American prose writer John Steinbeck: biography

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-01-15 12:29

John Steinbeck (USA) is one of the most famous American writers of our time. His work, which is part of the so-called great triptych of American prose writers of the 20th century, is put on a par with Hemingway and Faulkner. John Steinbeck's varied literary output includes 28 novels and approximately 45 books of essays, plays, short stories, diaries, nonfiction and screenplays.

John Steinbeck. Years of life

The writer's ancestors had Jewish and German roots, and the surname itself is an American version of the original surname in German - Grossteinbeck. John Steinbeck was born on February 27, 1902, in the small provincial town of Salinas, California in the USA. Died at age 66 on December 20, 1968.

Family

The future American prose writer John Steinbeck and his family lived in an average income and had a two-story house with a land plot in their ownership, on whichchildren learned to work. John Ernst Steinbeck, Sr., his father was a government treasurer, and his mother, Olivia Hamilton, was a former school teacher. John had three sisters.

John Steinbeck. Biography Summary

Even in early childhood, he formed a rather difficult character - independent and wayward. From a young age, the future writer John Steinbeck was strongly fascinated by literature, despite his rather mediocre school performance. And by the time it ended, in 1919, he had already finally decided to devote his life and destiny to writing. In this he received the full support of his mother, who supported and shared her son's passion for reading and writing.

With some interruptions, between 1919 and 1925, John Steinbeck was educated at Stanford University.

The beginning of the creative path

John Steinbeck, whose biography as a writer began in the mid-20s of the last century, managed to try many professions and worked as a sailor, and a driver, and a carpenter, and even as a cleaner and watchman. Here he was helped by the parental school of labor, which he went through in childhood, which largely influenced his worldview.

At first he worked in the field of journalism and soon his first stories began to appear in print. Steinbeck's first debut as a writer took place in 1929, after moving to San Francisco, where his first seriousthe work is the novel "The Golden Cup".

And a little later, the work "Tortilla Flat Quarter" - a humorous description of the life of ordinary farmers living in the hills of Monterey County, released in 1935, brought him his first success. For such a naturalistic narrative, it was approved by literary critics.

All the following years, John Steinbeck fruitfully and almost continuously was busy creating new works. Already in 1937, his new story "On Men and Mice" was published, after the release of which critics and the literary community started talking about him as a major writer.

His title and outstanding work - "The Grapes of Wrath" - a novel that tells about the era that changed the fate of the country in the 30s. He caused a huge resonance in public circles, going far beyond the literary world. World criticism did not remain indifferent and choked with positive reviews about the novel, which was number one on the bestseller list for two years. John Steinbeck received letters from all over the world in which "The Grapes of Wrath" was discussed heatedly. Hollywood also drew attention to such a sensational work, and director John Ford made a film adaptation of it in 1940. The film, based on the novel by John Steinbeck, was wildly popular, was appreciated by film critics and won an Oscar in two categories. It is worth noting that this was not the last such achievement. Films based on the author's books continued to be a resounding success.

The surging glory did not interfere with the further fruitful work of the Americanwriter. Already in 1947, the whole world was reading the book "Russian Diary", consisting of travel essays and telling about Steinbeck's trip to the USSR together with photojournalist Robert Capa. Despite the fact that the book appeared at the beginning of the Cold War between the US and the USSR and the growing confrontation between the countries, throughout the book there is an undisguised respect for the Soviet Union, but there are also sharp and insightful comments about the processes that then took place in a totalitarian state..

John Steinbeck, whose biography (briefly) is described in this article, in addition to working in the field of literature, was also actively involved in social activities. He supported his friend Adlai Stevenson, a Democrat who held anti-conservative sentiments, taking part in the presidential elections of 1952 and 1956.

Behind him and direct participation in the events in Vietnam, where he went to the jungle for a month and a half as a war correspondent.

His he alth was undermined by the consequences of a serious and complex operation carried out on the writer in 1967. Subsequently, after several heart attacks, John Steinbeck died at the age of 66 in 1968.

He was inducted into the California Hall of Fame in 2007 by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Travel to the Soviet Union

Prose writer John Steinbeck went on a trip to the Soviet Union in 1947, accompanied by Robert Capa, a famous photographer andmaster of photography. The time chosen for the trip was turbulent, but at the same time alluring for the writer due to conflicting news about the USSR and from the USSR.

Only 2 years have passed since the end of the Second World War and the Cold War with the States has lasted for a year - the allies yesterday were ready to become sworn enemies today.

Countries were slowly recovering, military resources were gaining strength again, there was constant talk about the development of nuclear programs and the development of superpowers, and the great Stalin seemed completely immortal. No one made predictions about how these “games” would end.

The desire to visit the Soviet Union was fueled by the idea of a future book, which came to the writer and his photographer friend Robert Cape in New York to discuss a new collaboration project in the bar of the Bedford Hotel in 1947.

Steinbeck told Capa that dozens of newspapers constantly write about the Soviet Union, devoting almost several articles to it every day. The questions raised in the articles sounded something like this: "What are Stalin's thoughts? What are the plans of the Russian General Staff and where are their troops located? At what stage are the experimental developments of the atomic bomb and radio-controlled missiles?" In all this, Steinbeck was offended by the fact that all these materials are written by people who have never been to the USSR and are unlikely to ever be there. And there was no talk of their sources of information at all.

And my friends got the idea that there are probably a lot of things in the Union that no one writes about and is not even interested in. And here they are already interested in earnest,questions arose: “What do people in Russia wear? What do they eat and how do they cook? Do they have parties, do they dance, play? How do Russians love and die? What do they talk about with each other? Do Russian children go to school?.

