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And as if Manifest Destiny has pushed the dreamers of America West, West as far as they can go, to the furthest seabord and then withdrawn like a tide, leaving them washed up in the stink, the tone, the dream that is Cannery Row, so we peer into this fabulous place and see the teeming life scurrying there. The combers roll over Cannery Row when the sardine fleet has made a catch and a wave of shining cars bring those who disappear into offices, and another wave of men and women come in trousers and rubber coats and oilcloth aprons, and clean and cut and pack the fish, but when the last fish has been cleaned and cut and packed and the boats are riding high in the water again, then this tide of workers retreats back up the hill to Monterey, and Cannery Row becomes itself again - quiet and magical. At dusk, always at dusk, the creatures of this pool creep out to fight and feed and breed. Just as in the Great Tide Pool, these men and women form an economy of their own, a system of interdependence, of borrowing and recycling and stealing, a delicately balanced cycle of taking and giving, one that judiciously sets the limits of giving without becoming a stoop, of taking without obvious exploitation. Warm, wise economics, where the entrepreneurs know when to forgive a loan in order to keep a customer, the chancers know when not to push their luck too far, and the Madam of the Whorehouse knows exactly how philanthropic she has to be to avoid being closed down. The men of the Palace Flophouse are, in the eyes of mainstream society no doubt slackers, no-hopers, scum. They literally live on the dregs of those who pay their way: Eddie is understudy bartender at La Ida. He keeps a gallon jar under the counter, that takes whatever is left in the glasses before he washes them. Sometimes, indeed, "if an argument or a song were going on at La Ida, or late at night when good fellowship had reached its logical conclusion, Eddie poured glasses half or two-thirds full into the funnel…..It was a source of satisfaction to him that nobody was out anything. He had observed that a man got just as drunk on half a glass as on a whole one, that is, if he was in the mood to get drunk at all.” Such wisdom. And this punch is a sensitively calibrated measure of the men’s development and refinement along the length of this short novel: it is delicately put to Eddie, just suppose, not complaining or anything, but just s’pose you had two or three jugs, put the whisky in one, the wine in another… By the end, Eddie has stopped putting beer in at all as all agree it gives a flat taste.
The men from the Flophouse are beyond dreaming, their dignity rests in their having realised the fruitlessness of wanting. Not for them the ulcers and trussed up stricture of those who chase a false, materialist dream. Like most of the wonderful characters in the novel, they have accommodated themselves, have made their home in this place that offers them all they need: companionship, fun, and the contents of Eddie’s gallon jar. They provide the picaresque plot which consists of a crazy, hilarious Odyssey in search of frogs, a disastrous homecoming, and a second chance at a better staging of the party. Their Penelope at the centre, holding everything together, is Doc, the warm beating heart of Cannery Row, the man to whom everyone is grateful and to whom they long to demonstrate their appreciation and indebtedness. Interspersed between the lines of plot there is a wealth of other wonders: the hermit-crab like Malloys who have taken up residence in a disused boiler, Mary Talbot who puts on fantastic parties but the only guests are cats, a flagpole skater (what?), Josh Billings’ liver, Henri the French painter who was not really French, or named Henri, or really a painter come to that– oh I could go on and on.
There are boundaries: poor William cannot break into this world. For some inexplicable reason no-one likes him. Although there is no real malice, there is nevertheless harm. And often there is a sudden breaking beyond boundaries: a yawning chasm of horror, an opening into another world in the eyes of a drowned girl or the single eye of the dreaded mysterious Chinaman who flap-flapped up the street each evening.
But is this vision of the stink, the tone, the dream too romantic? Sentimental? Surely life at the littoral cannot have been a permanent party? The emptiness at the centre is subtly drawn, in delicate shades of parody in the form of the one and only character that sets up a home, prepares a nest, lays in a store of food, sits at the entrance and calls mournfully for a mate. That character is a lonely gopher who builds his burrow on the vacant lot of Cannery Row. And although it seems like an ideal position for a gopher home, there are no females. He has to move up the hill, to the more civilised, but risky part of town, where there is a dahlia garden. And traps put out every night. The men and women of Cannery Row feel that loss too, that lack of love that will create new life. They are not aware of it, but they feel that emptiness. It is not until the final, moving magnificent scene, when Doc reads them the sweeping, solemn, melancholy verses of the Sanskrit poem ‘Black Marigolds’ that their hollow centre finds expression, but they recognize the pain that crosses centuries and is theirs too.
The fine introduction to this Penguin Classic edition, written by Susan Shillinglaw, informs me that Steinbeck was looking for a new start in 1939. He wrote to Carlton Sheffield, his college roommate. “I’ve worked the novel-I know it as far as I can take it. I never did think much of it-a clumsy vehicle at best. And I don’t know the form of the new but I know there is a new which will be adequate and shaped by the new thinking.”
This.
