Reading California Fiction

THE DAY OF THE LOCUST

    The Day of the Locust has garnered an amazing amount of attention. A Google search produces mentions on some 160,000 sites. Extensive information -- including chapter summaries, character analysis, interpretive essays, study questions, even lesson plans and multiple-choice quizzes -- is available online. It’s been the subject of at least 40 dissertations or theses. Scholarly interest continues strong, showing up in articles with titles like “Nathanael West’s The Day of the Locust: A Metonymy of Modernist Anxiety in America.” Yikes!

    The Day of the Locust by Nathanael West. Random House (1939), 238 pp.
    Aspiring artist Tod Hackett works as a studio set and costume designer. He’s moved into a downscale apartment building, but not because of the recommendation of bookie Abe Kusich, a belligerent dwarf. What sold him on the place was a glimpse of Faye Greener, a teenage sexpot who lives with her sickly father, Harry, on the second floor. Tod develops a hopeless crush on Faye, but he’s not her only suitor. Also interested is Homer Simpson (!), a phlegmatic and sexually repressed ex-accountant who lives down the street. Later other men appear, including tall and uninterestingly handsome Earle Shoop, a part-time cowboy.
    Weighed down by acquired importance, the book might seem a dubious choice for optional reading. Actually, however, it’s not only accessible but engaging from start to finish. Its characters, all displaced persons in one way or another, aren’t exactly likeable, but they aren’t unsympathetic either. Their interactions are slightly off kilter but never incomprehensible. West’s fondness for symbol and metaphor doesn’t clog his writing, which is always simple and straightforward. The story isn’t upbeat, but it doesn’t elicit a uniform response. Some readers might find it dishearteningly grim, while others see it as darkly humorous. Amazingly, they can give it a try online. The Australian Project Gutenberg has the whole book available free.

TORTILLA FLAT

    Tortilla Flat by John Steinbeck. Covici-Friede (1935), 316 pp.
    When he returns home from military service, Danny discovers that he’s inherited two houses in the hilly barrio on the outskirts of Monterey. He worries at first that his new status as property owner will lure him away from his previous life of lazy inebriation. But when his deadbeat paisanos -- manipulative Pilon, homeless Pablo,  kindly Jesus Maria Corcoran, and later feeble-minded Pirate -- move in, it becomes clear that neither he nor they will adopt a lifestyle of sobriety and hard work.
    Here we have Steinbeck in his happy mode. The chapter titles are are absurdly grandiloquent. The narrator is sardonic but not malicious. The characters never intend serious harm. The episodes, one per chapter, center on innocuous pranks or silly schemes. Tragedy is absent. The novel’s tale of happy-go-lucky obliviousness to the outside world struck a chord during the depression. Now, 186 editions later, it still charms audiences. Still, modern readers might experience some queasiness as they go through the book. Lives of poverty, drunkenness, and minor crime could seem more pathetic than humorous. Further, Steinbeck’s portrayal of Mexican Americans -- this is the first California novel to take a long look at. them -- could appear closer to condescension or disparagement than esteem. Without having furnished a glimpse of their larger community, he could be deemed guilty of concocting an escapist fantasy at their expense. Or maybe it’s all just good fun. Readers will need to decide this for themselves.

THE LAST TYCOON

    The Last Tycoon by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Scribner’s (1941), approx. 163 pp.
    Cool and handsome Monroe Stahr, still in his mid-thirties, has been running a major studio for a decade. Although lacking much formal education, he knows more about making movies than anyone else in Hollywood. Among the many women who find him attractive is Cecilia Brady, the teenage daughter of his business partner. Stahr, however, is too wrapped up in work to take more than a fleeting interested in women. Then he encounters Kathleen Moore, someone who eerily reminds him of his dead wife. Almost against his will, he feels a need to pursue her.
    The real question here is not so much whether this is a novel worth reading as it is whether it’s a novel at all. Fitzgerald finished only about half his first draft before he died in 1940. Without other information, it’s difficult to tell where he was going to take the story or how he was going to develop the characters. Even what he wrote has serious problems. The narrative scheme -- half in the first person by an unconvincing Cecilia, the rest essentially in the third person -- generates pointless confusion. The writing is sometimes graceful but sometimes didactic or overly clever. The love story barely avoids straight-out goo. Cultural references are out of sync: the Long Beach earthquake is moved to 1935, songs play prior to their publication, airliners fly before they were put into service. Readers expecting “far and away the best novel we have had about Hollywood,” as Edmund Wilson says in the foreword, will be disappointed. The critical attention the book has received, including a revamped 1995 edition, rests on the fame of its author. Devotees of Fitzgerald will want to read it. Others can safely stay clear.

