Finished: The Winter of Our Discontent (Steinbeck). Powerful book with huge cliffhanger at the end. This was Steinbeck's last book before he died. He made a handwritten addition to the end of the book and in his notes at the end of the book said, "End. And I hope this time it's clear. I really do hope so, JS." Acckk! It's not clear to me at all!! I mean...I think that at the very end Ethan has decided against killing himself and is struggling to get out of the water...but does he succeed? Arrrrgggg! This is one of the two books I picked up after visiting Steinbeck's childhood home in California on our trip to the west coast in October. I know it seems silly, but somehow I can just feel the book more deeply knowing I got it out there. Is that dumb?

Anyway, The Winter of Our Discontent is another Steinbeck great in my opinion. It's the story of Ethan Hawley, a married grocery store clerk in 1960 with two early teenage children. Ethan is a good man with honest morals. His family goes back generations in the fishing town on the east coast, and used to be very wealthy until fortunes were lost by his grandfather and father. Ethan was close to his grandfather as a boy and would always remember that his grandfather had been ruined by his family friend and business partner, Mr. Baker. The Hawley finances were crumbled when Baker set fire to their equally owned and quite successful ship, opting for the insurance money. Baker was able to go on and turn his portion of the money into a successful family banking career, but Ethan's grandfather, who was a ship man, did not have such fortunes. By the time Ethan is an adult, he is a mere grocery clerk at a store on a block that the Hawley's used to own. Meanwhile, Baker's grandson is the owner of the bank. The grocery store is owned by Marullo, an Italian immigrant who actually came into the country illegally nearly 20 years earlier. He has made loads of money, and always treats Hawley a bit suspiciously until he finds out one day that Hawley has turned down an offer to make an under the table profit at the expense of the store and Marullo. He declares Hawley to be the most honest person he's ever met, just when Hawley is actually contemplating desperate measures to get his hands on some money to make life better for his wife and kids.

Influenced by several town people who seem to have no scruples, Hawley finally decides to be a bit unscrupulous himself and rob the bank next door. Before going through with his plan, though, he anonymously calls the immigration department and turns Marullo in as an illegal immigrant! He also gives his childhood best friend, and now the tragic town drunk, Danny, a substantial portion of his wife's small inheritance from her brother to go and check himself into a clinic to "cure" himself. Before doing this, though, he lets Danny know that the banker, Baker, is out to get Danny's childhood land, the only thing Danny has left in the world....and, the only piece of land left in the puzzle for a lucrative airport deal that the banker knows is coming down the pike. Baker has let Hawley in on this upcoming secret venture that will make those in the know very rich, thinking he will be someone he can easily influence down the road. In a cold, stunning turn of events, Hawley gives Danny his wife's money, knowing in his heart that Danny won't go to a clinic but will instead use it to drink himself to death. He's hoping that Danny will leave the property in his hands instead of Baker's, but he can't be sure.

On the day that Hawley has finally decided he'll rob the bank, two events happen that stop him in his tracks, and seem to turn his financial life around. The exact minute that he's about to leave for the robbery, an official comes in to tell him that Marullo has been deported back to Italy and that he (Marullo) couldn't think of a more honest person to give his store to than Hawley. He doesn't even want money for it...he just gives it to him. Secondly, Danny is found dead in the basement of his childhood home from an overdose of alcohol and pills. He's left a will naming Hawley as his sole heir. Of course, Hawley has a huge guilt about both men, but seems to have hardened his heart and justifies his actions in the name of getting himself and his family back their pride and their financial status. The scene where Baker realizes that Hawley manipulated the situation and knew exactly what he was doing, and was now the owner of the valuable piece of land was priceless. It didn't change how Hawley had gone about things though. :-(

There are so many depths and layers to the story that it's hard to write down in such a simple little blog as this, lol. Hawley is really not an evil person, but he's been overtaken with this desire to dig himself up and out of the hole of monotony and lower income that he's in. I think he thinks that both Marullo's and Danny's fates were eventual anyway, so why not profit from nudging them on to happen a little faster. I'm not condoning his actions in regards to Danny especially....but when he goes to see Danny and has the conversation with him about the land, Baker had been there just the day before and taken a huge bottle of alcohol to Danny and encouraged him to sign the land over to him. I think Hawley thought if anyone was going to take advantage of Danny's dire straits, it would be him and not Baker...especially since Danny was a spit-in-your face drunk the several times Hawley had tried to help him come clean before.

