GET BUSY ON STEINBECK’S ‘IN DUBIOUS BATTLE’ FOR BIXBY KNOLLS LITERARY SOCIETY OCT. 13
By Dave Wielenga
Less than two weeks remain to finish reading In Dubious Battle before the next meeting of the Bixby Knolls Literary Society on Oct. 13. That doesn’t sound like much time, until you consider the John Steinbeck classic was published in 1936. Then it sounds like a major case of procrastination.
In Dubious Battle came out three years before The Grapes of Wrath, and you can almost feel Steinbeck warming up for it, exploring some of the same topics on some of the same turf in a smaller story than the sweeping parable that would earn him the Pulitzer.
A synopsis provided by the Bixby Knolls Literary Society distills In Dubious Battle this way:
“It follows two main characters, Mac and Jim, through the process of an apple pickers’ strike in a small California town. At the beginning of the book Jim joins the Communist Party, and Mac takes him along when he goes to try to agitate the pickers and incite them to strike after the growers’ association cuts their wages to fifteen cents. Steinbeck paints a watercolor picture of migrant workers in a small California town during the tough years following the crash and depression of 1929. He shows clearly how the workers lived, how small farmers suffered and how grass-roots organizations, such as the American Communist Party, tried to effect changes that would improve life for the poor workers.”
Prior to the publication of In Dubious Battle, Steinbeck wrote in a letter:
“I had planned to write a journalistic account of a strike. But as I thought of it as fiction the thing got bigger and bigger. It couldn’t be that. I’ve been living with this thing for some time now. I don’t know how much I have got over, but I have used a small strike in an orchard valley as the symbol of man’s eternal, bitter warfare with himself.”
IN DUBIOUS BATTLE BIXBY KNOLLS LITERARY SOCIETY • THE EXPO: 4321 ATLANTIC AVE • LONG BEACH 90807 • 562.595.0081 • WWW.BIXBYKNOLLSINFO.COM • WED OCT 16 • 7 PM • FREE
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Citizen Journalist Quote of the Day – Fear and Anger
“When I wrote The Grapes of Wrath, I was filled, naturally, with certain angers — certain angers at people who were doing injustices to other people, or so I thought. I realize now that everyone was caught in the same trap. If you remember, we had a Depression at that time. The Depression caught us without the ability to take care of it. It took a long time for us to develop the agencies to take care of such economic difficulties. When the dust came up, people were starving; they had no place to go. Naturally, they went in a direction where they would not suffer from cold: they went toward California. They came in the thousands to California.
“And what did they meet — they met people who were terrified, number one, of the Depression, and were horrified at the idea that great numbers of indigent people were being poured on them to be taken care of. They could only be taken care of by taxation. Taxes were already high, and there wasn’t much money about. They reacted perfectly normally — they became angry. And when you become angry, you fight what you’re angry at. They were angry at these newcomers.
“Gradually, through government agency, through the work of private citizens, agencies were set up to take care of these situations, and only then did the anger begin to decrease. And when anger decreased, these two sides, these two groups, were able to get to know each other, and they found they didn’t dislike each other at all.”
(John Steinbeck — From an interview on British radio.)
Really? Get busy?! Shouldn’t most adult readers be able to polish this off in a day or two? October 13 for a deadline… no excuses not to meet that one!