William Souder

This book is to me a model of literary biography. The author keeps it at a manageable length when it clearly could have been stretched a good bit. He introduces his own evaluations and opinions to some degree, but clearly leaves the heavy critical lifting to how the books were received at the time. As I teethed on the chummy, wise old crackerbarrel philosopher of Travels With Charley, it was unsettling to learn that Steinbeck was not especially likable (or, if you will, as one of his sons show more put it, "an asshole"). Prickly, a cruel father, and laden with rather strange eccentricities, his life was, as the author puts it, "messy". And since the author evinces considerable, perhaps total, buyin to the odd contemporary critical opinion that Travels With Charley was mostly made-up, I felt a lot like the rustic Daniel Defoe met up with in the West Country who went on about how inspiring he had found Robinson Crusoe. When told by Defoe that the story was fiction, the oldtimer replied that he wished that he had not told him so, for the book was the only thing that had given him the strength to get through the rough passages in his life. show less

As biographies go, this one is well-researched, clearly organized, and easily accessible. Souder avoids the pitfalls of deep speculation and meandering through philosophical analyses, but perhaps that's because Steinbeck himself, as a subject, permitted a clean approach by his mundane character. He was just a 'dude,' and a somewhat shallow one at that. If anything, my most significant criticism of "Mad at the World" is the preponderance of the banal discussed; much of Steinbeck's personal show more life and professional drives seem to seethe from a life of gossip-fueled cliques, intense if superficial socialization, quests for booze and sex, and avoiding adulthood while slogging through it and taking notes.

To my eye, Steinbeck comes across as a soul stuck in adolescence, rather selfishly seeking both stimulation and private space. His rage at the very real injustices in the core of American life almost ring like hot, youthful idealism given that perspective, but that image is put somewhat at abeyance by his (in my opinion, as many others') masterful ability to write what he needed to say. A proud but truly insecure, successful but defensive, clever but _kinda dense_ man, Steinbeck would've been tough to get along with but Souder succeeds in making me feel like I know him better. show less

A pleasure to read. Previously I was dimly aware of Audubon's background beyond the acclaimed naturalist who painted life-size birds (if you ever get to see the original size of the folios, they are *massive). Who knew that he was a bastard son of a sea captain (inb4 "Hey should this be shoved at [a:Lin-Manuel Miranda|5725556|Lin-Manuel Miranda|https://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1439932375p2/5725556.jpg]?") and self-trained naturalist could go toe-to-toe with European zoologists and then some, show more yet at the same time build up his persona as a roguish American frontiersmen with embellishments and some outright zoological fabrications (the description of rattlesnakes as tree-dwellers, for example)?

I would have liked to see some of the prints referenced (especially those in the chapters' epigraphs), but there are plenty of other books for that. show less

The title provides a key to William Souder’s take on the life of John Steinbeck. Souder sees Steinbeck as a writer whose best work is powered by his anger. That anger was often directed at himself. His letters to his editor, Pascal Covici, often badmouth his work in progress—it is a bad book; he is sure it won’t sell. He wrote obsessively and was never happy to be disturbed while he was at it. One of his sons said that he came to understand that his father was a grumpy SOB, whose idea show more of tough love was to treat him unjustly to teach him that the world was unjust. Steinbeck was always looking for a guru. The one who influenced him most was the marine biologist Ed Ricketts, who was the model for Doc, the protagonist of Cannery Row. Ricketts inspired Steinbeck’s “phalanx theory” about the relation of the individual to the group that gets its fullest expression in The Grapes of Wrath and that may account for the frequent criticism that Steinbeck’s characters lack individuality. Souder’s biography is readable and well-documented. 4 stars. show less