Wishing all a Merry, Merry Christmas and  a Happy 2013!

Tragic POEt

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Sadly, on September 28th of this year, the Edgar Allan Poe house in Baltimore was closed to the public due to budget cuts. Hopefully it will reopen in the spring and will be self-sustaining under the administrative direction of a nonprofit group. But don't despair, on the 204th anniversary of Poe's birthday, January 19, 2013, Westminster Hall in Baltimore will host a gala to celebrate his extraordinary work and life. Learn more here: Poe's Birthday Bash

The Wayward Bus - Quite a Ride

John Steinbeck's The Wayward Bus (2006 Penguin Classics edition)

I recently re-read Steinbeck’s The Wayward Bus, having first read it in my teens.  If it didn’t occur to me back then, I certainly got from my second go-round that Steinbeck really understood what makes people tick.  By making audible the internal dialogue of the characters, the reader comes to pity, loathe, and rarely, admire them in their relatable humanity. 

Juan and Alice Chicoy run an establishment at Rebel Corners, some forty miles south of San Ysidro in southern California, that is parts gas station, restaurant and bus depot.  While Alice mans the lunchroom counter, Juan works as auto mechanic and, between the hours of ten-thirty and and four, drives passengers south to the Mexican town of San Juan de la Cruz, and back north again in his ramshackle bus nicknamed “Sweetheart”.  Juan, part Irish and Mexican, was born and raised in Mexico and is best described as being a man’s man.  He does not suffer fools gladly and it is safe to say that he considers women, in one fashion or the other, to be fools.    We know Alice has been struck by Juan at least once and that he threatens to leave her when he starts to feel trapped.  Because his life has been difficult, he is intolerant of Alice’s self-pity and he blames her for his lack of freedom. Alice despises her life which is split between the monotony of waiting on ungrateful customers all day and the anxiety that comes from the fear of incurring Juan’s wrath, or worse, his abandonment.             

A recurring theme in the works of John Steinbeck is the physical need for security versus the spiritual longing for freedom.  These warring impulses are evident in the characters that inhabit The Wayward Bus. As the story opens, Juan and his hired hand, a hormone-besieged, acne-scarred teenager who craves acceptance from any quarter and who Juan, unhappily for the boy, calls “Pimples”, awake before daybreak to make last minute repairs on Sweetheart, which had broken down the day before stranding its southbound passengers at Rebels Corner. Among the passengers are a Mr. and Mrs. Pritchard and their college-age daughter, Mildred.  The Pritchards are fairly well-off and they are all about appearances; what others think about them is of paramount importance.  Like Juan and Alice, Mildred feels trapped by her shallow and unworldly parents and yearns for the day when she can get a job and get away from them.  It is perhaps for this reason that Mildred feels an attraction for Juan, or perhaps it is just because he is the type of person that her parents would look down on for his lack of social sophistication.  While Juan and his charges eat breakfast waiting for departure time, he notices Mildred flirting with him and, being an opportunist when it comes to the ladies, flirts back. Deep down, however, he realizes that what appeals to him more than anything is not the desire for sexual union with the girl, but the fact that he could hurt and abuse her just as her light-skinned ancestors had always done to his Indian people. While a tad naïve, Mildred is a bright and perceptive young woman and when she sees the cruelness in Juan’s eyes, she backs off.

Not long after Juan and Pimples had made repairs on the bus and gone inside to the lunchroom, it begins to rain heavily and Juan is concerned with flooding on his route as it is the rainy season and recent rains have already saturated the ground.   At this point Van Brunt makes his appearance in the lunchroom.  Much to Alice’s dismay, the marooned bus passengers had spent the previous night in the living quarters of the Chicoys and their help, Pimples and Norma.  The elderly Van Brunt had been given Pimples’ bed. Far from being grateful, the cantankerous and provocative Van Brunt immediately confronts Juan about the wisdom of making the trip south; he is a local and fears that due to high water and lack of structural integrity, the bus may not make it over the San Ysidro bridge, if the bridge is even still standing.  Juan considers, and far from the first time, getting rid of the bus as customers like Van Brunt make it not worth the trouble. Juan pointedly tells Van Brunt that the bus will be going with him or without him-it’s his choice. 

Norma is the most recent of a long line of girls hired to help Alice in the lunchroom. She is a plain girl who spends most of her days daydreaming of marrying movie stars, her current obsession is Clark Gable.  Alice is mostly unkind to Norma, who has recently become aware that Alice has been snooping through her personal belongings.  Although her youthfulness causes her to yearn for a free and adventurous existence, Norma is essentially a realist, and so has stayed at Rebels Corner in spite of these trespasses because she feels a sense of security there.  But the proverbial straw that breaks the camel’s back comes in the form of one Ernest Horton, a passenger who has spent the night in Norma’s room.  Ernest is a war veteran and travelling salesman who sells gimmicks and gag items.  He is one of the few characters in The Wayward Bus that does not yearn for freedom as his itinerant lifestyle gives him a sufficient amount of it. While the war and his life on the road have given him a healthy dose of cynicism, Ernest is nonetheless a compassionate person and so takes an immediate dislike to Alice when he sees how she treats Norma.  While in Norma’s room packing his wares case, Norma comes in and shows interest in his autographed movie star photos.  As he is showing them to her, Alice barges in and accuses the pair of being up to no good.  Norma is embarrassed and furious and as soon as Alice and Ernest leave the room, in an uncharacteristically bold move, she packs her things intending to board Sweetheart on its southbound journey.            

In the meantime the Greyhound bus from the north has delivered to Rebels Corner a girl that effortlessly oozes sex appeal and all the men, young and old, begin to fall all over themselves to get her attention.  We never know her real name, just what she has told them it is for self-preservation-Camille Oaks.  The men, with the exception of Juan, make fools of themselves in an effort to turn the striking blonde’s head, but none do as her profession of party girl at stag parties has made her jaded and guarded.  It is not that Juan did not notice such a sexually provocative girl, it is just that he was unsure if she was accessible and so decides to bide his time and see how it goes. The freedom that “Camille” seeks is from herself and the genetic curse of attracting men wherever she goes. She is on her way to L.A. for a new start and she finds herself exhausted and weary of constantly defending herself from the unending onslaught of unwelcome advances from men, and the attendant alienation of women.  By necessity Camille is a quick study in human behavior and befriends Norma because of her usefulness as a “shield” between herself and the males.              

When the appointed time comes, Juan boards Sweetheart leaving Alice behind to get drunk and agonize over whether he will return to her. On board are a motley crew of human souls. It is uncertain if they will even make it to their destinations, in a literal or figurative sense, and what their adventures will be along the way.  Even if some of these characters are unlikable, even despicable at times, it was though I knew them, or at least somebody like them.  I would recommend that you take the trip with them. I was glad I did again.    

We spend our time searching for security and hate it when we get it." - John Steinbeck

        

American Writers

In November and December I will feature works by American writers.  Please take a few minutes to take the quiz on the Quizzes tab and click onto the related links.  Coming soon ... a post on Steinbeck's The Wayward Bus.

Open Clip Art Library

It is no secret that public libraries are in jeopardy.  In this beautifully written piece, writer/columnist Caitlin Moran persuasively argues the need to keep these "cathedrals" open or risk losing them forever. The Magic of a Library.

Just starting out ...

Hello cat and library card lovers (hopefully).  Just getting my feet wet in the blogosphere and it is a steep learning curve indeed.  Hope to get up to speed shortly and start talking books!