Journal of a Novel

by John Steinbeck

  Later. Now. There’s the insert done and it went three handwritten pages. It is horrible but it brings Kate out in the open—the only time it will ever happen. But I think now the sequence is maturated so that there will be no surprise at what she does. It is all in and understandable. And psychiatrically very accurate I might say. Let me know what you think of it. It has taken me all day to write because I was so sluggish about getting started. But I think that this sequence might be one of the most effective pieces of horror in any language. But I don’t know and won’t know until somebody reads it.

  May 31, Thursday

  Oh lord, another week is ending up and I haven’t got much further. I will complete Kate this week. I don’t think I can do it today but maybe I can. It is a thing to try. But unless this is cold and detailed it will not be convincing. It must be set down like a record. Like a report. I think I will put it down like a report. I wonder how I can make it absolutely cold. The work yesterday —the inset—champagne and unmasking was so horrible that it gave me bad dreams myself.45 I guess working on the dreams must have done it. But it will be some time before I get over it. And the next sequence will be even more terrible because it is without emotion. This is probably why Kate is so frightening. She has no conscience. It is much the same thing as happened to me during the war when I used to go out to visit the burned British pilots. It wasn’t that they had no faces that was horrible; you could get used to the blob of flesh without lips, noses, eyelids or ears. The thing you couldn’t get used to was the fact that behind that they were perfectly nice normal men with normal impulses. This was the real horror. And Kate’s horror is her lack of human reaction. And also that you don’t know what she wants. In the last scene one of her impulses burst through but it was pulled back instantly. Now—today the final process starts and when it starts it will go through to its conclusion. It won’t waver anymore and there will be no side issues. This must be the most carefully constructed crime. It must have no loop holes of any kind. And I think I can do that.

  Later. Now there, Mr. Pat, if you can untangle these notes, you’re good. Just follow the date numbers if you can. As I had hoped, I am going to finish with the whorehouse tomorrow. I will be glad to. It is a tale of such horror that I will be happy to be done with it. But I think it has to be done. And then next week I will get back to the twins and the story will open out again. I think you will find that Cathy as Kate fascinates people though. People are always interested in evil even when they pretend their interest is clinical. And they will mull Kate over. They will forget I said she was bad. And they will hate her because while she is a monster, she is a little piece of the monster in all of us. It won’t be because she is foreign that people will be interested but because she is not. That is not cynicism either.

  And now I am going to leave this for today. It has been a hard week. Too many other things have been involved—things to be solved. We had to go out two nights. I got too tired. But it will be done tomorrow. Sat. & Sun. I will work again on my short story.

  June 1, Friday

  Late again because of so many things to be done and to be thought about. I don’t think the book is suffering. I’m keeping the two apart. The week is gone now and how did it ever get to be June. I guess you will be coming over for coffee and manuscript this afternoon. Anyway I will call you in a little while. My pencils are getting low and I can’t find any in the neighborhood. Maybe you can get some over where you are. I’ll ask you to try anyway.

  It is hot today but not quite hot enough to turn on air-conditioning. Now I should go right to work and get it done. But I don’t know. It is a dawdle day for me and I think my handwriting shows it. Now I will call you and ask you to bring me some money too. So I called and you are not at your desk. I wonder where you are. So now I will go to work and finish up this sequence. And I’ll be glad too. Well I finally got you and it’s about time too. And now I will be ready to work.

  June 4, Monday

  Dear Pat. Another Monday. Feeling a little rocky. I worked over the week end on that other story and had to throw it away again. It takes me so long in planning to do the simplest thing. I don’t know what will come of that. Bad dreams last night. Dreams of hopeless debt, which of course I do not have but I dreamed I had them which is just as bad. Strange terrible dreams as though I were not doing enough. And I think I am doing all I can. There was a time when I didn’t think I had any limitation either qualitative or quantitative. I don’t know what I think now. I do know I have a pace and to go beyond it is to waste time rather than to gain it. Sometime I’ll try to work out the relation of dawdling to work.

