When the US entered World War II, Steinbeck had been involved in writing anti-fascist propaganda for some time. He was keen to secure a commission as an intelligence officer in the armed forces, but this didn't eventuate. Steinbeck then spent time trying to get himself appointed as a war correspondent. In April 1943, the New York Herald Tribune offered to hire him if he could obtain the necessary security clearances. Doing so was not as easy as it should have been, as some people interviewed by Army Counterintelligence described Steinbeck as a dangerous radical. According to Steinbeck's biographer, Jay Parini, a right wing group known as the American Legion Radical Research Bureau had compiled what it considered to be damaging information about Steinbeck, specifically that he had contributed articles to several "red" publications. If Steinbeck was aware of what was being said about him at the time, it must have been particularly galling, given his commitment to supporting the US government and given the fact that his personal politics had never been further to the left than New Deal Democrat.

In any event, Steinbeck obtained clearance to work as a war correspondent and travelled to England on a troop ship in June 1943. He spent almost five months in England and then in Europe, reporting from England, North Africa and Italy. This is a collection of Steinbeck's dispatches from that period, first published in 1958. In the introduction, Steinbeck describes the attitude of experienced war correspondents to his arrival on the scene:

To this hard-bitten bunch of professionals I arrived as a Johnny-come-lately, a sacred cow, a kind of tourist. I think they felt I was muscling in on their hard-gained territory. When, however, they found that I was not duplicating their work, was not reporting straight news, they were very kind to me and went out of their way to help me and to instruct me in the things I didn't know.

Some of Steinbeck's dispatches are quirky observations, some are very funny, some are intensely moving. There is a certain uneveness in the quality of the writing, with some pieces much better written and more interesting than others. Among the best of the pieces is a tribute to Bob Hope in his role as an entertainer of troops and a very funny story about American soldiers collecting souvenirs. However, the most poignant and powerful pieces are those which deal with the allied invasion of Italy. It is in writing about this event that Steinbeck's unsentimental but poetic writing really shines.

In an interview with Jay Parini, Gore Vidal said this about Steinbeck:

The truth is that Steinbeck was really a journalist at heart. All of his best work was journalism in that it was inspired by daily events, by current circumstances. He didn't "invent" things. He "found" them. (See John Steinbeck: A Biography page 331).

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This work provides sound evidence of the correctness of Vidal's opinion.

Once There Was a War, John Steinbeck III
تاریخ نخستین خوانش: دوم اکتبر سال 1991 میلادی
عنوان: روزگاری جنگی درگرفت؛ نوشته جان اشتاین (استاین) بک؛ مترجم: محمدرضا پورجعفری، مشخصات نشر: تهران، نقره، 1369، در 300 ص؛ چاپ دیگر: تهران، علم، 1382؛ شابک: 9644053222، در 230 ص؛ موضوع: جنگ جهانگیر دوم - 1939 تا 1945 میلادی - قرن 20 م
داستان با توصیف آغاز میشود. تصویرهای زیبایی دارد که در ذهن خوانشگر مینشیند. از سرگرمی سربازان درون کشتی نیز سخن به میان آمده، در کتاب اشاره شده که درون کشتی، کتابخانه کوچکی ست که سربازان از آن سود میبرند. ا. شربیانی

As explained in the intro, this book is a collection of short segments containing stories and observations from John Steinbeck during WWII (while in England, Africa, and Italy). Most of these stories are vague, as they were highly censured, and I’m never really sure when Steinbeck is sharing an experience he actually witnessed and when he is simply repeating a story shared with him by somebody else. The highlight is the final few segments, detailing the capture of the Island of Ventotene.

not for me

El primer libro que leo de Steinbeck y sé que no es tan representativo de su obra porque no es de ficción, pero en líneas generales me gustó. Steinbeck trabajó como corresponsal durante la Segunda Guerra Mundial para el New York Herald Tribune en 1943 y en este libro compila los artículos que allí publicó. El formato de escritura me pareció muy interesante, por momentos parece casi la narración de un cuento. Me gustó mucho el prólogo, donde hace una pequeña introducción sobre su trabajo como corresponsal, y las reflexiones que incluye sobre la crudeza de vivir en el frente.
Hace unos años en una clase de Literatura analizamos el vínculo de los libros con la guerra y recuerdo haber leído varios cuentos, textos y obras de ficción que relataban sobre el trauma de un sobreviviente de la guerra. Me resultó fascinante analizar el papel de la literatura en eso, y disfruté mucho encontrar en este libro puntos de encuentro con lo que estudié en esa clase.


