On This Day In History, John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men Was Published

Robert Burns tribute, Milwaukee

When I was in high school I vividly remember two John Steinbeck books that we read and studied, One was his masterful and memorable novel Grapes of Wrath, the second was this powerful novella Of Mice and Men.

What I most remember is the insightful manner in which our English teacher Mr Harris drew attention to certain details that Steinbeck purposefully embedded in this tale of the Joad family as they were forced to leave their homeland during the Dust Bowl years of the Great Depression,  (A special shout out to English teachers in general and Mr Harris specifically for his lifelong influence.)

Of Mice and Men is a tightly packed story of two migrant workers. The writing is sensitve, and vivid, the story heartbreaking. Published in 1937 it certified that Steinbeck was the real deal as far as writers go.

The two main characters are George and Lennie. It's themes include the meaning of friendship, isolation and the quest to experience the American Dream, a place of one's own. Like all quest stories there is the dream or objective, and there are the barriers or obstacles to be overcome, The pair are displaced ranch workers striving to escape their fate, George being quick-witted and protective, Lennie being a large, incredibly strong but mentally disable man who needs a friend like Lennie to look after him.

The reality is that there are all kinds of Lennie's in this world. How do we best stand along side of them so they can find a place where they can be free to be themselves? They don't fit in to the business world of success motivation books and seminars. Misfits deserve a place to fit in, too.

The story opens with George and Lennie heading toward another job after things went bad in a previous one. The characters in the new situation have different ideas about life and symbolize the various ways working people approach what they do. There's also the unspoken rules of the various cultures we find ourselves in, with subsequent misunderstandings. In the end we seehow fragile dreams can be in a world that seems indifferent to our struggles.

The title comes from these lines from Robert Burns' poem, To A Mouse. 

The best laid schemes o’ Mice an’ Men

          Gang aft agley,

An’ lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain,

          For promis’d joy!

(Trans: The best laid schemes of mice and men often go awry.
    And leave us naught but grief and pain, for promised joy.)

Times have changed but the story remains relevant. Though we're living in a different era, human nature hasn't evolved the way technology has. 

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In 2021 I wrote about banned books. To my. surprise Of Mice and Men was banned in dozens of municipalities. You can find out why here: Do You Read Banned Books

Thanks for reading. Did you read this book in high school? Or later?  What was your take?

Do You Read Banned Books?

When I was young Mad Magazine used to cost a quarter. My allowance was a quarter, which worked out well. I could buy a Mad magazine or save two quarters and buy Famous Monsters of Filmland, which was fifty cents. This left me with one more quarter to save for something more expensive, like a Revell model battleship or submarine. That was always around a dollar. 

Mad was famous for occasional inserts. For example, they inserted a vinyl record in the center that you could play on a record player. Side A was It's a Gas, in which the only lyrics were periodic burps. (Burps are a gas, right?) Side B was She Got A Nose Job, which I can still sing to this day. 

Another time, the magazine inserted full color book covers that could be used to wrap around trade-sized paperbacks. The book covers were intended to shock adults by appearing to be banned books or very adult content. The fake title would be large and in small type the rest of the title. One of the book covers was Henry Miller's Tropic of Cancer. Those three words were writ large in white block letters on a blue background. The full title might have been something like Let's go to a TROPIC isle OF no importance and get skin CANCER.

Other scandalous titles included Lady Chatterly's Lover and Fanny Hill. When I took a couple of these fake book covers and put them on my paperbacks, they achieved the intended goal of shocking an adult, specifically my mother. 

As it turns out, when I was in college eight or so years later the movie version of Tropic Of Cancer was playing at the theater. I probably would not have noticed but for the fake book cover I'd used from Mad. Out of curiosity I went to see it and left after about 20 minutes, not because it was vulgar but because it seemed pointless. (My assessment wasn't far afield. On imdb.com it has a 5.5 rating out of 10, which is pretty low.) 

* * * 

There was a time when the label Banned In Boston was a badge of notoriety. Perhaps it was Boston's Puritanical roots that resulted in the region's power to censor books, plays and movies, thereby dictating what was acceptable and unacceptable.

In addition to books like Ulysses (Joyce), Leaves of Grass (Whitman) and The Sun Also Rises (Hemingway), the Everly Brothers' "Wake Up Little Susie" was censored.

While perusing the shelves at our local library this past week I discovered the 2014 edition of Banned Books, a catalog of books that have stirred the ire of people in various parts of our country over the years. It's a large book with more than 325 pages of listings, identifying books and the causes of their being barred, or recommended to be. Here are some of the more surprising entries.

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury surprised me. It's about book burning. Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles was also banned by one school district because the N-word is used in one of its stories. The book was reprinted without that sentence and is OK now. 

One of my favorite Bradbury stories is The Veldt. It's a short sci-fi story that was included in his The Illustrated Man. I went through a sci-fi stage once, reading a lot of Asimov short stories as well as Bradbury. I had to scratch my head as to why The Veldt would be criticized. Fortunately, Banned Books included the reason people were upset with these various books. In this case, the parent who complained felt the story failed to show any consequences for the children's actions. That's getting pretty picky. 

Various school districts and communities took umbrage with six of Richard Brautigan's books, most of which I read in college.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Adventures of Sherlock Holmes was banned in the USSR because of references to occultism and spiritism. A Study in Scarlet was pulled in one county school district because it portrayed Mormonism in a bad light. The surprise for me is that Sign of the Four doesn't seem to have received any complaints even though it begins with Holmes rather enjoying the effects of shooting cocaine. 

Upton Sinclair's Oil! was banned in Boston because of its criticism of the Harding administration. Harding was no longer president and his cronies already dispersed by the time the book was published. It was also banned in Yugoslavia and burned in Nazi Germany, the latter because of its socialist views. The film There Will Be Blood, starring Daniel Day-Lewis, was loosely based on this book.

John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men was banned in dozens of localities for language and in some municipalities because it used the N-word. I've read this book a few times since first reading it in high school. I remember the characters and the power of the prose, not these language matters which passed faster than a speed bump.

Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels was banned in Ireland.

Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn received dozens of challenges and has been pulled from countless reading lists because it was deemed to "undermine the self-esteem" of black youth, and the N-word is used in the book a number of times. 

Harper Lee's To Kill A Mockingbird suffered the same fate, despite it being a story that shines a light on the evils of racial inequality. Some school districts rejected it because of racial slurs used in the story and does "psychological damage to the positive integration process." Ironically Harper Lee was showing the ugliness of people who demean other simply because of the color of their skin. 

Several Kurt Vonnegut books made the list including Slaughterhouse Five and God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater. 

* * *

There's much more that can be said here on this topic, but it's nuanced and I don't have time to detail all the distinctions as regards this issue. I agree with those who believe there is an age appropriateness to be considered when recommending books to younger audiences. Then again, that's a much longer discussion. 

This book, Banned Books, caught my attention when I saw it, and I decided to check it out. The subtitle is Challenging Our Freedom To Read.