  I was interested last Friday in your sense of shock over the end of the Kate story. I had the same sense of shock writing it. I think you were shocked that I could think such things and so I was also. But the fact seems to be that I can think almost anything, which means I suppose that I can be almost anything. But I believe what the sheriff says—that anybody is a murderer if you find the key to his trigger finger. Kate’s episode is finished for a while but it is not finished finally. There will be two more episodes with Kate before the book finally closes.

  The design of this book, made so long ago, seems to hold. It has a quality now to me of something that has happened so that no protest will change it. My job seems to be to live long enough and strongly enough to set it down. That’s funny, isn’t it? Strange—this morning my mind is in a state of feud. You just called saying I can’t serve two gods. And your remarks make very good sense except for one thing. To a certain extent I must serve two masters—1, the book and 2, the other life. Carried to its extreme I would not be able to make out a grocery list if I were so obsequious to the book. The day is still very young. And I wonder whether I am. Every now and then a kind of sick weariness falls on me. It was so yesterday. It is not being tired but just fed up. This could probably be traced to feeding and yet it would be strange in a world of ups and downs if the human body and mind did not have lumps and hollows. My handwriting this morning is full of lumps and hollows which means usually that I am not yet set in my mind for work. I have word this morning that the boat should be there when we arrive. What fun that is going to be. And I have not told anyone. Anyone at all. Elizabeth, Waverly (because she is going away), and you—are the only ones who know. I am really looking forward to the summer. And I do hope my work can go on. I see no reason why it should not. We will have little or no social life. I will go to work very early and try to get air and swimming and paddling and sailing in the afternoon. My health has been extraordinarily good. And now my handwriting has settled down and so I know it is time for me to go to work. And so I will try.

  Later. Now there, Mr. Pat, is the opening. It is designedly slow —has to be to balance the last section. It has to get back to the casual and I am doing it this way on purpose. I hope it doesn’t sound dull. But I do want everything to be in balance. If this book were about only one thing it would be different, but it is about everything so it must rock like a star. And so you will find many changes and they will not be accidents—they are designed and each one has its purpose. I am pretty sure you sense these things but I draw them to your attention anyway. Tomorrow comes the theological discussion and the shocking of Adam. You are going to see Samuel in a new light. He could be an active man as well as a passive one and you’re going to see activity. So many things going on around. Some time I will tell you a really evil story that is happening to me now. But I think you know what it is.

  And that is my work for today.

  June 5, Tuesday

  Your letter came this morning. Do you know, Pat—I have a curious reactive pattern. I noticed it during the war in combat and I have noticed it in other things as well as in this. Little things can upset me completely with fear or nervousness, or rage. But big things freeze me. My mind goes absolutely cold and then it moves very slowly like a sniffing fox. What you say is very clear. And I search in my own little knowledge and experience. It does not seem to me to be hemorrha
ge because of a number of things. It does seem to be heart—perhaps. The first thing for me is to find out from someone who knows. And that I am in process of doing. And I will shortly know. This will hit me in the night and suddenly but right now I am frozen and I must know. Then, when I do, you had better guard yourself because if you do not do as I say, you will encounter a savagery you cannot even suspect. Now I will leave it until I know more. And I will very shortly.

  Last night I sat late talking with Jean46 and Elaine. And on my way to bed I was torn out of my pattern. I never write out of hours. But I came in and wrote the dialogue of Sam‘l. Hamilton which is in today’s work—it tore out so rapidly that the words are nearly unreadable. It is a completely passionate piece of writing. I knew Sam’l. was going to be violent but I didn’t know the quality of his violence. It is very odd—the compulsion.

  I have sharpened up a new 12 of pencils, fine long ones. This is a kind of indulgence. How I love a new pencil. And I discarded all the little ones. Tom can use them for his drawings. There’s a terrible buzz of frustration in me. I can’t find the man I want. I hate waiting.

