Once There Was a War

Unassuming little dispatches from Steinbeck's stint as a war correspondent in 1943, Once There Was a War elevates itself by being in the hands of a natural storyteller. Steinbeck's writing, in terms of setting and prose style, is as clean and evocative as in his more well-known fiction. He has that knack of identifying and extracting the drama and quiet humanity in regular situations that distinguishes the truly great writers from those who just know how to construct text. Many, if not all, of the dispatches work as short stories with fully realised characters, themes and moments of pathos, and deserve to stand beside anything else Steinbeck wrote.

In doing so, they would also find themselves in suitable company. It should come as no show more surprise that the author of The Grapes of Wrath and Of Mice and Men would be more interested in the war of the common soldier rather than the top brass, and he brings his clear observation to the story of citizen soldiers at war, those "clerks and farmers, salesmen… fishermen who have stopped being those things to become an army" (pg. 22). Even despite the censors, Steinbeck's uncompromising views come across, whether that is socialism, reconstruction or – most repeatedly and forcefully – his low opinion of English beer.

But Steinbeck himself is not the focus here; rather, it is the common humanity that pours from the dispatches, each of which is no more than three pages in length. Events are brought to life and, hard as it is for us today to imagine a world at war, it is made much easier when the likes of Steinbeck show us that these were ordinary people. They gossiped, they caroused, they ate, they slept and, yes, they fought. There's plenty of combat in Once There Was a War. But, in his retrospective introduction, Steinbeck says he wanted to capture "the drives, the attitudes, the terrors, and, yes, the joys" (pg. 8); that in the war there was not only violence and heroism but "selflessness, intelligence and kindness to write about" (pg. 14). So when we encounter the citizen soldiers, the airmen, the refugees and the Red Cross "waiting with [its] caldrons of coffee, with mountains of cake" for soldiers fresh from America (pg. 32), it makes you realise: this was the War, as much as the bullets and the bombs. It had, yes, the joys. Life and community does not cease to exist just because there is a war on. The usual stuff of humanity is not lost even in inhuman times; indeed, the spectacle often enhances it, and this is what Steinbeck taps into. It endures. There might no longer be any Flying Fortresses clustering in England, nor any gunsmoke over Salerno, nor any torpedo boats cutting through the Mediterranean spray in the dead of night, but some things remain. In a time when most of the people of the world were officially engaged in trying to kill one another, Steinbeck found a common thread of humanity and let it shine forth. show less

I know this was propaganda for the war department, passed on to the public through newspapers. But Steinbeck's propaganda for the war department aimed to tell the stories of average WWII servicemen, rather than glorifying vaunted generals or battle details. I'm a complete sucker for all of it. It's a wonderful piece of WWII propaganda as only Steinbeck could present it.

In 1943, John Steinbeck was a war correspondent for the New York Herald Tribune, and the dispatches that he filed from overseas captured the backstory to the war. He did not publish these stories in book form until 1958, and then he did not edit them:

"The pieces in this volume were written under pressure and in tension. My first impulse on rereading them was to correct, to change, to smooth out ragged sentences and remove repetitions, but their very raggedness is, it seems to me, a parcel of their immediacy. They are as real as the wicked witch and the good fairy, as true and tested and edited as any other myth. There once was a war, long ago--once upon a time."

These stories date from June 20,1943 through December 13,1943 and take place show more in England, Africa, and Italy; in fact, the book is divided into sections based on location, but the stories are in chronological order. The picture they present of WWII are the small forgotten moments that occur when troops are being transported or bomber crews are waiting for their next mission. Among the many ordinary service men and women, we meet Big Train Mulligan, the Army private who worked hard at not getting promoted, an alcoholic goat known as Wing Commander William Goat, DSO, who was buried with full military honors, and Bugs, a private first class who has acquired a souvenir that is not easy to transport - a mirror that is 6'2" by 4' and weighs about 75 pounds. Page by page, Steinbeck paints a picture of what the war was like when no one was looking.

On an imaginary line the children stand and watch the cargo come out. They are not permitted to go beyond their line for fear they might be hurt. There are at least a hundred of them, a little shabby, as everyone in England is after four years of war. And not too clean, for they have been playing on ground that is largely coal dust. How they cluster about an American soldier who has come off the ship! They want gum. Much as the British may deplore the gum-chewing habit, their children find it delightful. There are semi-professional gum beggars among the children. "Penny, mister?" has given way to "Goom, mister?" When you have gum you have something permanent, something you can use day after day and even trade when you are tired of it. Candy is ephemeral. One moment you have candy, and the next moment you haven't. But gum is real property. The grubby little hands are held up to the soldier and the chorus swells. "Goom, mister?" show less

An engaging, personal collection of war correspondent reports from many locations: England, Africa, Algiers, etc. Steinbeck's excellent writing and humane concern for the participants from raiding parties to ground crews make this a unique view into allied military of WW II.

Steinbeck for Steinbeck's sake. Nothing particularly brilliant or memorable here, but these essays are full of that signature Steinbeck voice. Though I've read the majority of Steinbeck's writing, it wasn't until reading Once There Was a War that I saw in Steinbeck's lighthearted writing a comparison to Twain's charm and anecdotal style.

Written originally as war correspondence to be published in newspapers, these vignettes of WWII were later collected in this volume. Certainly some of Steinbeck's stories here add fodder to the was-he, wasn't-he arguments (ie Communist, misogynist) that are still debated today. Ultimately, this book only fills in a small segment of the life and works of John Steinbeck. As for WWII, Once There Was a War show more merely adds a few tall tales, hope, and the occasional laugh to an otherwise dismal war. show less

This book is a compilation of John Steinbeck’s articles for the New York Herald Tribune, written in 1943. The majority of articles are direct observations of what happened with the troops in their daily lives as soldiers. The events take place in England, Northern Africa, and Italy.

The articles vary in content and tone from light-hearted to poignant to heroic to tragic. Steinbeck is reporting on the soldiers’ reactions to the various challenges presented to them, sometimes waiting a long while for something to happen followed by a flurry of action. The dialogues are plentiful and realistic. There are some fabulous stories here – my favorite is the joint effort of troops with their officers to (unofficially) save the life of a show more pregnant woman in Italy. If you want to see what a skilled novelist can do in the field of journalism, this is a great one to pick up. show less

Kellemes olvasmány, de aligha a Steinbeck-életmű hófödte csúcsa. Többek között azért sem lehet a hófödte csúcsa, mert kellemes olvasmány, és ha egy háborús írás kellemes olvasmány, az azért nem jelent túl jót. Nyilván nem lehet eltekinteni attól, hogy ezek a szövegek publicisztikák, ami – sok egyéb mellett – azt is jelenti, hogy Steinbeck már az előszóban kénytelen mentegetőzni amiatt, hogy bizonyos dolgokat anno nem írhatott meg a Háborús Erőfeszítésre való tekintettel. Ennek következtében Steinbeck amerikai katonája kissé idealizált fickó: hősies, a jég hátán is megél, és bár kicsit irreális mennyiségű emléktárgyat gyűjt össze magának úton-útfélen (magyarán lop, mint show more a veszett fene), de voltaképpen ez se teszi különösen ellenszenvessé – inkább csak színezi a jellemét. A kötet legjobb pontjai is ezek a jelenetek: amikor az író a katonalét groteszk pillanatait figurázza ki (például Mullighan, a Nagy Trén feledhetetlen pacák), de azért nekem összességében hiányzott belőle még egy kis bevállalósság. Pont ezért azoknak ajánlom elsősorban, akiket érdekel a második világháború, de nem bírják a vért. show less