770 William Souder: Ricketts had had written and Steinbeck borrowed it was one of several that he could have used, and that's the, that's the one he chose so 233 00:36:24.330 --> 00:36:27.870 William Souder: But to to Professor Gillies point 234 00:36:29.070 --> 00:36:39.660 William Souder: There are many things that appear many themes and characters that appear over and over again and Steinbeck and records is in at least four or five of his books. 235 00:36:40.740 --> 00:36:59.940 William Souder: Into of in three of them in dubious battle Cannery Row and sweet Thursday as a character named doc and and so as time goes a great recycler and and enjoyed kind of referencing his own work from one book to the next. 236 00:37:01.140 --> 00:37:07.860 Nicholas Taylor: So just to clean up a couple of loose ends here. Kevin hurl replied about this is about the historian who left 237 00:37:08.130 --> 00:37:21.480 Nicholas Taylor: Yes, it's deliberately in their work. He said jack Benson did in his biography of Steinbeck he wrote that Esther and Beth Steinbeck's to have Steinbeck's three sisters preceded him at Stanford, when in fact they both graduated from Mills College. 238 00:37:23.340 --> 00:37:23.820 Nicholas Taylor: Anyhow, 239 00:37:25.260 --> 00:37:42.930 William Souder: Well, um, I guess. I don't know the answer. I do know that Esther went to Stanford. There are letters, letters from olive Steinbeck to Esther when when when Steinbeck's father lost his job that was concerned that Esther would not be able to stay 240 00:37:44.040 --> 00:37:51.300 William Souder: Excuse me at Stanford. And so her mother Raj reassure that that it would be okay. I believe she was talking about transferring to Berkeley. 241 00:37:52.350 --> 00:37:54.990 William Souder: The Mills College and kind of rings a bell and 242 00:37:56.820 --> 00:38:03.480 William Souder: So I don't know if that was intentional thing or not you know jack Benson and I really admire. 243 00:38:04.920 --> 00:38:21.510 William Souder: Professor Benson's book it's, it is the seminal cradle to grave. It's the Bible that we all rely on and refer to it and it's great and I i looked at a fair amount of his research material at the National Steinbeck center. And it's important to remember that. 244 00:38:22.620 --> 00:38:32.070 William Souder: That book, which I think took him 15 years right he had to do everything by letter and my phone call and by personal, personal interview. I mean, it's not like 245 00:38:33.000 --> 00:38:39.330 William Souder: You know, today you're just a couple of keystrokes away from finding out stuff, but it wasn't that way back in 246 00:38:39.990 --> 00:38:51.150 William Souder: In the late 60s and 1970s when he was getting going on this, he had to actually write letters and wait for the mail to come back, find out things. So it's a it's a tour de force of research. 247 00:38:51.900 --> 00:39:01.500 William Souder: But he was also having to negotiate with the estate and with family as to what he couldn't couldn't put in and and so it wouldn't surprise me if and 248 00:39:02.790 --> 00:39:14.610 William Souder: Peak. He said, we decided to sort of you know plant a little something there for people to find in the future, just to kind of annoy everybody but but i don't know that to be the case. 249 00:39:15.270 --> 00:39:17.100 Nicholas Taylor: In software that's called an easter egg. 250 00:39:17.790 --> 00:39:19.230 Nicholas Taylor: Yeah, exactly. This is something 251 00:39:20.220 --> 00:39:24.840 Nicholas Taylor: Professor Luton Lee has a question. Blue Chen, would you like to ask a question. 252 00:39:27.960 --> 00:39:28.440 Luchen Li: Sure. 253 00:39:30.960 --> 00:39:39.330 Luchen Li: I feel it's great. I got the book here in friend that right in front of me. I don't know what they can see there or not. I got it actually yesterday, a friend of mine from California. 