Anyway....in addition to all that, there are Hawley's wife and kids, and the family keepsake rock...a talisman that has been like the good luck or good omen rock of the family. Hawley has had it since he was a little boy, and now his daughter is attached to it as well. When the kids both decide to write essays about what makes America great, Hawley encourages them to read the many wonderful books up in the attic. Hawley's son, Allen, takes things a little too literally and actually plagiarizes his entire essay from the books. Furthermore, he gets picked as one of the semi-finalists to be on television and get a possible nice prize. The family is ecstatic for him until it comes to the attention of the network that Allen has plagiarized his essay. The network doesn't want the negative publicity, so they offer to keep things quiet, but they can't, of course, have Allen as a semi-finalist any more. When Hawley confronts his son, Allen's attitude is "Why not? Everyone else does it? Everyone takes the easy way out, why shouldn't I?" This attitude resonates with Hawley as he realizes that everything his son is saying is actually true about himself. He's no longer the honest man with good morals. He's done despicable things to get ahead. And...not only that, he sees his son heading to becoming a dishonorable human being too. Hawley puts some razor blades in his coat pocket and tells his wife he's going for a walk. His daughter, sensing things are amiss, throws her arms around her dad and begs him not to go. She fears he won't be coming back! And, sure enough....Hawley has gone to his "secret place" where he'd go as a boy...a cave by the old seawall where he could climb in and sit for hours at low tide. But now, it is nearing high tide and soon the cave will be full of the sea water. As Hawley lets his body float and bob with the water as he contemplates what he's done, he reaches into his pocket to retrieve the razor blades to cut his wrists and commit suicide. When he does so, he pulls out the family talisman instead! His daughter had slipped it into his pocket when she hugged him tight. Realizing that there is still hope left in his daughter, Hawley struggles against the incoming tide to get out of the water and return home. The end.

I really can't do the story justice, because there is so much depth and detail given to Hawley's life...times with his grandfather...growing up with Danny.....his very close relationship to his wife. Generally, until all this happens in the few months that it takes place, he's been such an honest person, good citizen and great father and husband...it's heartbreaking to see the change. And, I guess it was Steinbeck's statement on maybe the greed towards which so much of America was heading in 1960? I don't know.

I have a few passages that moved me to mark them down, as usual. First, just a memory that Hawley has of his grandfather teaching him all about ships. This memory, though, brought tears to my eyes when I read it. It reminded me of how Joshie used to sob when he was a young boy and we'd fly away from Houston after visiting my folks.

    I have a steel engraving of the Old Harbor chockablock with ships, and some faded photographs on tin, but I don't really need them. I know the harbor and I know the ships. Grandfather rebuilt it for me with his stick made from a narwhal's horn and he drilled me in the nomenclature, rapping out the terms with his stick against a tide-bared stump of a pile of what was once the Hawley dock, a fierce old man with a white whisker fringe. I loved him so much I ached from it. 

That's what it was with Josh...an aching to be leaving his grandpa. I so understand that, especially now.

And this next passage, was a profound change in Hawley's attitude about killing living beings, but I remember exactly that "shout of fierce happiness" that a shotgun blast used to be when my dad and MY grandpa would take us to shoot the guns out at the pond. I never shot at living things, though....only tin cans.

    As a child I hunted and killed small creatures with energy and joy. Rabbits and squirrels, small birds, and later ducks and wild geese came crashing down, rumpled distortions of bone and blood and fur and feathers. There was a savage creativeness about it without hatred or rancor or guilt. The war retired my appetite for destruction; perhaps I was like a child overindulged with sweets. A shotgun's blast was no longer a shout of fierce happiness. 

And then...the last lines of the book that left my mouth agape!

    My light is out. There's nothing blacker than a wick.
    Inward I said, I want to go home---no not home, to the other side of home where the lights are given.
    It's so much darker when a light goes out than it would have been if it had never shone. The world is full of dark derelicts. The better way---the Marulli of that old Rome would have known it---there comes a time for decent, honorable retirement, not dramatic, not punishment of self or family---just good-by, a warm bath and an opened vein, a warm sea and a razor blade.
    The ground swell on the rising tide whished into the Place and raised my legs and hips and swung them to the side and carried my wet folded raincoat out with it.
    I rolled on one hip and reached in my side pocket for my razor blades and I felt the lump. Then in wonder I remembered the caressing, stroking hands of the light-bearer [his daughter]. For a moment it resisted coming out of my wet pocket. Then in my hand it gathered every bit of light there was and seemed red---dark red.
    A surge of wave pushed me against the very back of the Place. And the tempo of the sea speeded up. I had to fight the water to get out, and I had to get out. I rolled and scrambled and splashed chest deep in the surf and the brisking waves pushed me against the old sea wall. 
    I had to get back---had to return the talisman to its new owner.
    Else another light my go out. 

Seriously....how do these great writers think of these words?? Oh yeah....and he totally quotes Shakespeare with his title, and then uses it in the book too. I think it's from Richard III, which I haven't read yet.

Now is the winter of our discontent, made glorious summer by the sun of York. 

So, onto my other Steinbeck or something a little lighter? :-)