"Letters to Alicia." Weekend with Newsday, December 11, 1965, 3W.
The Moon Is Down: Play in Two Parts. New York: Dramatists Play Service, 1942.
"My Short Novels." Steinbeck and His Critics, edited by E. W. Tedlock, Jr., and C. V. Wicker. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1957, 38-40.
"Reflections on a Lunar Eclipse." Herald Tribune (New York) Book Week, October 6, 1963, 3.
Steinbeck: A Life in Letters. Edited by Elaine Steinbeck and Robert Wallsten. New York: Viking Press, 1975.
SECONDARY SOURCES
BOOKS
Astro, Richard. John Steinbeck and Edward F. Ricketts: The Shaping of a Novelist. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1973.
Benson, Jackson J. Looking for Steinbeck's Ghost. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1988.
--. The True Adventures of John Steinbeck, Writer. New York: Viking Press, 1984.
Brown, Anthony Cave. The Last Hero: Wild Bill Donovan. New York: Times Books, 1982.
Coers, Donald V. John Steinbeck as Propagandist: The Moon Is Down Goes to War. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1991.
Debu-Bridel, Jacques. Les Editions de Minuit: Historique et bibliographie. Paris: Editions de Minuit, 1945.
Fontenrose, Joseph. John Steinbeck: An Introduction and Interpretation. New York: Barnes and Noble, 1963.
French, Warren. John Steinbeck's Fiction Revisited. New York: Twayne Publishers, 1994.
Goldstone, Adrian H., and John R. Payne. John Steinbeck: A Bibliographical Catalogue of the Adrian H. Goldstone Collection. Austin: University of Texas Humanities Research Center, 1974.
Haestrup, Jorgen. From Occupied to Ally: Danish Resistance Movement, 1940--45. Translated by Reginald Spink. Copenhagen: Det Berlingske Bogtrykkeri, 1963.
Hayashi. Tetsumaro. The Moon Is Down: Three Explications. Steinbeck's World War II Fiction, no. 1. Muncie, Ind.: Steinbeck Research Institute, Ball State University, 1986.
Lampe, David. The Savage Canary: The Story of the Resistance in Denmark. London: Cassell, 1957.
Levant, Howard. The Novels of John Steinbeck: A Critical Study. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1974.
Lisca, Peter. The Wide World of John Steinbeck. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1958.
Marks, Lester. Thematic Design in the Novels of John Steinbeck. The Hague: Mouton, 1969.
McCarthy, Paul. John Steinbeck. New York: Frederick Ungar, 1979. Millichap, Joseph R. Steinbeck and Film. New York: Frederick Ungar, 1983.
Parini, Jay. John Steinbeck: A Biography. New York: Henry Holt, 1995.
Petrow, Richard. The Bitter Years: The Invasion and Occupation of Denmark and Norway, April 1940--May 1945. New York: Morrow, 1974.
Sartre, Jean-Paul. What Is Literature? Translated by Bernard Frechtman. New York: Philosophical Library, 1949.
Timmerman, John H. John Steinbeck's Fiction: The Aesthetics of the Road Taken. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1986.
ARTICLES
Benson, Jackson J. "Through a Political Glass, Darkly: The Example of John Steinbeck." Studies in American Fiction, Spring 1984, 45-59.
Clancy, Charles J. "The Moon Is Down." In A Study Guide to Steinbeck, part 2, edited by Tetsumaro Hayashi. Metuchen, New Jersey: Scarecrow Press, 1979.
Coers, Donald V. " 'John Believed in Man': An Interview with Mrs. John Steinbeck." In After The Grapes of Wrath: Essays on John Steinbeck in Honor of Tetsumaro Hayashi, edited by Donald V. Coers, Paul D. Ruffin, and Robert J. DeMott. Athens: Ohio University Press, 1995.
Ditsky, John. "Steinbeck's 'European' Play-Novella: The Moon Is Down." Steinbeck Quarterly, Winter--Spring 1987, 9-18. Reprinted in The Short Novels of John Steinbeck, edited by Jackson J. Benson. Durham: Duke University Press, 1990.
French, Warren. "The Moon Is Down: John Steinbeck's 'Times.' " Steinbeck Quarterly, Summer--Fall 1978, 77-87.
Hyman, Stanley Edgar. "Some Notes on John Steinbeck." Antioch Review, June 1942. Reprinted in Steinbeck and His Critics, edited by E. W. Tedlock, Jr., and C. V. Wicker. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1957.
