“SO
CALLED CRITICAL APPRAISAL ALWAYS GETS ME TO FEELING NUTS”
JOHN STEINBECK. Autograph Letter Signed to
Merriman Smith, Sag Harbor, NY, "Circa Bastille Day ‘61"
[14 July 1961]. 1 page, 11" x 8½", on his personal
stationery.
John Steinbeck, the American author whose novels, including Of Mice
and Men, The Grapes of Wrath, and East of Eden, would
earn him the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1962, had just published
his last novel, The Winter of Our Discontent, when he wrote
this letter. Reviews of the book had begun to appear, and Steinbeck
was dejected by them; even seemingly favorable reviewers kept harking
back to his earlier writings and misunderstanding his latest work.
Steinbeck’s letter is to Merriman Smith, a long-time UPI reporter
who covered the White House from 1941 until 1970. Smith was considered
the dean of White House correspondents at this date, and he had published
several books based on his experiences with different Presidents. Judging
from Steinbeck’s comments here, Smith had likely written to him
about The Winter of Our Discontent and the critical reception
it was receiving.
“Dear Merriman Smith,” Steinbeck opens, “I
am glad of your letter of June 7. So called critical appraisal always
gets me to feeling nuts. Don’t you think it might be a matter
of what is now called ‘Image’? It isn’t that Image
is a reflection of life but that life should be a reflection of Image.
If Mr. Eisenhower had swamped out his syntax, a sense of shock would
have rocked the nation. Joe Alsop can say good morning and make it sound
like a conspiracy. I don’t know Virgilia so I have no information
as to whether any of her bones are funny, but the tip of the spine is
funny no matter who is sitting on it. In practice, it seems to me, the
nearer a situation approaches the ridiculous, the more solemnly it must
be treated.
“A few years ago, in a moment of insanity,” Steinbeck
continues, “I agreed to go to a P.E.N. convention in Tokio.
There I heard with amazement the suggestion that we should go back to
America and force our publishers to print more foreign books. When I
responded that I was having enough trouble getting them to print mine,
I got a bad name I never lived down.
“Of course I know your books and they are a joy in a pretty
dreary political world,” he adds. “Let’s
form a cell for silent laughter. Subversive as all hell and the John
Birch Society will have to make a special category for us labelled Danger!
Explosives! Meanwhile thanks.” He has signed in full, “John
Steinbeck.”
For background on Steinbeck at this date, see Jackson J. Benson, The
True Adventures of John Steinbeck, Writer, pages 897-99. See also
other letters written by Steinbeck at this time in Elaine Steinbeck
and Robert Wallsten, eds., Steinbeck: A Life in Letters, pages
698-701. The letter here is not included in the Steinbeck and Wallsten
edition of Steinbeck’s letters and is apparently unpublished.
The letter is written on stationery imprinted with Steinbeck’s
name and his address in Sag Harbor on Long Island, where he had a summer
home. The letter is just a trifle wrinkled at the margins; it is essentially
in very good condition. $3500.00
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