The new: a rich seam of brilliance.
n Doc was collecting marine animals in the Great Tide Pool on the tip of the Peninsula. It is a fabulous place: when the tide is in, a wave-churned basin, creamy with foam, whipped by the combers that roll in from the whistling buoy on the reef. But when the tide goes out the little water world becomes quiet and lovely. The sea is very clear and the bottom becomes fantastic with hurrying, fighting, feeding, breeding animals.n
And as if Manifest Destiny has pushed the dreamers of America West, West as far as they can go, to the furthest seabord and then withdrawn like a tide, leaving them washed up in the stink, the tone, the dream that is Cannery Row, so we peer into this fabulous place and see the teeming life scurrying there. The combers roll over Cannery Row when the sardine fleet has made a catch and a wave of shining cars bring those who disappear into offices, and another wave of men and women come in trousers and rubber coats and oilcloth aprons, and clean and cut and pack the fish, but when the last fish has been cleaned and cut and packed and the boats are riding high in the water again, then this tide of workers retreats back up the hill to Monterey, and Cannery Row becomes itself again - quiet and magical. At dusk, always at dusk, the creatures of this pool creep out to fight and feed and breed. Just as in the Great Tide Pool, these men and women form an economy of their own, a system of interdependence, of borrowing and recycling and stealing, a delicately balanced cycle of taking and giving, one that judiciously sets the limits of giving without becoming a stoop, of taking without obvious exploitation. Warm, wise economics, where the entrepreneurs know when to forgive a loan in order to keep a customer, the chancers know when not to push their luck too far, and the Madam of the Whorehouse knows exactly how philanthropic she has to be to avoid being closed down. The men of the Palace Flophouse are, in the eyes of mainstream society no doubt slackers, no-hopers, scum. They literally live on the dregs of those who pay their way: Eddie is understudy bartender at La Ida. He keeps a gallon jar under the counter, that takes whatever is left in the glasses before he washes them. Sometimes, indeed, "if an argument or a song were going on at La Ida, or late at night when good fellowship had reached its logical conclusion, Eddie poured glasses half or two-thirds full into the funnel…..It was a source of satisfaction to him that nobody was out anything. He had observed that a man got just as drunk on half a glass as on a whole one, that is, if he was in the mood to get drunk at all.” Such wisdom. And this punch is a sensitively calibrated measure of the men’s development and refinement along the length of this short novel: it is delicately put to Eddie, just suppose, not complaining or anything, but just s’pose you had two or three jugs, put the whisky in one, the wine in another… By the end, Eddie has stopped putting beer in at all as all agree it gives a flat taste.
The men from the Flophouse are beyond dreaming, their dignity rests in their having realised the fruitlessness of wanting. Not for them the ulcers and trussed up stricture of those who chase a false, materialist dream. Like most of the wonderful characters in the novel, they have accommodated themselves, have made their home in this place that offers them all they need: companionship, fun, and the contents of Eddie’s gallon jar. They provide the picaresque plot which consists of a crazy, hilarious Odyssey in search of frogs, a disastrous homecoming, and a second chance at a better staging of the party. Their Penelope at the centre, holding everything together, is Doc, the warm beating heart of Cannery Row, the man to whom everyone is grateful and to whom they long to demonstrate their appreciation and indebtedness. Interspersed between the lines of plot there is a wealth of other wonders: the hermit-crab like Malloys who have taken up residence in a disused boiler, Mary Talbot who puts on fantastic parties but the only guests are cats, a flagpole skater (what?), Josh Billings’ liver, Henri the French painter who was not really French, or named Henri, or really a painter come to that– oh I could go on and on.
There are boundaries: poor William cannot break into this world. For some inexplicable reason no-one likes him. Although there is no real malice, there is nevertheless harm. And often there is a sudden breaking beyond boundaries: a yawning chasm of horror, an opening into another world in the eyes of a drowned girl or the single eye of the dreaded mysterious Chinaman who flap-flapped up the street each evening.
But is this vision of the stink, the tone, the dream too romantic? Sentimental? Surely life at the littoral cannot have been a permanent party? The emptiness at the centre is subtly drawn, in delicate shades of parody in the form of the one and only character that sets up a home, prepares a nest, lays in a store of food, sits at the entrance and calls mournfully for a mate. That character is a lonely gopher who builds his burrow on the vacant lot of Cannery Row. And although it seems like an ideal position for a gopher home, there are no females. He has to move up the hill, to the more civilised, but risky part of town, where there is a dahlia garden. And traps put out every night. The men and women of Cannery Row feel that loss too, that lack of love that will create new life. They are not aware of it, but they feel that emptiness. It is not until the final, moving magnificent scene, when Doc reads them the sweeping, solemn, melancholy verses of the Sanskrit poem ‘Black Marigolds’ that their hollow centre finds expression, but they recognize the pain that crosses centuries and is theirs too.
The fine introduction to this Penguin Classic edition, written by Susan Shillinglaw, informs me that Steinbeck was looking for a new start in 1939. He wrote to Carlton Sheffield, his college roommate. “I’ve worked the novel-I know it as far as I can take it. I never did think much of it-a clumsy vehicle at best. And I don’t know the form of the new but I know there is a new which will be adequate and shaped by the new thinking.”
This.
The new: a rich seam of brilliance.