254 00:39:39.780 --> 00:39:50.190 Luchen Li: Who heard about the book in the media, apparently the book have made the big news so he bought it from Amazon is shipped to me. So I just got it. What time up to a gift, you're 255 00:39:50.490 --> 00:40:01.110 Luchen Li: Referring to. Yeah, it's great to hear you talk about the book at the beginning of our conversation tonight. You talk about that you, you said here I quote, The Steinbeck. It was really mad. 256 00:40:02.370 --> 00:40:12.090 Luchen Li: At people in power, as I think I that's what I heard, and also the top. The title of the book. It's a powerful one as well Steinbeck basic mad at the world, for example. 257 00:40:13.020 --> 00:40:25.050 Luchen Li: Could you elaborate a little bit about your perspective of how you came up to this with his conclusion. The standard was mad to the world. I do know he was quite method to Joseph Campbell and Hemingway. 258 00:40:25.500 --> 00:40:25.710 William Souder: Like 259 00:40:26.100 --> 00:40:26.910 Luchen Li: A different reason. 260 00:40:27.390 --> 00:40:29.010 Luchen Li: Yeah, and I also know he was 261 00:40:29.070 --> 00:40:41.850 Luchen Li: quite close to the three US presidents, for example, those were in power FDR JFK and I mean that Johnson, for example, Sola. Could you shed some light about your conclusion, how you came up with us, please. 262 00:40:41.850 --> 00:40:51.300 William Souder: Sure, sure. So when Steinbeck was in grade school. He lived across the street from another kid named Glenn graves and Glenn grades was a 263 00:40:51.930 --> 00:40:59.850 William Souder: Smaller boy and and he he got picked on a lot at school people teased him and and didn't treat it very nicely and Steinbeck befriended him. 264 00:41:00.570 --> 00:41:10.620 William Souder: And and when some of the other kids asked him about this and why you hanging out with Glenn. Nobody likes going and in Steinbeck's answer was, was really simply said 265 00:41:11.250 --> 00:41:21.360 William Souder: Somebody has to look out for him and he was probably eight or nine years old at the time. And so I think he was born with that sensibility that some 266 00:41:21.750 --> 00:41:35.550 William Souder: People are stronger than others. And it's that that that imbalance of power. It's so much that he didn't like or resented anybody who had power. What he didn't like was the exercise of power against 267 00:41:36.660 --> 00:41:53.100 William Souder: Another person or an institution that lacked or had less power and so that it was this sort of differential that was upsetting him. He didn't like bullies and and he particularly I think didn't like 268 00:41:54.690 --> 00:42:00.540 William Souder: What was happening in California in the 1930s that led to some of his greatest work you know he 269 00:42:02.970 --> 00:42:13.800 William Souder: He was appalled by what was happening to the migrants that had come from not just Oklahoma. But, but many, many other states in the middle part of the country to California here they were 270 00:42:14.970 --> 00:42:17.940 William Souder: A necessary part of the agricultural machine. 271 00:42:19.200 --> 00:42:38.190 William Souder: These were people that the big land owners and big farm interests absolutely needed, and yet those same land owners and corporate interests despise the migrants and abuse them terribly and you know it was a Steinbeck saw this vicious bargain. 272 00:42:39.570 --> 00:42:40.320 William Souder: By which 273 00:42:41.970 --> 00:42:46.170 William Souder: This kind of dream of the have a better life and 274 00:42:47.520 --> 00:42:59.430 William Souder: In California was was being sold was being peddled to people who were not sufficiently sophisticated to understand that they're being taken advantage of. And then wouldn't be true. 275 00:42:59.910 --> 00:43:10.860 William Souder: And that someone else someone else would profit by their lack of understanding. And so with that software itself what was happening with these these refugees. 