Steinbeck is one of my favorite authors if not my favorite... other than being based he has a sensibility that is not often found in authors from before the 60s.
Steinbeck was ahead of other American authors of his time because to me, he always had an ecological viewpoint when it came to relationships, be it between humans, human and non-human beings, and between living and non-living beings. And i don't mean ecological in the hippy/environmentalist sense, but rather as the recognition that the individuals that make up a larger system are made of and by the relationships that they create, change and break. This kind of view came to be later codified and postulated as deep ecology and ecological thinking, and was the foundation for the (unfortunately now co-opted and gutted) environmentalist movement.
You could trace some of this influence to the fact that he was very close friends with a marine biologist, Ed Ricketts; and he even wrote a chronicle of one of his expeditions he rode along. However, I think his most Ecological work is Cannery Row, where the characters are well-defined as people, but he puts a lot of effort and care in describing them as if they were part of an ecosystem, fulfilling a role, creating a unique community, in constant local change but overall equilibrium. This kind of biological sensibility is not often found in American literature from the same time.
The foreword of the Penguin edition compares Cannery Row to a little tidal pool: where it's a little isolated ecosystem, and some living beings are resigned to surviving the best they can, others try to escape, but in the end all of them need the next tide to come and renew its resources and life, since the pool cannot live on its own.
Sorry if i got too long or technical haha, it's hard to turn dissertation brain off. I got a whole subchapter in my dissertation discussing two pre-1960s fiction authors/books that i think were foundational to, or at least exemplary of modern environmental discourse before it was even a thing, and Steinbeck is one of them. Having read a ton from him already made it much easier though.
Same, Hemingway was cool friends with Castro but tbh would have been shit to be married to or try and maintain a functional relation with (dude was a lowkey mess)
You might not like it, but his style of simple sentences that slowly coalesce around pretty enormous feelings was incredibly influential in American literature. While I love a complex, wrought sentence, the falling away of that kind of writing made way for a whole new literary environment.
Also sad characters who can't express their pain except by slowly circling around its source and effects resonate with me.
Just because something is influential doesnt mean it's good
I mean to be fair to you, Hemingway might be okay himself but he still has the same problem as Radiohead, just has the absolute worst and most pretentious stans whose first exposure to Edginess (For Men™) was through that media and who openly looks down on people who don’t care for it, and life is too short for me to ever have another conversation about music with one more Radiohead stan
Honestly the main themes I always got was just dude scared of their own mortality and aging as well as some trite diatribe about masculinity or some shit
US lit figures were based tho, Steinbeck, Twain, Hemingway (IIRC)
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Goddamn that gave me chills.
Steinbeck is one of my favorite authors if not my favorite... other than being based he has a sensibility that is not often found in authors from before the 60s.
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Sure! i'll try my best to summarize it:
Steinbeck was ahead of other American authors of his time because to me, he always had an ecological viewpoint when it came to relationships, be it between humans, human and non-human beings, and between living and non-living beings. And i don't mean ecological in the hippy/environmentalist sense, but rather as the recognition that the individuals that make up a larger system are made of and by the relationships that they create, change and break. This kind of view came to be later codified and postulated as deep ecology and ecological thinking, and was the foundation for the (unfortunately now co-opted and gutted) environmentalist movement.
You could trace some of this influence to the fact that he was very close friends with a marine biologist, Ed Ricketts; and he even wrote a chronicle of one of his expeditions he rode along. However, I think his most Ecological work is Cannery Row, where the characters are well-defined as people, but he puts a lot of effort and care in describing them as if they were part of an ecosystem, fulfilling a role, creating a unique community, in constant local change but overall equilibrium. This kind of biological sensibility is not often found in American literature from the same time.
The foreword of the Penguin edition compares Cannery Row to a little tidal pool: where it's a little isolated ecosystem, and some living beings are resigned to surviving the best they can, others try to escape, but in the end all of them need the next tide to come and renew its resources and life, since the pool cannot live on its own.
Sorry if i got too long or technical haha, it's hard to turn dissertation brain off. I got a whole subchapter in my dissertation discussing two pre-1960s fiction authors/books that i think were foundational to, or at least exemplary of modern environmental discourse before it was even a thing, and Steinbeck is one of them. Having read a ton from him already made it much easier though.
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I like Steinbeck and Twain. Hemingway I go back and forth on.
Same, Hemingway was cool friends with Castro but tbh would have been shit to be married to or try and maintain a functional relation with (dude was a lowkey mess)
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No no, that was the lowkey ending for Hemingway.
He's also not a very good writer. Last time I said that here I got some r*ddit-brained guy telling me i was a high schooler with bad taste tho lmao
Edit: found it
You might not like it, but his style of simple sentences that slowly coalesce around pretty enormous feelings was incredibly influential in American literature. While I love a complex, wrought sentence, the falling away of that kind of writing made way for a whole new literary environment.
Also sad characters who can't express their pain except by slowly circling around its source and effects resonate with me.
There's definitely some stinkers, too.
Just because something is influential doesnt mean it's good
I mean to be fair to you, Hemingway might be okay himself but he still has the same problem as Radiohead, just has the absolute worst and most pretentious stans whose first exposure to Edginess (For Men™) was through that media and who openly looks down on people who don’t care for it, and life is too short for me to ever have another conversation about music with one more Radiohead stan
Honestly the main themes I always got was just dude scared of their own mortality and aging as well as some trite diatribe about masculinity or some shit
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True on that as well
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No I'm a 30-year-old with bad taste (dislike of Hemingway is good taste tho)
Vonnegut is kind of a lib but I’d say he played a role in my pipeline
:vonnegut: