i'm just finishing up the steinbeck, and...

this is for the alter-reality, which is staggered by 20 years. and, i'm a little behind - so it was actually a few weeks more than twenty years ago. that's a long time to remember the details clearly.

i remember the text's value as being largely historical. or, at least i interpreted it that way. in reapproaching the text, i wanted the political and philosophical components to be paramount, yes. but, the truth is that when i read it the first time, i interpreted these components as an aspect of the plotline. these are the components that stuck with me over the years, and time may have distorted their priority in my mind. i've been reminded that the purpose of the text is historical, and all aspects of it are subservient to this aim.

marx would refer to the kind of socialism promoted by the novel as "utopian", and reject it as a push backwards against progress. steinbeck was apparently channeling emerson; while i have never found much of anything relevant to my life in the history of american puritanism, and have hence broadly avoided it, i do recognize the ideas as ultimately rooted in those of charles fourier and robert owen. i have no historical connection to american puritanism, either; unlike many southern canadians, i do not, to my knowledge, have american ancestry. i believe that the only nineteenth century ancestry that i have on this continent is indigenous. my mom's side came from norway in the early 20th century, and my dad's side came from italy even later than that. so, i've always looked at american puritanism as something that is foreign and strange to me; it is not my history. my history is distinct: it is canadian, but it comes directly from europe, without passing through the united states. and, i am consequently better able to understand utopian socialism through marx than i am through any american writer.

the point i'm getting across is that i cannot pretend that i endorse the politics in the novel. steinbeck does a good job in helping us understand the plight of these farmers, and that includes helping us understand how they think. in the process, he sides a little too closely with them, and repeats many of the errors that they would have no choice to make, given their immense ignorance of what is happening around them, but that he should have known better than to make.