276 00:43:12.060 --> 00:43:14.370 William Souder: He was, he was enraged 277 00:43:15.630 --> 00:43:25.620 William Souder: Many of them are living, not in nice camps, but in roadside ditches and absolute squalor, many of them are starving to death. And many of them were sick. 278 00:43:26.850 --> 00:43:29.580 William Souder: When when terrible floods came to 279 00:43:30.960 --> 00:43:36.960 William Souder: Parts of California in the mid 1930s and and these migrants were sort of living exposed to. 280 00:43:38.070 --> 00:43:39.390 William Souder: exposed to the elements 281 00:43:41.910 --> 00:43:50.370 William Souder: It was almost impossible to get any kind of help to them because the landowners wouldn't permit it. And so these things really drove Stein that to 282 00:43:52.740 --> 00:43:56.460 William Souder: To an extreme exasperate and extreme anger that 283 00:43:57.780 --> 00:43:59.940 William Souder: were central to how he 284 00:44:01.530 --> 00:44:22.410 William Souder: To how we approach, certainly. The Grapes of Wrath a book that he wrote in 100 days in a in this kind of fevered rush of of anger and so I Lucien, I hope that I love so much. And I hope that's answering your question a little bit. He didn't like seeing anybody get pushed around 285 00:44:23.550 --> 00:44:33.390 William Souder: And he had an unusual talent for empathizing with people who were being pushed around and he had an unusual ability 286 00:44:34.470 --> 00:44:35.970 William Souder: To speak with their voice. 287 00:44:36.990 --> 00:44:55.950 William Souder: When you, when you read the dialogue in tortilla flat when you read the dialogue and the grapes of wrath, you actually hear real people that for the most part, you never hear because they usually lack of voice and Steinbeck was their voice and he was an angry voice. 288 00:44:57.120 --> 00:45:04.500 Nicholas Taylor: So there's a comment here that just came in from Elaine graves. Thanks so much for mentioning my father Glenn graves. I'm Glenn grave. 289 00:45:04.530 --> 00:45:05.490 William Souder: Oh, that's wonderful. 290 00:45:05.580 --> 00:45:12.960 Nicholas Taylor: I was always been so proud of his childhood friendship with john Steinbeck I have not heard that story that he stood up for my father. Thank you. 291 00:45:14.280 --> 00:45:24.660 William Souder: Well I Glenn makes a number of appearances in the book. And that's all I'll say about it, but he is. He's a very important element in the story. 292 00:45:25.860 --> 00:45:29.340 Nicholas Taylor: And is he someone that you discovered through the tapes at the National Steinbeck center. 293 00:45:29.400 --> 00:45:39.330 William Souder: Yeah. Yes, he was interviewed by volume Pearson and he lived across the street from john Steinbeck and there was a 294 00:45:40.650 --> 00:45:44.100 William Souder: Woman who Carol late Carol robots who worked at 295 00:45:45.270 --> 00:45:59.730 William Souder: The Steinbeck center used to do these tours during the annual Steinbeck festival in which she would always make a stop at the graves house which is right across Central Avenue from the Steinbeck house the graves PLACE WAS A LITTLE BIT bit. They have a little bit of 296 00:46:01.140 --> 00:46:17.220 William Souder: Land attached to the house, apparently, and it was a place that was often referred to as people had these places they talked about them that say, yeah, a farm in town because they had a little bit, maybe they have some animals, I don't know, but it was a little bit more spacious 297 00:46:18.420 --> 00:46:21.480 Nicholas Taylor: So I want to go to Kathleen Hicks Kathleen. Do you have a question. 298 00:46:23.160 --> 00:46:41.070 Kathleen Hicks: Sure. Thank you. Hi, Mr. Solder thank you so much for doing this. My books on the way. I can't wait to get it. I'm going to try to sneak in two questions. The first one is very simple. I wanted to know if Steinbeck was familiar with Carson in her work and, secondly, 299 00:46:42.120 --> 00:46:48.660 Kathleen Hicks: You know I'm mega Steinbeck nerd. I want to say it's been part of my life for good 25 years now. He's almost become a 300 00:46:49.770 --> 00:47:06.180 Kathleen Hicks: Voice of my conscience and I can't tell you how many times recently I've said oh my god Steinbeck would be rolling over in his grave if he saw this or that. Would you comment on you know what you think he'd have to say to Americans today if he had the chance 301 00:47:06.750 --> 00:47:07.110 Yeah. 302 00:47:09.360 --> 00:47:19.650 William Souder: Well, let me take the first part first. I never came across any direct reference to Rachel Carson and a letter or anything else that Sam I grew up, however. 