Lewis, Cliff. "Art for Politics: John Steinbeck and FDR." In After The Grapes of Wrath: Essays on John Steinbeck in Honor of Tetsumaro Hayashi, edited by Donald V. Coers, Paul D. Ruffin, and Robert J. DeMott. Athens: Ohio University Press, 1995.
Morsberger, Robert E. "Steinbeck's War." In The Steinbeck Question: New Essays in Criticism, edited by Donald R. Noble. Troy, NY: Whitson Publishing Company, 1993.
Sartre, Jean-Paul. "American Novelists in French Eyes." Atlantic Monthly, August 1946, 114--18.
Schulberg, Budd. "John Steinbeck: A Lion in Winter." In The Four Seasons of Success. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1972. Reprinted in Conversations with John Steinbeck, edited by Thomas Fensch. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1988.
Shiraga, Eiko. "Three Strong Women in Steinbeck's The Moon Is Down." In After The Grapes of Wrath: Essays on John Steinbeck in Honor of Tetsumaro Hayashi, edited by Donald V. Coers, Paul D. Ruffin, and Robert J. DeMott. Athens: Ohio University Press, 1995.
Simmonds, Roy S. "The Metamorphosis of The Moon Is Down, March 1942-March 1943." In After The Grapes of Wrath: Essays on John Steinbeck in Honor of Tetsumaro Hayashi, edited by Donald V. Coers, Paul D. Ruffin, and Robert J. DeMott. Athens: Ohio University Press, 1995.
--. "Steinbeck and World War II: The Moon Goes Down." Steinbeck Quarterly, Winter-Spring 1984, 14-34.
Weeks, Donald. "Steinbeck against Steinbeck." Pacific Spectator, Autumn 1947. Reprinted in John Steinbeck, edited by Harold Bloom. New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1987.
TO
PAT COVICI
A GREAT EDITOR AND
A GREAT FRIEND
1
By ten-forty-five it was all over. The town was occupied, the defenders defeated, and the war finished. The invader had prepared for this campaign as carefully as he had for larger ones. On this Sunday morning the postman and the policeman had gone fishing in the boat of Mr. Corell, the popular storekeeper. He had lent them his trim sailboat for the day. The postman and the policeman were several miles at sea when they saw the small, dark transport, loaded with soldiers, go quietly past them. As officials of the town, this was definitely their business, and these two put about, but of course the battalion was in possession by the time they could make port. The policeman and the postman could not even get into their own offices in the Town Hall, and when they insisted on their rights they were taken prisoners of war and locked up in the town jail.
The local troops, all twelve of them, had been away, too, on this Sunday morning, for Mr. Corell, the popular storekeeper, had donated lunch, targets, cartridges, and prizes for a shooting-competition to take place six miles back in the hills, in a lovely glade Mr. Corell owned. The local troops, big, loose-hung boys, heard the planes and in the distance saw the parachutes, and they came back to town at double-quick step. When they arrived, the invader had flanked the road with machine guns. The loose-hung soldiers, having very little experience in war and none at all in defeat, opened fire with their rifles. The machine guns clattered for a moment and six of the soldiers became dead riddled bundles and three half-dead riddled bundles, and three of the soldiers escaped into the hills with their rifles.
By ten-thirty the brass band of the invader was playing beautiful and sentimental music in the town square while the townsmen, their mouths a little open and their eyes astonished, stood about listening to the music and staring at the gray-helmeted men who carried sub-machine guns in their arms.
By ten-thirty-eight the riddled six were buried, the parachutes were folded, and the battalion was billeted in Mr. Corell's warehouse by the pier, which had on its shelves blankets and cots for a battalion.
By ten-forty-five old Mayor Orden had received the formal request that he grant an audience to Colonel Lanser of the invaders, an audience which was set for eleven sharp at the Mayor's five-room palace.
The drawing-room of the palace was very sweet and comfortable. The
gilded chairs covered with their worn tapestry were set about stiffly like too many servants with nothing to do. An arched marble fireplace held its little basket of red flameless heat, and a hand-painted coal scuttle stood on the hearth. On the mantel, flanked by fat vases, stood a large, curly porcelain clock which swarmed with tumbling cherubs. The wallpaper of the room was dark red with gold figures, and the woodwork was white, pretty, and clean. The paintings on the wall were largely preoccupied with the amazing heroism of large dogs faced with imperiled children. Nor water nor fire nor earthquake could do in a child so long as a big dog was available.
