The Moon Is Down

To hold this book in my hands means something

There was once a time and in many places where having this book would have gotten me shot. It humbles me to think of the people who risked their lives simply to read this slim book by Steinbeck. That was during WW II, when to read it wasn't only a risk under the Nazis but it was also a risk in Italy under Mussolini and in China under the Japanese.

According to the Penguin Classics Introduction by Donald V. Coers, read it they did, by the tens of thousands, in Norway, Denmark, The Netherlands, France, Switzerland, China and anywhere else where people were under totalitarian regimes, or under that fear. They illegally read it, translated it, made clandestine mimeographed copies of it, and with show more great risk they distributed it, and each step had the most frightening of possible consequences.

Those tens of thousands were so inspired that they knew they had to put this book in the hands of others, pass along hope and courage, to strengthen resistance. As spoken by one of the characters in the novel, it was resistance against "thieves of freedom".

Steinbeck's inspiration for The Moon Is Down came when Western Europeans began to flee occupied countries to America, years before Pearl Harbor. He interviewed them and wanted to tell their stories and to educate America. (See also Address Unknown published in 1938.) But something remarkable happened with The Moon Is Down, published in March 1942: this book possibly made its bigger impact on the non-American readers living under those various occupations, the illegal readers. Steinbeck took some American criticism for the book (too naive, they said), but not too naive for the humans around the world directly suffering invasion and oppression. Seems to me they would be best to judge what was naive and what was not and in great numbers they judged it to be right on the money.

I loved reading this book. It was heartening to read about righteousness, especially in a time when racism and violence are touted as "good people on both sides." Hmph. Good people with wicked intentions, is that a thing?

I would like to distribute copies of this book myself, to those who are most recently confused on the the different sides of good and evil. I'd like to send 112 to the now dysfunctional Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives who voted against supporting Ukraine on Saturday, April 20, 2024. Compare those Nay votes with the votes on December 8, 1941 when apparently all of Congress was a tad clearer on its stance against totalitarian attacks on a Democratic country. There was just 1 Nay vote then.

Or instead maybe I should send 311 copies of The Moon Is Down as a thank you to all those who voted Yea. The bill passed. show less

John Steinbeck wrote a war novel? Make no mistake, this is a novel about WWII despite the fact that no opposing armies are named. Steinbeck portrays the humanity of both sides with his usual generosity. The invaders want to go home just as much as the vanquished want them to. But this is war, and there must be retribution. Just as winter slowly settled on northern Europe, "the people of the conquered country settled in a slow, silent, waiting revenge."

The human spirit will always find a way to achieve freedom because, as Steinbeck tells us, it is free men who win wars. He never loses his focus or overdramatizes the plot in this short novel, yet he makes the reader rethink longheld notions of good vs. evil. This may have been a quick show more read, but it will not be quickly forgotten by this reader. show less

Today is Remembrance Day and so it seems apt that I share the story of this battered little book which belonged to my father. It was published in 1942 under strict wartime conditions by the British Publishers Guild, who were co-operating in the publication of a comprehensive list of important books of universal appeal, published in paper covers at a very low price. Today, three-quarters of a century later, the covers have parted company with the pages, but the heavy duty staples which took the place of proper binding are still holding the pages together. My father was seventeen in 1942, and was a fire watcher and air-raid warden in London before joining the RAF later in the war when he was older. It humbles me to think of him holding show more this book in his hands and recognising, as I soon did, that its message is one of hope.

My father was no fool: even at seventeen he would have recognised the book as propaganda just as I do. But I like to think that he believed in its fundamental truth, encapsulated in these words at the end of the book:

The people don't like to be conquered, sir, and so they will not be. Free men cannot start a war, but once it is started, they can fight on in defeat. Herd men, followers of a leader, cannot do that, and so it is always the herd men who win battles and the free men who win wars. (p.90)

The story takes place in an unnamed town invaded by an unnamed occupier at war with England and Russia, further identified as Germany by references to punctuality, officious behaviour, crisp uniforms, blind obedience to orders and a reverie of the Valkyries galloping through to the clouds to the accompaniment of Wagnerian thunder. I assumed that the setting was modelled on the occupation of the Channel Islands, Jersey and Guernsey but no, Wikipedia tells me that the scenario resembles the occupation of Norway by the Germans during World War II. (If I had seen the snowy landscapes on the Viking Press first USA edition cover, I would have known better, but it hardly signifies.)

