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Title: Journal of a Novel: The East of Eden Letters by John Steinbeck ISBN: 0-14-014418-8 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: December, 1990 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.33
Rating: 5
Summary: Unique Insight into Workings of a Writer's Mind
Comment: This book gives the reader a unique insight into the day-to-day thoughts and workings of a writer's mind. Steinbeck may not be to everyone's taste, but he can't be denied his place in American literary history. It's difficult to imagine any writer being so honest about the problems he faced in trying to produce a book of this kind - an effort that is recorded every step of the way by this determined but troubled writer
Rating: 3
Summary: Interesting, but not revealing
Comment: I am a major John Steinbeck fan, and rate Mr. Steinbeck as the finest writer in American history. However, I am lukewarm about "Journal of a Novel," Steinbeck's daily account of the trials of writing his most difficult work, East of Eden, from January through October, 1951.
I was hoping that the journal, addressed to his good friend and editor Pascal Covici, would reveal much about Steinbeck the writer and the man.
However, there is very little of the former except repeated brief accounts of the self-doubt and ups and downs a writer endures while creating a long and complex piece of literature. There are only hints of the technical or mental processes involved his writing.
And the same applies to autobiographical information about this period of his life. There is a lot of the trivia of daily life without the real depth of observation and feeling that is shown in other books of his letters.
He was a master at letter writing, and to find and know the real John Steinbeck, I strongly suggest "Steinbeck: A Life in Letters" edited by Elaine Steinbeck and Robert Wallsten.
Rating: 5
Summary: Highly recommended
Comment: Steinbeck wrote the lengthy EAST OF EDEN saga straight through, from January to the first of November, in 1951. Every weekday, he sharpened his beloved pencils, sat down and warmed up, writing in the form of a letter to his friend and publisher, Pascal Covici. The letters he entered on the left side of the manuscript book Covici hand given him; on the right side, after clearing his mind and setting out the days' goals, he'd write his story, averaging about 1,500 words a day. JOURNAL OF A NOVEL collects those daily addresses to Covici, to whom EAST OF EDEN is dedicated.
On the one hand, JOURNAL OF A NOVEL is instructive in how to use journaling to order one's demons, to focus and forge ahead. More important, it brings the reader right up to the man, and Steinbeck is a fascinating person to know. At age 48 when he produced this, he is twice divorced, happily remarried a third time, engaged in fatherhood and transplanted to New York. He is a whittler, a tinkerer, an inventor. His credo is, why pay someone to do something badly that he can do just as badly himself. He maintains an active family, professional and social life that he chattily reports and offers some prescient observations on the Marshall Plan and MacArthur. He is not without his depressive cycles, but at this point in his life he is more understanding of them and never lets them interfere with his work. His resolve is extraordinary.
It is especially rich to read this following WORKING DAYS, the journal he kept as he wrote THE GRAPES OF WRATH. You get a sense of personal growth and a fuller sense of the middle of the 20th century through his eyes.
Highly recommended.
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Title: East of Eden (Oprah's Book Club) by John Steinbeck ISBN: 0142004235 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: 18 June, 2003 List Price(USD): $16.00 |
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Title: Steinbeck: A Life in Letters by Robert Wallsten, E. Wallsten Steinbeck, John Steinbeck ISBN: 0140042881 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: April, 1989 List Price(USD): $25.00 |
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Title: Working Days: The Journals of the Grapes of Wrath 1938-1941 by John Steinbeck, Robert Demott ISBN: 0140144579 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: December, 1990 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
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Title: John Steinbeck, Writer: A Biography by Jackson J. Benson ISBN: 014014417X Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: December, 1990 List Price(USD): $25.00 |
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Title: America and Americans and Selected Nonfiction by John Steinbeck, Susan Shillinglaw, Jackson J. Benson ISBN: 0670030627 Publisher: Viking Press Pub. Date: 31 January, 2002 List Price(USD): $27.95 |
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