"Todo cuanto se cuenta en este libro sucedió. Es en las cosas que no se cuentan donde reside la falsedad"
"Y, aunque todas las guerras son un síntoma del pensamiento animal del hombre, en el recuerdo de tales batallas aún hay un poco de gallardía y de nobleza"
"Todo cuanto aquí se cuenta es, pues, tan real como el hada buena y la bruja mala de los cuentos, tan verdadero e incontestable como cualquier otro de los mitos que asumimos sin mayores problemas. Hubo una vez una guerra, pero hace tanto, tanto tiempo..."

na początku zapowiadało się na 4, jednak ostatecznie daję 3.5, bo jednak czegoś mi zabrakło

literatura o tematyce wojennej nigdy mi się dobrze nie czytała, tym bardziej, jeśli jest non-fiction, więc nie była to zbyt przyjemna lektura

chociaż znaczna większość historii miała znacznie lżejszy charakter (niektóre wątki były nawet zabawne), to i tak nie było to w stanie wyprzeć z mojej głowy powagi przedstawionego okresu historycznego

Steinbeck’s brilliant reporting brings alive the day-to-day lives of the troops and civilians on the ground during World War II.

“Имало една война” на Джон Стайнбек — всеки репортаж е писан и публикуван “на живо”, почти ден за ден, докато Стайнбек отразява войната за New York Herald Tribune от Юни до Декември 1943та. По това време вече е популярен автор, но е искал по този начин да даде своят принос за военните действия (“my contribution to the war effort”) и настоява да бъде изпратен като кореспондент.

Серията от репортажи представляват впечатленията на автора от пътуването на американските войниците през Атлантическия океан към фронта, престоят им в Англия, тренировките на батальони в Северна Африка и последващото нападение в Италия. През 50те години репортажите са събрани и издадени без редакторска намеса и дори заедно с празните полета заради военната цензура. Макар и да признава, че от перспективата на изминалото време вижда свои грешки, Стайнбек не е искал да пренаписва нищо.

И всъщност, Стайнбек е ужасен документалист, както забелязах и в Пътувания с Чарли. Използва събирателени образи, представя собствените си размили и преживявания през образите на войниците, които описва, звучи прекалено фотогенично, по холивудски на места. Аз си го оприличавам като Вернер Херцог в писането — в търсенето на реалността, всъщност не изглежда да се чувства длъжен да отразява реалността в мащаб 1:1. Затова и донякъде книгата се чете като сборник с разкази, въпреки че войната си е вътре, през свръх-реалистичните описания на бомбандировките и как тялото и нервната система на един войник ги понася, разказите за слуховете носещи се във войската, страховете на войниците и най-обикновени делнични впечатления като например сблъсъка на обикновния американец с британския английски, или войнишкия опит с отглеждането на зеленчукова градина в Англия.

Не бих казал, че книгата е must-read, но пък определено е чудесно преживяване. Интересно ми беше да я свържа например с Параграф 22 на Хелър. В увода към книгата, Стайнбек признава, че му се е налагало да премълчава доста неща — къде, за да избегне военната цензура, къде за да заглуши собствената си авто-цензурата, диктуваща му, че тези репортажи са част от “the war effort” и не трябва да са критични. Въпреки това, през иронията се прокрадва и известна критика към офицерския щаб (историята за забавянето на една батарея в Италия, за да може жената на полковника да си събере багажа с роклите е точно като изваден от П22).

I liked this more than I thought I would.

I had high expectations, but unfortunately, I didn't get much value out of the stories in this book.

This had a hard time holding my attention, even though the writing was excellent and the topic was interesting, because it didn't have a strong narrative plot. It was mostly snippets of experiences of Steinbeck as he was reporting about WWII. I would still recommend this. My attention span is just currently short as I'm pulled between four kids and a puppy.

Quotes for posterity (and sorry, there will be a lot of them):

It is a different thing, then, to be at war than to be observing and watching it from a safe distance. Steinbeck surrendered any attempt to understand the big picture, and immersed himself.

ONCE UPON A TIME there was a war, but so long ago and so shouldered out of the way by other wars and other kinds of wars that even people who were there are apt to forget. This war that I speak of came after the plate armor and longbows of Crécy and Agincourt and just before the little spitting experimental atom bombs of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Page 8:

The clerks and farmers, salesmen, students, laborers, technicians, reporters, fishermen who have stopped being those things to become an army have been trained from their induction for this moment. This is the beginning of the real thing for which they have practiced.

Page 26:

American soldiers, Canadians, Royal Air Force men, and many of Great Britain’s women soldiers walk through the streets. But Britain drafts its women and they are really in the Army, driver-mechanics, dispatch riders, trim and hard in their uniforms.

Page 54:

The process is machine-like, exact. There is no waste movement and no nonsense. These girls seem to be natural soldiers. They are soldiers, too. They resent above anything being treated like women when they are near the guns. Their work is hard and constant. Sometimes they are alerted to the guns thirty times in a day and a night. They may fire on a marauder ten times in that period. They have been bombed and strafed, and there is no record of any girl flinching.

