writing

Today I finished Steinbeck’s first novel, Cup of Gold (1929). About forty pages in, I realized I had attempted to read this book before. Clearly: it had not made much of an impression.

Those first forty pages are hard. They’re mostly about a puddle-headed Welsh boy’s relationship with his slightly insane relatives and a man named “Merlin.” Please note that Cup of Gold is a story about a real-life pirate whose real-life name was Henry Morgan. When I pick up a book whose cover prominently features pirates, I want me some pirates, damnit, not Welsh mysticism. Which is probably why I never got more than forty pages into Cup of Gold on my earlier try, and might explain, a little bit anyway, why Cup of Gold is on absolutely no one’s Best of Steinbeck list.

The boundless knowledge of Wikipedia tells us “Steinbeck wrote Cup of Gold for the film business.” Which is one explanation, I guess. Two films (Captain Blood and Black Swan) depict Morgan in heavily fictionalized form, although neither of these appears to have been based on Cup of Gold. As a pirate story it’s a little too inward-looking, and a little light on the actual piracy.

Like all good historical novels, though, Cup’s... historicity is suspect. The relationship between Steinbeck’s Morgan and the genuine article is about as to that of Ridley Scott’s Gladiator and Caeser Commodus. Apparently there really was a person (or perhaps two persons) named Henry Morgan and that this person certainly sacked some cities in Cuba and Panama and eventually became governor of Jamaica, as depicted by Steinbeck. The way Steinbeck tells it, Morgan lusted mightily for the sea from the early days of his very mystical Welsh childhood. (The source of this lust is only sketchily attributed — but I think Steinbeck generally wrote archetypes more than characters.) Drawing upon all the resources of being a character in a Steinbeck novel, Morgan parlays indentured servitude into a career in piracy. From the start of his career Morgan has his eyes set, absurdly, on the sack of Panama City (the eponymous “Cup of Gold”), and through pretty exclusively the power of narrative fiat he achieves it. Again: none his motive for this is explained, but the last twenty pages make pretty clear that Steinbeck was aiming for something a little more than a mere explanation of things that happened.

Steinbeck picks up a lot of themes, only to carry them halfheartedly or turn them entirely in the space of a page or two. To pick a single example: Morgan’s desire to sack Panama is conflated with his obsession over La Santa Roja, a reputedly beautiful woman who lives there. The first half of the book concerns this lusty young buck literally itching to literally rape Panama (in the symbolic person of The Red Saint); he is a man entirely of action and devoid of introspection. When ultimately confronted with The Red Saint, his personality jumps the shark and we go from Treasure Island to Winter of Our Discontent. In one page.

Even in a stinker like Cup of Gold — and let’s not kid ourselves, if Steinbeck hadn’t written it, it wouldn’t be in print today — Steinbeck displays a few of his uncanny talents that he went on to deploy to greater effect in later works. He excels at portraying the book’s landscapes — the brooding Welsh hills, the plantations of Jamaica, the pestilential swamps of Panama. This is perhaps my favorite of Steinbeck’s qualities, a trait I think a lot of Western American (particularly Californian) authors share. He has a neat motif about mythology and honesty that he plays about three times, in the form of Morgan’s recollections of his first love. Finally, he tops the book with a weirdly touching death scene. I like it when a book ends with the protagonist dying.

Next: Pastures of Heaven (1932) ... but first I have to read Haruki Murakami’s After Dark, because I always read every new Murakami paperback. After that is Dale Basye’s Heck: Where the Bad Kids Go, because the author is a friend and also it is a good book. But after that: Pastures of Heaven.

I stood outside the door of Pickles Records, waiting for opening time, on the day of Document’s release in 1987. (It was also, coincidentally, the day before my 16th birthday.) That event began a pattern that continued through 1988’s Green (released on Election Day), 1991’s Out of Time (sometime in early spring — oh, March 12, thank you Wikipedia!), and 1992’s Automatic for the People (October 6): I would buy R.E.M.’s newest album on its release day.

Archaeological fieldwork (in the vicinity of Buffalo, Texas) delayed my purchase of 1994’s Monster (September 27), but I resumed my habit for New Adventures is Hi-Fi (September 10, 1996). The last R.E.M. album I bought on its release date was the post–Bill Berry Up (October 27, 1998). During the same year, someone at a party asked me who my favorite band was and my then-girlfriend answered for me: “Stereolab.” I recall being a little put off — where did she get off saying my favorite band wasn’t R.E.M., which was certainly the case since at least 1986’s Lifes Rich Pageant? But the hell of it was, she was right.

I bought Reveal several months after its release (May 15, 2001). I knew of its existence during the entire time, but the uneven quality of the band’s last two albums dulled my enthusiasm a little. I eventually bought it on CD — one of the last albums on bought on CD, actually.

I can’t recall when I bought 2004’s Around the Sun. I think I noticed some unfamiliar R.E.M. songs on a coworker’s shared iTunes library, which prompted me to wonder — “did R.E.M. release a new album and I didn’t even know about it?” Yup, that’s what happened. I downloaded the album from iTunes mainly out of loyalty. By that time — probably early 2005 — R.E.M. occupied the same place in my pop culture universe as The Simpsons...their early work had essentially bought them a lifetime free pass in my opinion.

I feel pretty good about being only three days late for Accelerate, which is a stronger effort than any R.E.M. album since 1996. Like U2’s How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb, it’s a return-to-form album, with none of the electronic experimentation of Up or the soft-rock coasting of the previous two albums. So in the sense of “resembles older, better R.E.M. albums,” it’s pretty good. On the other hand, at least until 2004, the one thing you could safely say about the newest R.E.M. album was that it wouldn’t sound much like any R.E.M. album before it.

When I was 16, I wrote a screed about classic rock radio called “Fuck Radio” for a friend’s zine (the Subterranean). It used to infuriate me that a young person could turn on the radio and hear great rock and roll coming from at least five F.M. stations, but that none of that great rock and roll was newer than about 1978. I thought I was living through the halcyon years of rock and roll, which had been revitalized first by punk rock in the late 70s and then again by New Wave and the R & B–influenced pop of the early 1980s. I held especial contempt for the Rolling Stones and Eric Claption, both of whom I regarded as way past their prime, holding back rock and roll, filling the airwaves and critical attention with stuff that had already been done. This was part of a larger rubric in my head that kind of loathed the remaindered 60s culture of then-thirtysomethings. What little airspace was left for pop music seemed to be filled with execrable hair metal and junky throwaway pop.

I wonder where that screed is now? I bet it’s funny.