THE POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE

    The Postman always Rings Twice by James M. Cain. Knopf (1934), 188 pp.
    Frank Chambers, a drifter in his mid-twenties, has been in and out of trouble for years. He wanders into a roadside lunchroom near Glendale, where he’s quickly offered work by Nick Papadakis, the owner of the run-down establishment. When Frank meets the cook, Nick’s hypersexy young wife Cora, he imagines job benefits that Nick never considered. Frank realizes the situation could lead to trouble, but he plunges ahead anyway.
    This book well deserves its reputation as one of the classics of noir fiction. Particularly at the beginning, the story moves fast and pulls no punches. Frank sees Cora on p. 2 (of the 1978 reprint), has rough sex with her on p. 9, and is discussing Nick’s murder on p. 14. (No wonder the book was banned in Boston.) Cain’s use of the first-person narrator is unusually effective, providing a clear distinction between the story line and Frank’s rationalizations. The characters, if not exactly sympathetic, are at least comprehensible. The book’s not perfect, of course. The middle section is muddled by legalisms, and the ending tries too hard for irony. Even so, readers captivated by femmes fatales or seeking an introduction to Cain’s work will probably enjoy the book.

A FEW THOUGHTS ABOUT THE RETABULATED CANON

    The Grapes of Wrath in a landslide victory? I wasn’t surprised by that or much else in the revised California canon. The most prominent authors and most famous books all seem to be here. I’m fairly confident that exceptions occur only in categories I’m not reading. If I included historical fiction, for example, Ramona and maybe a couple other books would make the list. Otherwise, the chances are pretty good that anyone who has read a work of California fiction published before 1960 has read one of the canonized books.
    The retabulated version of the canon varies a bit from the one I compiled in 2006. Nine different books show up, though none near the top. Three are short story collections that I hadn’t read earlier -- The Continental Op (No. 32), The Daring Young Man on the High Trapeze (No. 42) and The Big Knockover (no. 44). Three are stories of environmental calamity -- Storm (No. 30), Earth Abides (No. 36) and Fire (No. 48); two are tales of family life -- Cress Delahanty (No. 24) and Mama’s Bank Account (No. 33); and one is an exposé of competitive sport, The Game (No. 43). Of the nine that didn’t make the cut this time, the one suffering the most unexpected demotion is They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?, which can be found in only 273 libraries.
    It’s clear from first glance that this version of California’s canon, like other lists of important books, is skewed toward works by well known authors. John Steinbeck appears nine times, Raymond Chandler six times and Jack London four times. James M. Cain, Dashiell Hammett, Frank Norris, William Saroyan and George R. Stewart check in with three books each. Add F. Scott Fitzgerald and Jack Kerouac with two apiece and you have ten authors producing 78 percent of the canon.
    A check of authors’ first names reveals another skewing. Although women wrote about 25 percent of the California fiction I’m reading, only two books by female authors appear on the list. Since male authors almost always write about men, female protagonists -- or even important female characters -- don’t show up very often in the canonized books. Their absence may give the erroneous impression that serious fiction necessarily focuses on the thoughts, experiences and problems of men and that female protagonists are found only in romances, cozy mysteries and other light fiction. I’ve read more than 100 books that don’t meet this stereotype.
    Here’s my final complaint about the retabulated canon. It, like any canon, gets its validity from the notion that its entries have greater merit than whatever it omits. Add to that a halo effect, like the one in this list or its 2006 predecessor, and readers may come to believe that only a handful of authors has produced nearly all the worthwhile California fiction. Which is wrong in two ways. First, many of the canonized books are not all that terrific -- and even those that clearly possess literary distinction may not impress some readers. Second, the canon does not represent the body of California fiction, which includes around 3,000 titles and offers great variety in subject, style and intent. Many, many of those books are worth reading. Which, of course, is one of the points this blog is trying to make.

RETABULATING THE CALIFORNIA CANON

I decided to give the “California Canon” another shot. On my first try I attempted, using Google, to count the books that were receiving the most current scholarly attention. That approach had problems, however. I couldn’t always tell whether the mention of a book was part of an extended analysis or just a bibliographical listing. And often I couldn’t distinguish a reference to the book from one to a film adaptation.

The new scheme relies on library holdings. Using WorldCat, I’ve ranked the books by the number of libraries worldwide that have copies. All the books were published before 1960, so why libraries are hanging onto them (or stocking later reprints) is not completely clear to me. Presumably, the numbers reflect some combination of scholarly interest and popular demand. WorldCat doesn’t collect or present its statistics with complete consistency, so the rankings are necessarily tentative. But they do more or less jibe with what I expected.

Here then are the fifty works of fiction that (1) I’ve read, (2) are set in California between 1890 and 1959, (3) were produced by authors who remembered the time about which they wrote and (4) are currently available in at least 750 libraries throughout the world.