303 00:47:20.160 --> 00:47:35.250 William Souder: I can assure you that he would have known who Rachel Carson was and Steinbeck was a voracious reader. I'm sure he would have read her books about the ocean, you know, marine biology was close to his heart, he'd written a book about the ocean and himself and so 304 00:47:36.420 --> 00:47:45.600 William Souder: In the way that everybody in america new Rachel Carson was in the 1950s, he would have known that he would have certainly read her her books. 305 00:47:48.060 --> 00:47:53.310 William Souder: What would he say this is a question that comes up all the time. People would ask me, you know what what Rachel Carson say about 306 00:47:54.420 --> 00:47:56.460 William Souder: The world we live in now and and 307 00:47:58.560 --> 00:48:01.350 William Souder: And so it's an interesting thought exercise. 308 00:48:03.420 --> 00:48:05.100 William Souder: We are in a peculiar moment. 309 00:48:06.180 --> 00:48:07.500 William Souder: I mentioned earlier that 310 00:48:09.300 --> 00:48:17.490 William Souder: Steinbeck cannot abide a bully. And I think that without without starting a different kind of conversation. I'll just say that there's 311 00:48:18.060 --> 00:48:28.650 William Souder: A pretty good example, maybe a an example for the ages of a bully right now that we are dealing with that, I'm sure Steinbeck with disapprove of 312 00:48:29.190 --> 00:48:39.270 William Souder: And and be appalled by, I think that he, I think that john Steinbeck would would be puzzled by the state that the country is in 313 00:48:40.170 --> 00:48:48.930 William Souder: You know if when you read travels with Charlie or another book that he worked on called America and Americans Steinbeck had a 314 00:48:49.500 --> 00:49:01.800 William Souder: Kind of holistic view of the country. He thought and this sounds almost quaint. Now although you know just, it seems only a few years ago, this would have been kind of common sense, take 315 00:49:02.850 --> 00:49:14.340 William Souder: It seems it seems quaint that that we used to think that Americans have much more in common than then they have that separates them that are differences are much smaller. 316 00:49:15.150 --> 00:49:25.050 William Souder: And less consequential than our, our similarities that we are people that share a history in a perspective and a personality that is 317 00:49:25.710 --> 00:49:37.680 William Souder: That it has some universality to it. And of course, as we have learned recently, there are divisions in this country so deep that they appear to be insurmountable unbridgeable 318 00:49:38.160 --> 00:49:50.190 William Souder: And so I think Steinbeck would find this current moment that we're in, where the country is basically divided into tribal camps opposing tribal groups. 319 00:49:51.510 --> 00:50:03.090 William Souder: And have that have become incapable of talking to each other in capable of understanding each other and for whom there is no longer an agreed upon reality. 320 00:50:04.140 --> 00:50:20.400 William Souder: You know, if, how do you stand that would wonder how a country can function if it can't at least agree on what's real and what what his actual as opposed to what is a fantasy and and of course he would be 321 00:50:22.380 --> 00:50:28.800 William Souder: I think he would find, you know, the digital world, the world that we're on right now. 322 00:50:31.260 --> 00:50:32.100 William Souder: Unfortunate 323 00:50:34.560 --> 00:50:39.120 Nicholas Taylor: So we have time for just we have time for. I think a couple more if you're if you're game bill. 324 00:50:39.150 --> 00:50:43.740 Nicholas Taylor: Absolutely. Okay. Gabriel Thompson, they really have a question. 