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.
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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