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"I DON'T SUPPOSE ANYONE EVER SO HATED A YEAR AS I HATED 1948...": STEINBECK'S JOURNAL FOR 1949. STEINBECK, JOHN. 1902-1968. Autograph Manuscript being his personal journal for 1949 detailing his despair at the end of his marriage and the long journey to writing again, culminating in his meeting Elaine Scott with Ann Sothern in May,
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"I DON'T SUPPOSE ANYONE EVER SO HATED A YEAR AS I HATED 1948...": STEINBECK'S JOURNAL FOR 1949.
STEINBECK, JOHN. 1902-1968. Autograph Manuscript being his personal journal for 1949 detailing his despair at the end of his marriage and the long journey to writing again, culminating in his meeting Elaine Scott with Ann Sothern in May, 4to (305 x 193 mm), 91 pp filled, written in commercial diary for the year 1949 from the Standard Diary Company, red moire cloth gilt.
WITH: a birthday telegram from Pat Covici to Steinbeck, February 17, 1949, also laid in.
A VERY PERSONAL JOURNAL DETAILING THE YEAR LEADING UP TO HIS MEETING OF ELAINE SCOTT, HIS FINAL AND MOST STABLE RELATIONSHIP.
Steinbeck's first entry in this journal, a note on the title page, gives us a sense of the anguish contained in its pages: "A private book! In the event of my death, it should go to Pascal Covici who will know what to do with it."
So many terrible things happened to John Steinbeck in 1948: his best friend Ed Ricketts was killed in a car-train accident in Monterey. His second wife Gwyn surprised him by asking for a divorce, taking their two small boys with her as she left Steinbeck alone to stew in his misery. Response to the publication of his last two works—The Wayward Bus and A Russian Journal—was mixed to poor. Suffice it to say he was in the midst of a full-blown mid-life crisis (maybe his second one) when he started this journal on New Year's Eve.
On the address leaf, he writes: "I don't suppose anyone ever so hated a year as I hated 1948. It is with a great sense of relief that I move into 1949. No matter how bad it is, it can't be as bad as 48. Wife, children, best friend all gone. But perhaps it toughened me. I hope so." Steinbeck was in LA for New Years, dating movie stars (like Paulette Goddard, referred to as "P.G." here) and watching a screening of The Red Pony at Republic Pictures, but soon returned home to Pacific Grove. When his divorce papers arrived on January 15, he writes, "Saturday—the same. All day in bed and night many dreams ...Neal brought me papers ... But felt a hell of a big relief." He tries to understand what went wrong in his marriage, and wonders if it linked to the way it began: "The guilt toward Carol ... How strange this is. Maybe Gwyn was right. Maybe she had more of a hold than either of us know. But that won't make any difference now. Too late."
In the wake of Ed Ricketts's death, it fell to Steinbeck to close up the laboratory. He spent January 19 going through Ed's files and journals, learning about Ed's own troubles with depression, and also reading letters from himself, and his wives to Ed written in happier days: "It was a painful day, a very painful day."
Steinbeck stops writing in the journal from March 6 to May 11, picking back up after he gets excited about writing again as the genesis of East of Eden comes to him. On May 12 he writes, "One more big one I think, just as one more big book and they should come together. Maybe that's the way it will be. It would be good if it could. Then I could bow out nicely. But on my terms this time. It must be." On May 16, he writes: "Inwardly I am in a quake with some creation coming up some where. There is definitely a surge on the rise from some where. I have felt it for some time. But it is beginning to lift me by the boot straps and pretty soon will throw me I guess."
On May 22, he pessimistically turns his attention to dating again: "I hope that Bo is wrong when he says I will be married again. I can't see. It would be a simple repetition and I don't want that again. In fact I don't think I could stand it again. The pressure is too great and I am not able to take quite so much any more or ever maybe." And yet, Steinbeck has just invited actress Ann Sothern, whom he met in Los Angeles, up to Pacific Grove for a visit. Sothern accepted, but brought her friend Elaine Scott as a companion. On May 26, Steinbeck writes: "Ann arrived. Went to dinner with her & Mrs. Scott. Very nice. I like her. Will take A.S. to dinner tomorrow night." He actually took both women, and while he admired Ann Sothern, Steinbeck felt a very strong connection with Elaine, the wife of actor Zachary Scott. On June 4, he writes: "I thought how much a mark Elaine had put on me—she has great honesty and great passion. I suspect she would not be deflected—and doesn't. But she burned a mark on me that will stay. And I think she was singed a little too."