325 00:50:44.760 --> 00:50:58.740 Gabriel Thompson: Yeah, first, just really looking forward to reading the book sort of a craft question. I wrote a biography of someone who was really inspired by Steinbeck, a man named Fred Ross, who ran the migrant camp. 326 00:50:59.790 --> 00:51:02.490 Gabriel Thompson: That Steinbeck had visited our in our oven. 327 00:51:03.870 --> 00:51:04.620 Gabriel Thompson: And 328 00:51:06.870 --> 00:51:13.260 Gabriel Thompson: And no one had written a biography of Ross and so it's sort of easy. You know, I wasn't didn't have any other books to 329 00:51:14.190 --> 00:51:25.800 Gabriel Thompson: Look at which I think could have been helpful. But I'm also wondering as a biographer writing a book about someone that has had previous books written about him. 330 00:51:26.670 --> 00:51:32.010 Gabriel Thompson: How you approach that because I would think that it could be helpful that it might point you some ways but also 331 00:51:32.790 --> 00:51:41.010 Gabriel Thompson: At one point, at some point I want to just perhaps toss them all aside and going on path and not constantly be obsessively comparing 332 00:51:41.520 --> 00:51:54.120 Gabriel Thompson: Whether I looked in this folder in this archive and what didn't flow. You know, like trying to weigh it and it just was curious to hear how you, how you manage that process of of 333 00:51:55.320 --> 00:51:56.310 Gabriel Thompson: Doing Barbara biographies. 334 00:51:56.910 --> 00:52:07.770 William Souder: So I, my background is in journalism. I was, I was a reporter and I was actually a film critic for number of years and and I did a lot of sort of newspaper, magazine reporting. 335 00:52:09.090 --> 00:52:27.600 William Souder: For most of my career, actually. And one of the things that you learn to do in journalism is to identify a story and and so I that's that's the lens. I look at everything. So where's the story and and it's a good thing to do because 336 00:52:29.880 --> 00:52:39.300 William Souder: Telling stories is how you get readers to go from one page to the next. So in my mind when I'm when I'm thinking about 337 00:52:39.960 --> 00:52:52.680 William Souder: A book. And when I'm actually working on one that the question that I always want the reader to be asking as. And then what happened and and this is one of the reasons that I like biography is because 338 00:52:53.970 --> 00:53:09.030 William Souder: You start with a main character, and you start with a kind of a chronology a narrative that you know basically runs through the course of someone's life. And so you're sort of in business from the start, because you've got a story to tell and so 339 00:53:11.040 --> 00:53:26.280 William Souder: However, some biographies kind of lose sight of in the course of telling the life they lose sight of putting life into the into the narrative. And so for me. 340 00:53:28.110 --> 00:53:29.940 William Souder: It's, it's not so much about 341 00:53:31.260 --> 00:53:38.850 William Souder: Comparing what I'm doing to what's been done before, or trying to do something totally different. I don't even really think about that. I think about what how 342 00:53:39.570 --> 00:53:47.040 William Souder: How would I, how would I tell this story to you and make you really, really want to know what happens next to stick with me to the bitter end 343 00:53:48.090 --> 00:53:49.350 William Souder: What could I leave out 344 00:53:50.700 --> 00:54:04.950 William Souder: What could I emphasize it hadn't been emphasized before what context, could I provide you know there's a bunch of stuff in my in this book about American history about what was happening at the time that Steinbeck was working because 345 00:54:06.000 --> 00:54:13.170 William Souder: That context is so important is his work into, I think, to the flow of the of the story. And so 346 00:54:16.140 --> 00:54:18.600 William Souder: Yeah, it's about telling it. It's about telling 347 00:54:19.860 --> 00:54:21.120 William Souder: A captivating 348 00:54:22.890 --> 00:54:41.790 William Souder: tale about someone's life you know we're all interested in what other people are like, and what they did and and what went wrong and what went right and not for nothing. One of the things that attracted me to Steinbeck was that he was far from a perfect person. 