OF A GOLDEN AGE

Let me stall a bit while I think of what to say.

Nearly two years ago I devoured John Steinbeck’s late-in-career travel memoir Travels with Charley and, later that year, took a road trip across America’s northeastern quadrant. Steinbeck’s prose walks a line between the all-out terseness of Hemingway and the more ornamental nature of other writers, and because of that he embodies my favorite writing rule: Don’t let your writing distract from your point. (Maybe you remember this from when I read Flowers in the Attic?)

I read all but the last ten pages of Of Mice and Men while waiting for a wake. The son of one of my dad’s oldest friends died at age 25 after a difficult and terrible cancer battle, and I couldn’t stop thinking about it, and even now completely lack vocabulary to describe how I felt or feel. This book took my thoughts away and replaced them with a similar sadness that somehow felt more complete, less ragged, because Steinbeck puts his characters in the middle of situations where they must grieve and, more importantly, gives each of them the words and the breathing room they need.

George and Lennie work as transient laborers on various California farms and ranches; in my mind they resembled Jonesy and the other rousties from HBO’s truncated epic Carnivále. Lennie has a mental disability of some kind, and has a damaged or impeded sense of his surroundings as he lumbers through them. At the book’s beginning he has killed a mouse by petting it to death, and he and George have new plans after somehow finding trouble in their previous locale.

George cares for Lennie, and while the other characters describe George as smart, his most relevant trait is his bottomless kindness toward his friend. George realizes he relies on Lennie just as much as vice versa, and by watching out for him George remembers what family means, how people can matter to each other, and the value of another person who shares your backstory and everyday experiences. The other laborers gravitate toward the pair because they don’t understand the bond George and Lennie share; why would George weigh himself down with this big galoot who doesn’t have any sense? They particularly draw the attention of the story’s wannabe alpha male, the boss’s son, who shares an actual legal partnership with his wife but spends his time trying to impress and pick fights with his underlings.

The story is short, and reads fast. Explaining even a little bit in detail would take something significant away, because the momentum and well-paced storytelling are like another character, an observer at the ongoing campfire. In fact, the prose and plot structure make the story feel like it’s been kept in the back pocket of one of its characters, carried from one job to the next, and pulled out during the first card games and conversations with fellow laborers. The story seems significant not only to the reader but to the other men in the story, and their respect for each other and the difficulties of their situation in the Great Depression makes this one of the most compassionate pieces of writing I’ve ever seen. There is no pity here, but there is enormous compassion.

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