  June 6, Wednesday

  Thank God that black Tuesday is over. I could not get to the machine until 5 and I guess if I had not had the discipline of the day’s work, I would have climbed the walls. Isn’t it strange that I had done the dialogue the night before and for the first time. I’m like Ethel—I’ll begin to believe myself if I’m not careful. I slept very badly last night, buzzing like a cheap over-wound clock, but all’s good today. I’m going to see the boys late this afternoon and earlier I will buy them bathing suits. And I have a pocket knife and a gun that shoots paper for Johnny’s birthday. And tomorrow, if I can get Tom to ask me, I would like to go to his school to observe method. The teacher wants me to go but I wouldn’t think of going without his invitation. It would be like snooping. I am going to let him hold the eagles. I think he needs a little eminence. And keeping the flag would be good for him. And there is no eminence like taking care of a responsibility. The eagles of the Xth Legion for instance.

  Now—I still have the twinge and creak on my mind but thank heaven now only a pattern and groundless. I don’t know whether I have the poop to write well today. That takes the kind of energy which may have gone for a while. But I can always throw it away and I do have hidden pockets of energy that open up when I need them. I had a good long letter from Beth. Had asked her for some advice about the boys. She is so wise and good. Now my bird is fed and watered and has had his bath. And he is singing very well and cocky. And I should be able to sing also—and maybe will. We can do strange and wonderful things when we want to—or need to. One thing I found out in the war is that I can do nearly anything if the pressure is great enough and nearly nothing without pressure. And could that be the reason why paternalisms fail? Because they remove the necessary pressures on men? I can complain like mad but I never have done good work when there was perfect and uncomplicated ease. Ay Lord! my relief is very great. And I’ll now put down a few words.

  June 7, Thursday

  I’m afraid I kind of pooped out yesterday. The fire went out of me and I stopped in the middle. I guess I’m not as tough as I get to thinking. Went up to see the boys and got their clothes to be sent. Then this morning I went to Tom’s school to watch the teaching methods. And I learned quite a lot. I thought it was important that I go. And I can’t seem to get hold of myself today. My mind is like a god dammed animal. If it gets out it is very hard to catch. I’ve had it in chains for quite a long time and now I’ll have to get a net over it. It’s flying away. I feel like such a fool, but there it is. Maybe I will kick over the tracks today. Maybe fighting it is no good and I should let it ride. The time is late and it will be difficult. I’m being real difficult to myself. I know I’ll pick up confidence but I don’t have much now. Maybe that would be a good idea. I haven’t rested for three weeks now and maybe that is it. I might just be tired.

  June 8, Friday

  Yesterday was a bust; I suppose the greatest of self-indulgence. I guess this is why I give myself so much time for error. And today is nearly as bad. It makes me suspicious and untrustful of myself. My brain acts like a bad child, willful and sneering. And oh! the tricks I can use to justify it so that in the end it becomes downright virtuous. I guess it’s like the necessity for hating the person you have injured. I never feel virtuous unless I have a sense of guilt. I’ve been nervous this week, sure, but maybe I have used the nervousness as an excuse or maybe the nervousness itself is a self-deceptive device. Today you should be coming over for a week’s work and I haven’t much to give you. I have been very bad. And this makes me shy. Time creeps on me too in a nightmarish way. I don’t think I ever told you this but once in college I went flibberty geblut and got to going to the library and reading what I wanted instead of what was required. I got behind and then I got so far behind that I could not possibly catch up. And I still have bad dreams about that. It must have cut a very deep channel.