349 00:54:42.840 --> 00:54:44.460 William Souder: In a very messy. Personal life 350 00:54:45.900 --> 00:54:50.310 William Souder: He could be he could be pretty prickly you'd be pretty mean 351 00:54:53.250 --> 00:55:09.540 William Souder: It's not absolutely necessary that you love the character that you're writing about the person that you're reading a biography of but you have to find them consequential and interesting and you have to be able to fashion a narrative around the events of their life that you think 352 00:55:11.310 --> 00:55:18.990 William Souder: will push the reader through to the end. I don't know if that's answering the question, I don't. Excuse me. I don't look at 353 00:55:20.490 --> 00:55:28.050 William Souder: I don't look at the material and ask myself, how do I assemble this I look at the material. And I asked myself, What, what's that about 354 00:55:29.010 --> 00:55:42.120 William Souder: What's he about and if you walked up to me and said, Tell me about john Steinbeck. The book is what I would, what point to as that would be my answer. That's how I think about it. 355 00:55:44.700 --> 00:55:48.240 Nicholas Taylor: So we have a question from Gail Steinbeck yell. 356 00:55:49.980 --> 00:55:57.360 Gail Steinbeck: Me unmute it's such a joy to read your book. Thank you so much for the great research, you've done 357 00:55:57.870 --> 00:55:58.890 William Souder: Thank you, Gail. 358 00:55:58.980 --> 00:56:04.290 Gail Steinbeck: Eloquently written, you are utterly brilliant, you should be writing fiction as well. 359 00:56:04.680 --> 00:56:13.860 Gail Steinbeck: You're so you're so eloquent, but I did have one question. Where did you locate some of these images. I haven't seen some of these images before 360 00:56:15.060 --> 00:56:15.480 Gail Steinbeck: And it was 361 00:56:16.830 --> 00:56:26.100 William Souder: Um, well, let's see. Well, each one of them has the there's a credit on each one that tells you where they came from. But if you came from. Next, Nick tailor shop. 362 00:56:26.490 --> 00:56:44.910 William Souder: I think I got a bunch of them. They're the the image on the cover the Dorothea Lange photo and there's one on the inside as well, at least one on the inside those come from the National Archives and Dorothea Lange, of course, was essentially a government boy he worked for the 363 00:56:46.440 --> 00:56:59.610 William Souder: I forget which one of the agencies, she did her photography for but all of those photographs are kind of owned by all of us there in the public domain. So you and I have access. If you haven't looked. If you're looking for stuff like that. 364 00:57:00.930 --> 00:57:09.030 William Souder: Go to the National Archives. Go to the Franklin Delano Roosevelt library, which is part of its under the rubric of the National Archives 365 00:57:09.480 --> 00:57:18.570 William Souder: And you can find hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of images like this and they're they're wonderful from from that that time period. The photograph of 366 00:57:20.340 --> 00:57:22.290 William Souder: When conquer. I got from 367 00:57:24.120 --> 00:57:44.100 William Souder: Ron Seymour, whose father took the portrait. So, he added, and then of course the first piece from use of cars I got from the conscious state that photos been around. Everybody knows that photo but nobody ever used it before and I thought it should be used because it's great. 368 00:57:44.910 --> 00:57:48.900 Gail Steinbeck: Did you do any research on the images from the University of Arizona. 369 00:57:49.680 --> 00:57:51.450 William Souder: I did not. What do they have 370 00:57:51.720 --> 00:57:57.060 Gail Steinbeck: A lot from what I understand, I'm going to be going there. Pretty soon to see what they have. 371 00:57:57.450 --> 00:58:06.240 William Souder: A wonderful No I did not. I didn't, I didn't know that they had a collection and Nick, you know, BUT THAT DOES ARIZONA HAVE A bunch of great 372 00:58:06.480 --> 00:58:10.860 Nicholas Taylor: Images. Well, I know that they they manage the rights for some images. 