Running behind - a review of Pacific Biological Laboratories and our discussion of Cannery Row

Phew!

Friday was a full day...

I managed to peel myself out of bed at a reasonable hour in the interest of running by Steinbeck's Pacific Grove home (a residence built by John's father in 1903 as a "vacation home" away from Salinas) at the intersection of 11th street and Rickett's Row before class began. The home, small and unassuming, was where John and his first wife Carol (who was very involved, it would seem, with John's writing, editing, and revision processes) lived from 1930-1936 before moving to their Greenwood Lane home in Los Gatos. The house (pictured above) in Pacific Grove is where John wrote parts of The Red Pony (his time was split between Pacific Grove and Salinas for a while after his mother suffered a stroke), The Pastures of Heaven, Tortilla Flat, In Dubious Battle, and the first manuscript of Of Mice and Men, which his dog tore to shreds...

After my morning constitutional, I met up with the group at the Hopkins Marine Station for our next set of lectures with Susan and Gilly. Cannery Row was the topic of discussion on the agenda and we wasted no time delving into what has become one of my favorite novels.

For those unfamiliar with Cannery Row, it does lack a traditional plot structure--the typically linear (exposition-inciting action-rising action-climax-falling action-catharsis-resolution) diagram we (or I) have a tendency to teach in high school does not necessarily apply here. Personally, I have never found modernist (or even most of the more "out-there" postmodernist) structural experimentation irksome (I think it is pretty cool, actually...) but it does pose a problem in a lower-level high school classroom when trying to deconstruct or analyze a book with students who have been trained to write, analyze, and think formulaically. Cannery Row radiates a keenness of sight, a palpable warmth, and a bittersweet melancholia that is both difficult to explain and challenging to dissect as a cohesive and "meaningful" (as in moralistic) unit. Try explaining the "meaning of life" to a group of 9th graders... good luck! Steinbeck weaves a collection of seemingly disconnected vignettes together in an effort to demonstrate the holistic and organic nature of our human ecology, as said in The Log from the Sea of Cortez: "from the tide pool to the stars..."

After our intertidal zone experience collecting marine animals and moving ourselves from the "macro" to the "micro" (stay low and go slow!), I feel much better equipped to talk about Cannery Row as a (props to Jim Quinlan for this image) work of impressionist art with my classes... each individual vignette (or sea creature!) contributes a microscopic inflection or "color" to the greater work of art, tide pool, or human experience... and while humans will continue to codify, explain, and and reduce life to a series of predictable and linear patterns, the reality is that life (in a non-teleological sense) is not that simple... the fact is, life just "happens," without respect to plot diagrams. Steinbeck goes so far as to invite us to participate in a "low tide" examination and close reading of his own experience, but not without first explaining the complexity of doing so:

How can the poem and the stink and the grating noise--the quality of light, the tone, the habit and the dream--be set down alive? When you collect marine animals there are certain flat worms so delicate that they are almost impossible to capture whole, for they break and tatter under the touch. You must let them ooze and crawl of their own will onto a knife blade and then lift them gently into your bottle of sea water. And perhaps that might be the way to write this book--to open the page and to let the stories crawl in by themselves. (From the preface of Cannery Row)

Much as the tide will reveal a unique landscape from day to day, Steinbeck acknowledges the variability, volatility, and inexplicable nature of life. This invocation to the text seems to trumpet Steinbeck's intention to  merely open up the collecting dish and let the tide flow in with stories, creatures, and characters from his own life, perhaps affected by nostalgia, but certainly portrayed with the loving admiration I imagine a marine biologist must have for cataloguing the flora and fauna of their favorite collecting pool.

A picture of Ed Ricketts (Doc from Cannery Row) pinned up inside Pacific Biological Laboratories

After our lecture, we met up at Pacific Biological Laboratories, Ed Ricketts' old home/lab on Cannery Row, across the street from Lee Chong's grocery and where Dora Flood's Bear Flag Restaurant once stood. After Ricketts passed away (a tragic car accident - he was hit by a train), ownership of the property fell to private hands -- a sort of fraternity was erected ("Doc's Lab") and weekly social meetings were held. The Monterey Jazz Festival owes its existence to this club, who originally organized the event and made it a reality. Susan made arrangements for a walk-through of the property and we listened to a recorded version of The Snake (from The Long Valley) read by John Steinbeck in the living room... The Snake recounted an event that actually happened on the property, and to hear Steinbeck read the story (while sitting in the room!) added an absolutely inspiring vibe to the whole outing... while the majority of the artifacts within the home never belonged to Ricketts, most of the fixtures and woodwork are in their original format (shelves where Ed kept his turntable and speakers, etc.). The backyard of the lab, which overlooks the bay, led to the basement where Ricketts stored the majority of his specimens.

Susan talking about The Snake and Ed Ricketts inside the lab.

View of the "backyard"

A seat for Steinbeck, Ricketts, and Mac?

Class at Pacific Biological Laboratories... with the man himself (stage right)

After our meeting at Ricketts', we adjourned to Hopkins for a fantastic bbq and two lectures related to teaching Cannery Row to high school students -- great stuff!