  Today our library chairs came just a few days before we go away. Isn’t that terrible? But it always happens. I am having such trouble this week—it is a sloppy slippery week. My work does not coagulate. It is as unmanageable as a raw egg on the kitchen floor. It makes me crazy. I am really going to try now and I’m afraid that the very force of the trying will take all the life out of the work. I don’t know where this pest came from but I know it is not new. Now I’ll crack down and

  June 11, Monday

  If anything gets done in this hysterical week of moving I will be very surprised but then I am fairly consistently surprised by everything. Spent the week end nurturing and complaining about a sick stomach, which was probably what was wrong with me all along. I suspect a little exercise is going to help that along. I haven’t had much lately, not even the walking I am accustomed to. I was amused at your reference to the boat the other day. You thought I couldn’t keep it [secret] and twice it has been you who have nearly blown it. I guess because it is on my mind and not so much on yours.

  I wish I knew how people do good and long-sustained work and still keep all kinds of other lives going—social, economic, etc. I can’t. I seem to have to waste time, so much dawdling to so much work. I am frightened by this week before it even happens. If I had any sense I would leave my book this week. But that would not be good because it would divorce me from its rhythm and it would take too long to come back to it. So I’ll simply get as much done as I can and work as long as is feasible.

  Tomorrow is Johnny’s birthday. I’ll have to go up early with his presents. There are very few this year. I want to get them out of the awful material thing that is so constantly around them. If they can survive that, it will be fine. Just now they think in terms of things almost exclusively. Another thing given them too deeply is “mine-thine” but mostly mine. I’ll see what I can do this summer. If I can do one fifth of the things I want to this summer, it will be wonderful.

  The day progresses and so does my stomach. I think I am about ready to start on the old trail again. My mind is not as crystal clear as I could wish it. I slept too long and too hard over the week end. My greatest fault, at least to me, is my lack of ability for relaxation. I do not remember ever having been relaxed in my whole life. Even in sleep I am tight and restless and I awaken so quickly at any change or sound. It is not a good thing. It would be fine to relax. I think I got this through my father. I remember his restlessness. It sometimes filled the house to a howling although he did not speak often. He was a singularly silent man—first I suppose because he had few words and second because he had no one to say them to. He was strong rather than profound. Cleverness only confused him—and this is interesting —he had no ear for music whatever. Patterns of music were meaningless to him. I often wonder about him. In my struggle to be a writer, it was he who supported and backed me and explained me—not my mother. She wanted me desperately to be something decent like a banker. She would have liked me to be a successful writer like Tarkington
but this she didn’t believe I could do. But my father wanted me to be myself. Isn’t that odd. He admired anyone who laid down his line and followed it undeflected to the end. I think this was because he abandoned his star in little duties and let his head go under in the swirl of family and money and responsibility. To be anything pure requires an arrogance he did not have, and a selfishness he could not bring himself to assume. He was a man intensely disappointed in himself. And I think he liked the complete ruthlessness of my design to be a writer in spite of mother and hell. Anyway he was the encourager. Mother always thought I would get over it and come to my senses. And the failure of all the Hamiltons might be that they came to their senses. And now I have spewed enough and I will go to work.

  There’s my word rate done but I think I will go on. I lost so much time last week that it would do no harm to do more this week. It might soften my conscience. And if you wonder why I am spending so much time on this naming—you must know that I am stating my thesis and laying it out. And I am glad that I can use the oldest story in the world to be the design of the newest story for me. The lack of change in the world is the thing which astonishes me. So I am going to let these three men go over the old story and illuminate it, each one out of his own experience. And you will tell me if I do well.

  Still the same day. And now I had set down in my own hand the 16 verses of Cain and Abel and the story changes with flashing lights when you write it down. And I think I have a title at last, a beautiful title, EAST OF EDEN. And read the 16th verse to find it. And the Salinas Valley is surely East of Eden. I could go on and write another page and perhaps it would be good, who knows. Or maybe not. What a strange story it is and how it haunts one. I have dreaded getting into this section because I knew what the complications were likely to be. And they weren’t less but more because as I went into the story more deeply I began to realize that without this story—or rather a sense of it—psychiatrists would have nothing to do. In other words this one story is the basis of all human neurosis—and if you take the fall along with it, you have the total of the psychic troubles that can happen to a human. I am not going to write any more today but maybe tomorrow I can do a little more.