Beside the fireplace old Doctor Winter sat, bearded and simple and benign, historian and physician to the town. He watched in amazement while his thumbs rolled over and over on his lap. Doctor Winter was a man so simple that only a profound man would know him as profound. He looked up at Joseph, the Mayor's servingman, to see whether Joseph had observed the rolling wonders of his thumbs.
"Eleven o'clock?" Doctor Winter asked.
And Joseph answered abstractedly, "Yes, sir. The note said eleven."
"You read the note?"
"No, sir, His Excellency read the note to me."
And Joseph went about testing each of the gilded chairs to see whether it had moved since he had last placed it. Joseph habitually scowled at furniture, expecting it to be impertinent, mischievous, or dusty. In a world where Mayor Orden was the leader of men, Joseph was the leader of furniture, silver, and dishes. Joseph was elderly and lean and serious, and his life was so complicated that only a profound man would know him to be simple. He saw nothing amazing about Doctor Winter's rolling thumbs; in fact he found them irritating. Joseph suspected that something pretty important was happening, what with foreign soldiers in the town and the local army killed or captured. Sooner or later Joseph would have to get an opinion about it all. He wanted no levity, no rolling thumbs, no nonsense from furniture. Doctor Winter moved his chair a few inches from its appointed place and Joseph waited impatiently for the moment when he could put it back again.
Doctor Winter repeated, "Eleven o'clock, and they'll be here then, too. A time-minded people, Joseph."
And Joseph said, without listening, "Yes, sir."
"A time-minded people," the doctor repeated.
"Yes, sir," said Joseph.
"Time and machines."
"Yes, sir."
"They hurry toward their destiny as though it would not wait. They push the rolling world along with their shoulders."
And Joseph said, "Quite right, sir," simply because he was getting tired of saying, "Yes, sir."
Joseph did not approve of this line of conversation, since it did not help him to have an opinion about anything. If Joseph remarked to the cook later in the day, "A time-minded people, Annie," it would not make any sense. Annie would ask, "Who?" and then "Why?" and finally say, "That's nonsense, Joseph." Joseph had tried carrying Doctor Winter's remarks below-stairs before and it had always ended the same: Annie always discovered them to be nonsense.
Doctor Winter looked up from his thumbs and watched Joseph disciplining the chairs. "What's the Mayor doing?"
"Dressing to receive the colonel, sir."
"And you aren't helping him? He will be ill dressed by himself."
"Madame is helping him. Madame wants him to look his best. She"--Joseph blushed a little--"Madame is trimming the hair out of his ears, sir. It tickles. He won't let me do it."
"Of course it tickles," said Doctor Winter.
"Madame insists," said Joseph.
Doctor Winter laughed suddenly. He stood up and held his hands to the fire and Joseph skillfully darted behind him and replaced the chair where it should be.
"We are so wonderful," the doctor said. "Our country is falling, our town is conquered, the Mayor is about to receive the conqueror, and Madame is holding the struggling Mayor by the neck and trimming the hair out of his ears."
"He was getting very shaggy," said Joseph. "His eyebrows, too. His Excellency is even more upset about having his eyebrows trimmed than his ears. He says it hurts. I doubt if even Madame can do it."
"She will try," Doctor Winter said.
"She wants him to look his best, sir."
Through the glass window of the entrance door a helmeted face looked in and there was a rapping on the door. It seemed that some warm light went out of the room and a little grayness took its place.
Doctor Winter looked up at the clock and said, "They are early. Let them in, Joseph."
Joseph went to the door and opened it. A soldier stepped in, dressed in a long coat. He was helmeted and he carried a sub-machine gun over his arm. He glanced quickly about and then stepped aside. Behind him an officer stood in the doorway. The officer's uniform was common and it had rank showing only on the shoulders.
The officer stepped inside and looked at Doctor Winter. He was rather like an overdrawn picture of an English gentleman. He had a slouch, his face was red, his nose long but rather pleasing; he seemed about as unhappy in his uniform as most British general officers are. He stood in the doorway, staring at Doctor Winter, and he said, "Are you Mayor Orden, sir?"
Doctor Winter smiled. "No, no, I am not."
"You are an official, then?"
"No, I am the town doctor and I am a friend of the Mayor."