They thought it would be a good idea to find out and write about it. The publishers responded vividly to the new idea of friends, and in the summer of 1947 a trip to the USSR took place, the route of which looked like this: Moscow, then Stalingrad, Ukraine and Georgia.

The purpose of the trip was to write and tell the Americans about real Soviet people and what they really are.

In those years, getting into the Soviet Union was considered a miracle, but Steinbeck and Kapu were not only allowed into Russia, but they even received permission to visit Ukraine and Georgia. When leaving, the footage was practically not touched, which was also surprising for that time. They seized only strategically important, from the point of view of intelligence officers, landscapes taken from the plane, but did not touch the most important thing for the writer - photographs of people.

There was an agreement between friends that they would not ask for trouble in an unfamiliar and harsh country, they would try to be objective - not to praise, but at the same time not to criticize Russians, and also not to pay attention to the Soviet bureaucratic machine and not react to all sorts of obstacles. They wanted to write honest material, in which there would be no comments or conclusions, and were prepared for the fact that they would encounter something incomprehensible or unpleasant to them, and many inconveniences might arise. With something like this you canmeet in any other country in the world.

The result of a trip to the USSR was the book of essays "Russian Diary" published in 1948, which tells about the author's observations of the life of the people of the Soviet Union of those times: how they worked, how they lived, how they rested and why museums are so revered in the Union.

Then the book did not appeal to either America or Russia. The Americans considered it too positive, and the Russians did not like the too negative description of the life of their country and its citizens. But for those who would like to learn about the Soviet Union and life in it, the book will be a pleasant read from both a literary and ethnographic point of view.

Bibliography

Peru John Steinbeck has many wonderful works that have become literary classics and recognized as world bestsellers in a variety of genres.

The most famous are:

Novels:

• Golden Chalice;
• "Tortilla Flat Quarter";
• "Lost Bus";
• "East of Paradise";
• Grapes of Wrath;
• "Cannery Row";

The winter of our anxiety

Tales:

• "About mice and people";
• Pearl.

Documentary:

• "Journeying with Charlie in Search of America";
• Russian Diary.

Storybooks:

• Long Valley;
• Paradise Pastures;
• Chrysanthemums.

In addition to literary works, John Steinbeck wrote 2 screenplays:

• Viva Zapata;
• Abandoned Village.

Most famous quotes

Because Steinbeck's writings are so popular all over the world, it's no surprise that some phrases from his books have become famous quotes, the most famous of which are listed below and will surely sound familiar.

From East of Heaven:

• "A woman in love is almost unbreakable."
• "When a person says they don't want to remember something, it usually means that they only think about it."
• "We must always remember death and try to live in such a way that our death does not bring joy to anyone."
• "The pure truth sometimes hurts, but the pain passes, while the wound caused by lies fester and does not heal."

From the novel "The Winter of Our Anxiety":

• "I wake up with a lingering feeling that I have a soul ulcer."
• “And why are you upset that, they say, people think badly of you? They don't think about you at all.”
• "The best way to hide your true motives is to tell the truth."
• "To live is to be scarred."

From The Grapes of Wrath:

“If you are in trouble, if you are in need, if you have been offended, go to the poor. Only they will help, no one else.”

From The Lost Bus:

"Isn't it strange that women compete for men they don't even want?"

From the novel Tortilla Flat Quarter:

• "The soul that is capable of the greatest good is also capable of the greatest evil."
• "Evening approaches as imperceptibly as old age approaches a happy person."

Book adaptations

Several of Steinbeck's literary creations were such a resounding success that they attracted the attention of the film industry and were filmed by Hollywood. Some of the films have been re-screened and reworked for the theatre.

• "Of Mice and Men" - the first adaptation in 1939 and again in 1992;
• The Grapes of Wrath - in 1940;
• "Tortilla Flat Quarter" - in 1942;
• "Pearl" - in 1947;
• East of Paradise - in 1955;
• The Lost Bus - in 1957;
• "Cannery Row" - film adaptation in 1982, theatrical production - in 1995.

Awards

Steinbeck has been nominated several times in his literary career for the most prominent writing awards.

In 1940, the author won the Pulitzer Prize for his most famous novel, The Grapes of Wrath, about the lives of seasonal workers.

In 1962, he was awarded the Nobel Prize and won the eponymous prize with the following comment: “For a realistic and poetic gift, for a successfulcombination of humor and a serious social outlook.”

Private life and children

John Steinbeck, whose personal life was quite active, was married several times in his life.

After beginning to publish a little, he married for the first time at the age of 28 to Carol Hanning, whom he met while working as a watchman at a fish factory. The marriage lasted 11 years, and despite the fact that Carol always supported and accompanied her husband on his travels, their relationship gradually began to deteriorate and they divorced in 1941. There were rumors that the reason for the breakup of their marriage was the lack of children.

Steinbeck's second wife was the singer and actress Gwendolyn Conger, whom he proposed to on the 5th day of their acquaintance in 1943. This marriage did not last long, only 5 years, but from this union they had two sons - Thomas Miles, who was born in 1944, and John in 1946.

Meeting actress and theater director Elaine Scott in mid-1949 ended with Steinbeck's third marriage in December 1950. Despite the fact that they did not have common children in marriage, Elaine remained the writer's wife until his death in 1968. She herself died in 2003. Elaine and John Steinbeck (family pictured below) are buried together in the writer's homeland of Salinas.

Son Thomas Miles Steinbeck followed in the footsteps of his famous father and became a journalist, screenwriter and writer. Until 2008, hehis daughter Blake Smile, granddaughter of John Steinbeck, were deprived of legal rights to the works of his father and grandfather. Currently lives in California with his wife.

On the son of John IV (Fourth) little is known. John Steinbeck served in the US Army in Vietnam. Passed away in 1991.