 1. The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck (5,327)
 2. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck (4,899)
 3. East of Eden by John Steinbeck (4,623)
 4. Cannery Row by John Steinbeck (3,722)
 5. Tortilla Flat by John Steinbeck (3,401)
 6. The Last Tycoon by F. Scott Fitzgerald (3,293)
 7. The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett (3,044)
 8. The Human Comedy by William Saroyan (2,997)
 9. The Wayward Bus by John Steinbeck (2,844)
10. The Loved One by Evelyn Waugh (2,641)
11. McTeague by Frank Norris (2,453)
12. Sweet Thursday by John Steinbeck (2,438)
13. Martin Eden by Jack London (2,368)
14. The Long Valley by John Steinbeck (2,356)
15. The Octopus by Frank Norris (2,349)
16. The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler (2,285)
17. The Dharma Bums by Jack Kerouac (2,033)
18. My Name Is Aram by William Saroyan (2,021)
19. Oil! by Upton Sinclair (1,936)
20. The Postman Always Rings Twice by James M. Cain (1,903)
21. The Iron Heel by Jack London (1,760)
22. After Many a Summer Dies the Swan by Aldous Huxley (1,757)
23. What Makes Sammy Run? by Budd Schulberg (1,688)
24. Cress Delahanty by Jessamyn West (1,552)
25. The Pastures of Heaven by John Steinbeck (1,510)
26. The Lady in the Lake by Raymond Chandler (1,506)
27. The Deer Park by Norman Mailer (1,440)
28. The Pat Hobby Stories by F. Scott Fitzgerald (1,423)
29. Farewell, My Lovely by Raymond Chandler (1,389)
30. Storm by George R. Stewart (1,316)
31. The Day of the Locust by Nathanael West (1,311)
32. The Continental Op by Dashiell Hammett (1,305)
33. Mama’s Bank Account by Kathryn Forbes (1,301)
34. The Valley of the Moon by Jack London (1,290)
35. Earth Abides by George R. Stewart (1,198)
36. The Long Goodbye by Raymond Chandler (1,156)
37. If He Hollers Let Him Go by Chester Himes (1,151)
38. The Subterraneans by Jack Kerouac (1,117)
30. The High Window by Raymond Chandler (1,051)
40. The Little Sister by Raymond Chandler (1,018)
41. The Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze by William Saroyan (1,014)
42. The Game by Jack London (991)
43. The Big Knockover by Dashiell Hammett (954)
44. The Winning of Barbara Worth by Harold Bell Wright (951)
45. Blix by Frank Norris (932)
46. Double Indemnity by James M. Cain (931)
47. Fire by George R. Stewart (874)
48. Mildred Pierce by James M. Cain (854)
49. Ask the Dust by John Fante (832)
50. The Ninth Wave by Eugene Burdick (766)

DOMINO LADY

    With so many interesting characters floating through California’s literary past, it’s at least curious that so much attention is being given to those from pulp fiction. You can understand the attraction of the Continental Op and Philip Marlowe -- good writing by famous authors. But what can we say for the Domino Lady? She shows up in only six stories, all published in 1936. The true identity of her nominal creator, Lars Anderson, is unknown. And she’s rendered in a subdued version of the saucy style, known more for its interest in clothing and anatomy than plot and characterization. Yet in the past decade not only have tales of the Domino Lady been collected and reprinted in this handsome book (top cover), but she’s been featured in a collection of new stories and inspired a comic book series.

    Domino Lady: The Complete Collection by Lars Anderson. Vanguard Productions (2004), 111 pp.
    The book contains all the original stories, the first five from Saucy Romantic Adventures, the sixth from Mystery Adventure Magazine (bottom cover). In addition, there are new illustrations and a new story by Jim Steranko and some short background essays. The stories run roughly from 10,000 to 20,000 words. Three are set in Los Angeles, two in San Francisco, and one on the high seas. Since the protagonist, Ellen Patrick, is a cat burglar, all the stories have descriptions of her crimes. There’s little violence in the early stories; the last and longest one, however, includes two shootings and a neck slashing. Although Ellen has a love interest in each episode (and seems ready to get something going), the stories contain no explicit sex scenes.
    Clearly, the main appeal of the stories lies in the character of Ellen Patrick, the proto-feminist action hero who makes her living as a thief. As might be expected of any woman in Saucy Romantic Adventures, she’s beautiful, has a great body, and spends much of her time a flimsy outfit. Her work uniform consists of a backless sheath dress (sometimes black, sometimes white) with a plunging neckline, a cape of the other color, and a small black domino mask. She makes up for the non-functional ensemble with advantageous personality traits. She’s bold, clever, determined and decisive. Ellen dons her disguise and springs into action for reasons both expected -- to bring down the political machine that murdered her father, to help friends who need something stolen, to punish selfish rich people by redistributing their money to charities -- and a bit offbeat -- to satisfy her craving for adventure, to acquire enough cash to maintain her place among L. A.’s social elite. The stories may be tame by modern standards, but it’s easy to see why Domino Lady herself can still stir the imaginations of readers today.