373 00:58:10.950 --> 00:58:11.370 William Souder: Okay. 374 00:58:11.490 --> 00:58:16.620 Nicholas Taylor: It could. It could be those. I'm curious to see what you find out, Gail. Let me know. 375 00:58:16.920 --> 00:58:21.870 Gail Steinbeck: I'm working on Tom's memoir. So I'm looking for just right now as well. And yet, 376 00:58:23.940 --> 00:58:44.220 Gail Steinbeck: You feel similar actually were the first year. The first research biographer that I have read that came close to touching on the heart of Steinbeck and I'm so far I'm not finished with your book yet but I'm deeply moved by what you've done. And I'm very grateful. Thank you. 377 00:58:44.310 --> 00:58:48.750 William Souder: Oh, that's really nice Gail and I, you know, I'm so sorry that I didn't get to meet 378 00:58:50.850 --> 00:59:06.270 William Souder: You know, I think I had it in my head that I was kind of working toward that. And then, you know, unfortunately he passed before we had a chance to do that, but I really thank you for calling in and and i means a lot to me that you are reading the book. So I thank you. 379 00:59:06.750 --> 00:59:09.750 Gail Steinbeck: Know it's wonderful. It's one I'm going to review and it's wonderful. Thank you. 380 00:59:09.780 --> 00:59:10.140 Gail Steinbeck: Thank you. 381 00:59:11.820 --> 00:59:17.460 Nicholas Taylor: Thanks for the great questions, everyone, and thank you, Bill, for taking time and staying up late to 382 00:59:19.110 --> 00:59:25.950 Nicholas Taylor: In the snow. I mean, it's not like you'd be outside tonight. But thank you so much for for doing this event with us. 383 00:59:26.280 --> 00:59:29.550 William Souder: It was a pleasure. Nick and a real honor to be 384 00:59:31.230 --> 00:59:34.800 William Souder: Able to talk with such a knowledgeable group of people and 385 00:59:35.940 --> 00:59:38.100 William Souder: I'll just say thank you to all of you for not 386 00:59:39.240 --> 00:59:42.060 William Souder: Pointing out something some terrible mistake that I made or 387 00:59:42.540 --> 00:59:43.980 William Souder: I overlooked or should have done. 388 00:59:43.980 --> 00:59:44.610 Differently. 389 00:59:45.780 --> 00:59:47.370 William Souder: It was really nice and 390 00:59:48.600 --> 00:59:49.320 William Souder: I am 391 00:59:50.550 --> 01:00:05.940 William Souder: I miss my visits to to San Jose and to Salinas, and to specific grove and hopefully the time isn't too far off when we can. When I can come that way again and hope to see some of my friends out that way. So Nick, thanks very much. 392 01:00:06.960 --> 01:00:09.090 Nicholas Taylor: My pleasure, Bill. Good night, everyone. 393 01:00:09.480 --> 01:00:10.620 William Souder: Thank you pick up you 394 01:00:10.890 --> 01:00:16.470 Nicholas Taylor: Be sure to pick up your copy of the book available pretty literally wherever books are sold 395 01:00:17.460 --> 01:00:27.630 Nicholas Taylor: You can the publisher would like me to say, go to the WW Norton com website and they will link you to whatever your favorite venue is 396 01:00:28.890 --> 01:00:31.020 Nicholas Taylor: Get your hands on this book. It's fantastic. 397 01:00:31.470 --> 01:00:38.040 William Souder: And if you have a if you have a good local independent bookstore that you patronize or have thought about patronizing. 398 01:00:38.580 --> 01:00:52.710 William Souder: Please do they they need your help. Right now, as many small businesses do and and and they're doing a wonderful job of selling this book for me. So if you have an opportunity, by all means do that but but wherever you get it will be okay. 399 01:00:53.760 --> 01:00:54.120 Great. 400 01:00:55.320 --> 01:01:08.220 Nicholas Taylor: Thanks, everyone. And I'll be archiving this video and putting it online. So if you have a friend who wants to follow the conversation. Check the Steinbeck center for Steinbeck studies website in a couple days and we'll be right there. 401 01:01:09.360 --> 01:01:10.470 Nicholas Taylor: All right. Good night. 402 01:01:11.130 --> 01:01:11.550 William Souder: Good night.