Page 55:

The girls like this work and are proud of it. It is difficult to see how the housemaids will be able to go back to dusting furniture under querulous mistresses, how the farm girls will be able to go back to the tiny farms of Scotland and the Midlands. This is the great exciting time of their lives. They are very important, these girls. The defense of the country in their area is in their hands.

Page 65:

LONDON, July 13, 1943—It is interesting to see that the nearer one comes to a war zone the less one hears of grand strategy. There is more discussion of tactics and the over-all picture in the Stork Club on a Saturday night than in the whole European theater of operations. This may be, to a certain extent, because of a lack of generals to give the strategists a social foundation. For that matter, there are more generals in the Carlton Hotel in Washington at lunch time than in all the rest of the world.

Page 74:

For example, the average English cook regards a vegetable with suspicion. It is his conviction that unless the vegetable is dominated and thoroughly convinced that it must offer no nonsense, it is likely either to revolt or to demand dominion status. The brussels sprout is a good example of the acceptable vegetable. It is first allowed to become large and fierce. It is then picked from its stem and the daylights are boiled out of it. At the end of a few hours the little wild lump of green has disintegrated into a curious, grayish paste. It is then considered fit for consumption.

Page 75:

And almost universally you find among the soldiers not a fear of the enemy but a fear of what is going to happen after the war. The collapse of retooled factories, the unemployment of millions due to the increase of automatic machinery, a depression that will make the last one look like a holiday.

Page 80:

It was nine in the morning when the operating was finished. At the theater the tired squads were still finding a few bodies. And in the hospital beds—great wads of bandage and wide, staring, unbelieving eyes and utter weariness—the little targets, the seven-year-old military objectives.


Page 138:

But there are many sad little evidences in the vehicles. In this tank which has been hit there is a splash of blood against the steel side of the turret. And in this burned-out tank a large piece of singed cloth and a charred and curled shoe. And the insides of a tank are full of evidences of the men who ran it, penciled notes written on the walls, a telephone number, a sketch of a profile on the steel armor plate. Probably every vehicle in the whole Army has a name, usually the name of a girl but sometimes a brave name like Hun Chaser. That one got badly hit. And there is a tank with no track and with the whole top of the turret shot away by a heavy shell, but on her skirt in front is still her name and she is called Lucky Girl. Every one of these vehicles lying in the wreck yard has some tremendous story, but in many of the cases the story died with the driver and the crew.

Page 145:

The men slept in their pup tents and drew their mosquito nets over them and scratched and cursed all night until, after a time, they were too tired to scratch and curse and they fell asleep the moment they hit the blankets. Their minds and their bodies became machine-like. They did not talk about the war. They talked only of home and of clean beds with white sheets and they talked of ice water and ice cream and places that did not smell of urine. Most of them let their minds dwell on snow banks and the sharp winds of Middle Western winter. But the red dust blew over them and crusted their skins and after a while they could not wash it all off any more. The war had narrowed down to their own small group of men and their own job. It would be a lie to suggest that they like being there. They wish they were somewhere else.

Page 151:

In the moonlight on the iron deck they look at each other strangely. Men they have known well and soldiered with are strange and every man is cut off from every other one, and in their minds they search the faces of their friends for the dead. Who will be alive tomorrow night? I will, for one. No one ever gets killed in the war. Couldn’t possibly. There would be no war if anyone got killed. But each man, in this last night in the moonlight, looks strangely at the others and sees death there. This is the most terrible time of all. This night before the assault by the new green troops. They will never be like this again.

Page 157:

Perhaps the correspondent scuttled with them and hit the ground again. His report will be of battle plan and tactics, of taken ground or lost terrain, of attack and counterattack. But these are some of the things he probably really saw: He might have seen the splash of dirt and dust that is a shell burst, and a small Italian girl in the street with her stomach blown out, and he might have seen an American soldier standing over a twitching body, crying. He probably saw many dead mules, lying on their sides, reduced to pulp. He saw the wreckage of houses, with torn beds hanging like shreds out of the spilled hole in a plaster wall. There were red carts and the stalled vehicles of refugees who did not get away.

Page 177:

In all kinds of combat the whole body is battered by emotion. The ductless glands pour their fluids into the system to make it able to stand up to the great demand on it. Fear and ferocity are products of the same fluid. Fatigue toxins poison the system. Hunger followed by wolfed food distorts the metabolic pattern already distorted by the adrenalin and fatigue. The body and the mind so disturbed are really ill and fevered. But in addition to these ills, which come from the inside of a man and are given him so that he can temporarily withstand pressures beyond his ordinary ability, there is the further stress of explosion.

I can't really explain how moving this book is.