The officer said, "Where is Mayor Orden?"
"Dressing to receive you. You are the colonel?"
"No, I am not. I am Captain Bentick." He bowed and Doctor Winter returned the bow slightly. Captain Bentick continued, as though a little embarrassed at what he had to say. "Our military regulations, sir, prescribe that we search for weapons before the commanding officer enters a room. We mean no disrespect, sir." And he called over his shoulder, "Sergeant!"
The sergeant moved quickly to Joseph, ran his hands over his pockets, and said, "Nothing, sir."
Captain Bentick said to Doctor Winter, "I hope you will pardon us." And the sergeant went to Doctor Winter and patted his pockets. His hands stopped at the inside coat pocket. He reached quickly in, brought out a little, flat, black leather case, and took it to Captain Bentick. Captain Bentick opened the case and found there a few simple surgical instruments--two scalpels, some surgical needles, some clamps, a hypodermic needle. He closed the case again and handed it back to Doctor Winter.
Doctor Winter said, "You see, I am a country doctor. One time I had to perform an appendectomy with a kitchen knife. I have always carried these with me since then."
Captain Bentick said, "I believe there are some firearms here?" He opened a little leather book that he carried in his pocket.
Doctor Winter said, "You are thorough."
"Yes, our local man has been working here for some time."
Doctor Winter said, "I don't suppose you would tell who that man is?"
Bentick said, "His work is all done now. I don't suppose there would be any harm in telling. His name is Corell."
And Doctor Winter said in astonishment, "George Corell? Why, that seems impossible! He's done a lot for this town. Why, he even gave prizes for the shooting-match in the hills this morning." And as he said it his eyes began to understand what had happened and his mouth closed slowly, and he said, "I see; that is why he gave the shooting-match. Yes, I see. But George Corell--that sounds impossible!"
The door to the left opened and Mayor Orden came in; he was digging in his right ear with his little finger. He was dressed in his official morning coat, with his chain of office about his neck. He had a large, white, spraying mustache and two smaller ones, one over each eye. His white hair was so recently brushed that only now were the hairs struggling to be free, to stand up again. He had been Mayor so long that he was the Idea-Mayor in the town. Even grown people when they saw the word "mayor," printed or written, saw Mayor Orden in their minds. He and his office were one. It had given him dignity and he had given it warmth.
From behind him Madame emerged, small and wrinkled and fierce. She considered that she had created this man
out of whole cloth, had thought him up, and she was sure that she could do a better job if she had it to do again. Only once or twice in her life had she ever understood all of him, but the part of him which she knew, she knew intricately and well. No little appetite or pain, no carelessness or meanness in him escaped her; no thought or dream or longing in him ever reached her. And yet several times in her life she had seen the stars.
She stepped around the Mayor and she took his hand and pulled his finger out of his outraged ear and pushed his hand to his side, the way she would take a baby's thumb away from his mouth.
"I don't believe for a moment it hurts as much as you say," she said, and to Doctor Winter, "He won't let me fix his eyebrows."
"It hurts," said Mayor Orden.
"Very well, if you want to look like that there is nothing I can do about it." She straightened his already straight tie. "I'm glad you're here, Doctor," she said. "How many do you think will come?" And then she looked up and saw Captain Bentick. "Oh," she said, "the colonel!"
Captain Bentick said, "No, ma'am, I'm only preparing for the colonel. Sergeant!"
The sergeant, who had been turning over pillows, looking behind pictures, came quickly to Mayor Orden and ran his hands over his pockets.
Captain Bentick said, "Excuse him, sir, it's regulations."
He glanced again at the little book in his hand. "Your Excellency, I think you have firearms here. Two items, I believe?"
Mayor Orden said, "Firearms? Guns, you mean, I guess. Yes, I have a shotgun and a sporting-rifle." He said deprecatingly, "You know, I don't hunt very much any more. I always think I'm going to, and then the season opens and I don't get out. I don't take the pleasure in it I used to."
Captain Bentick insisted. "Where are these guns, Your Excellency?"
The Mayor rubbed his cheek and tried to think. "Why, I think--" He turned to Madame. "Weren't they in the back of that cabinet in the bedroom with the walking-sticks?"
Madame said, "Yes, and every stitch of clothing in that cabinet smells of oil. I wish you'd put them somewhere else."
Captain Bentick said, "Sergeant!" and the sergeant went quickly into the bedroom.