Notes from reading Steinbeck's Journal of a Novel, part 1

photo taken with tablet from computer

John Steinbeck’s Journal of a Novel – transcribing those things I underlined and notated (pg. #s) in my journal, February 16, 2011—

“adumbrate” (vii) – to give a sketchy outline of; foreshadow; partially disclose or to obscure; overshadow.

p. 3 – “A good writer always works at the impossible.”

p. 5 – “Now that I have everything, we shall see whether I have anything.”

p. 7 – “I want to get all the thinking detail of the first chapter done.”

p. 9 – “I think I will put a good deal of my mother and my father also. It is time I wrote these things else they will be gone because no one else will ever do them except me... And this is all I am going to do on this my first day of work.”      (on the mss that became East of Eden)

p. 9 – “I suffer as always from the fear of putting down the first line.”

p. 10 – “...gangrened scholarship.”

p. 16 – “Oh! but watch for terseness. Don’t let it ever be adjectivally descriptive. I must hold description to an absolute minimum...”

p. 23 – “I don’t understand why ... some days smile and others have thin slitted eyes and others still are days which worry.”

p. 31 – “A chapter should be a perfect cell in the whole book and should almost be able to stand alone.”

p. 39 – “... I am trying by a slow leisurely pyramiding of life of detail to give an impression not so much of the physical life of the county as of the kind of spiritual life—the thinking life—the state of mind—the plateau of thought.”

p. 48 – “There is nothing unusual in the fact that he who did not like his father nevertheless had faith in him.”

p. 49 – “It is borne in upon me that I do not like the pastimes which amuse and satisfy others—the games, both mental and physical, cards, gambling, tennis, croquet.”

p. 51 – “Today is a dawdly day.”

p. 54 – “...to a monster, everyone else is a monster.”

p. 56 – “It is the custom nowadays in writing to tell nothing about a character but to let him emerge gradually through the story and the dialogue.”

                “But that was a thousand years and millions of thoughts ago.”

p. 62 – “Pencils must be round. A hexagonal pencil cuts my fingers after a long day.”

p. 65 – “I do know that I have always needed some kind of warm-up before going to work.”

p. 82 – “Relationships in a country are the most revealing part of it.”

p. 85 – “I’m going to do my mother’s story tomorrow, actually a little biography of anecdotes.”

p. 86 – “I had better put down a section on the place names of the Valley because sometimes they seem contrived unless it is known that there are many strange and interesting names in the region.
... People are interested in names. At least I think they are.”

p. 88 – “Now—we must think of a book as a wedge driven into a man’s personal life.   ...Living with [a long book] longer has given it greater force. If this is true a long book, even not so good, is more effective than an excellent short book. How do you like that theory? [Laster:  would that apply to my compendium I wonder?] ...   ... the degree of specialization is also the degree of limitations.”

p. 89-90 – “I guess it is a good thing I became a writer. Perhaps I am too lazy for anything else.”

p. 91 – “Thinking last night about how many lives I have led and how much time I’ve wasted.... Who knows what poisons in the mind can do.  But what silliness to mourn over lost time.”

p. 93 – “I am brimming with material. I’ve got to get to it. I simply must. I guess it will be about time now to force it through.”

p. 94 – “Then I forced the work and it was as false and labored and foolish as anything I have ever seen.”

p. 95 – “I have the tone now. ... You fight a story week after week and day by day and then it arranges itself in your hands.”

p. 99 – “...if you can know a man’s plans, you know more about him than you can in any other way. Plans are daydreaming and this is an absolute measure of a man.”

p. 101 – “Never let it be said that I was afraid to try something just because I didn’t know anything about it. ... Men don’t listen to what they don’t want to hear.”

p. 102 – “I think most people doubt their instinctive knowledge.”

p. 103 – “It is said that many writers talk their books out and so do not write them.”

p. 105 – “It is time I think for the book to pause for discussion.”

p. 110 – “I think the human thrives best when he is a little worried and unhappy and this is implemented with needles in the brain.” ... “ [an event] without thoughts, only in description and dialogue like a black and white movie.”

Part 2 next time. PL