After another break, he takes up the journal again in the fall, by which time he has fallen madly in love with Elaine. From October 11: "Meanwhile I am closer and closer to E. This seems to be it, as it never was before. And how curious it is that all my friends accept her so. She shines in the dark. It is going to be a long time before I am with her but it will be in its own time and by its own pace."
WITH: a birthday telegram from Pat Covici to Steinbeck, February 17, 1949, also laid in.
A VERY PERSONAL JOURNAL DETAILING THE YEAR LEADING UP TO HIS MEETING OF ELAINE SCOTT, HIS FINAL AND MOST STABLE RELATIONSHIP.
Steinbeck's first entry in this journal, a note on the title page, gives us a sense of the anguish contained in its pages: "A private book! In the event of my death, it should go to Pascal Covici who will know what to do with it."
So many terrible things happened to John Steinbeck in 1948: his best friend Ed Ricketts was killed in a car-train accident in Monterey. His second wife Gwyn surprised him by asking for a divorce, taking their two small boys with her as she left Steinbeck alone to stew in his misery. Response to the publication of his last two works—The Wayward Bus and A Russian Journal—was mixed to poor. Suffice it to say he was in the midst of a full-blown mid-life crisis (maybe his second one) when he started this journal on New Year's Eve.
On the address leaf, he writes: "I don't suppose anyone ever so hated a year as I hated 1948. It is with a great sense of relief that I move into 1949. No matter how bad it is, it can't be as bad as 48. Wife, children, best friend all gone. But perhaps it toughened me. I hope so." Steinbeck was in LA for New Years, dating movie stars (like Paulette Goddard, referred to as "P.G." here) and watching a screening of The Red Pony at Republic Pictures, but soon returned home to Pacific Grove. When his divorce papers arrived on January 15, he writes, "Saturday—the same. All day in bed and night many dreams ...Neal brought me papers ... But felt a hell of a big relief." He tries to understand what went wrong in his marriage, and wonders if it linked to the way it began: "The guilt toward Carol ... How strange this is. Maybe Gwyn was right. Maybe she had more of a hold than either of us know. But that won't make any difference now. Too late."
In the wake of Ed Ricketts's death, it fell to Steinbeck to close up the laboratory. He spent January 19 going through Ed's files and journals, learning about Ed's own troubles with depression, and also reading letters from himself, and his wives to Ed written in happier days: "It was a painful day, a very painful day."
Steinbeck stops writing in the journal from March 6 to May 11, picking back up after he gets excited about writing again as the genesis of East of Eden comes to him. On May 12 he writes, "One more big one I think, just as one more big book and they should come together. Maybe that's the way it will be. It would be good if it could. Then I could bow out nicely. But on my terms this time. It must be." On May 16, he writes: "Inwardly I am in a quake with some creation coming up some where. There is definitely a surge on the rise from some where. I have felt it for some time. But it is beginning to lift me by the boot straps and pretty soon will throw me I guess."
On May 22, he pessimistically turns his attention to dating again: "I hope that Bo is wrong when he says I will be married again. I can't see. It would be a simple repetition and I don't want that again. In fact I don't think I could stand it again. The pressure is too great and I am not able to take quite so much any more or ever maybe." And yet, Steinbeck has just invited actress Ann Sothern, whom he met in Los Angeles, up to Pacific Grove for a visit. Sothern accepted, but brought her friend Elaine Scott as a companion. On May 26, Steinbeck writes: "Ann arrived. Went to dinner with her & Mrs. Scott. Very nice. I like her. Will take A.S. to dinner tomorrow night." He actually took both women, and while he admired Ann Sothern, Steinbeck felt a very strong connection with Elaine, the wife of actor Zachary Scott. On June 4, he writes: "I thought how much a mark Elaine had put on me—she has great honesty and great passion. I suspect she would not be deflected—and doesn't. But she burned a mark on me that will stay. And I think she was singed a little too."
After another break, he takes up the journal again in the fall, by which time he has fallen madly in love with Elaine. From October 11: "Meanwhile I am closer and closer to E. This seems to be it, as it never was before. And how curious it is that all my friends accept her so. She shines in the dark. It is going to be a long time before I am with her but it will be in its own time and by its own pace."