Steinbeck shows the heroic resistance of the townspeople, led by their unassuming Mayor Orden. The occupiers arrive, assuming that their military might confers the power they need to have their orders followed. They regard the defeated people as orderly, and they believe that they will cooperate in an orderly way and dig up the coal that the enemy requires. But Orden demurs: he tells Colonel Lanser that while the people were orderly under their own government, which has been built for over 400 years, they may not be orderly under the invader's government. And when Orden is told that it is in the interests of the people to prevent them rebelling, and it is his responsibility to keep them safe, he demurs again.

Mayor Orden asked, 'But suppose they don't want to be safe?'
'Then you must think for them.'
Orden said, a little proudly, 'My people don't like to have others think for them. Maybe they are different from your people. I am confused, but that I am quite sure of." (p.14)

To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2020/11/12/the-moon-is-down-by-john-steinbeck/ show less

John Steinbeck was America's Vercors (The Silence of the Sea). The Moon is Down transformed European Resistance, not with a love story, but by breaking The Silence with dynamite.

He explored the depth of Occupation hatred, not by exposing more brutal German savagery, rather letting the words of both the German soldiers and the Mayor and the people of his town
illuminate both good and evil.

How can we not have learned that life is not about killing?

The first thing you should know about “The Moon Is Down” by John Steinbeck is that it was written in March 1942 as Allied propaganda. It tells a story of the invasion and occupation of a small northern European village. The parties are not named, but it’s a clear depiction of the invasion of Norway by SS troops. It was clearly written to bolster the resolve of Allied soldiers and remind them that a larger, more powerful force is no match for the human spirit and our innate desire for freedom.

The second thing you should know is that it was published simultaneously as a novel and a play. The book is written in a manner that makes this clear. Short, impactful episodes with powerful dialogue tell a story of how the villagers resist show more their occupier; how the village mayor negotiates with and debates the decisions of the invading general; and how much of a moral, emotional and physical strain occupation is on the occupier.

I’m an anarcho-pacifist, so wartime propaganda leaves me uninspired, but I think this book is worth reading. The Moon is Down is a short, concise book (barely over 100 pages), but we’re not robbed of Steinbeck’s glorious, soul-inspiring writing style:

“In marching, in mobs, in football games, and in war, outlines become vague; real things become unreal and a fog creeps over the mind. Tension and excitement, weariness, movement–all merge in one great gray dream, so that when it is over, it is hard to remember how it was when you killed men or ordered them to be killed. Then other people who were not there tell you what it was like and you say vaguely, “yes, I guess that’s how it was.” ― John Steinbeck, The Moon Is Down

Second, the book is clear about the corrosive futility of occupation and the resistance of the human spirit, even when ‘conquered’ by outside forces. In this present day, as the world watches another occupation attempt to crush the spirits and destroy the hopes of millions of people in Gaza, we see the truth in statements like, “They know that ten heads lopped off will destroy them, but we are a free people; we have as many heads as we have people, and in a time of need leaders pop up among us like mushrooms.”

I’m not in love with this book, but it’s a fascinating read and there are some very deep, universal truths peppered throughout that are worth consideration 83 years and six milllion “never agains” later. show less

The Moon Is Down by John Steinbeck is a small gem of simplification whereby he shows that being the conqueror isn’t quite the pretty picture of victory that many believe. A seemingly easy invasion has this army celebrating it’s victory and making plans for the future. They slowly become aware that although this country has lost the battle, the war goes on. The populace is sullen and proud, and the conquerors dare not turn their backs. Soldiers who go out on their own seldom return. Reprisals only seem to make the people more determined to quietly fight on for the freedom they have lost.

Published in 1942, this propaganda piece tells the story of the military occupation of a small mining town, bringing to mind the invasion of Norway show more by the Germans during World War II. Without specifically naming the Nazi’s, this is obviously a literary work that was meant to inspire and motive the resistance movement throughout Europe.

Steinbeck writes of the trials and tribulations of both the oppressed and the oppressor, and he avoids the trap of making the Germans unnecessarily evil and the Norwegians overly heroic. Yet, evil is present and the heroic quietly stand tall. These are real people caught up in the drama of war, his characters from the gentle, patriotic mayor to the intelligent, conflicted enemy commander are well drawn and vividly portray the anguish and brutality that war and occupation brings to ordinary people. show less

In this novel, John Steinbeck transposed his signature empathy with the oppressed" (as it is termed in my Penguin edition's introduction) from the people of the economic depression in the United States (which made his name with books like The Grapes of Wrath and Of Mice and Men) to ordinary townspeople in Nazi-occupied Europe in World War Two. Written in 1941-2 as Allied propaganda to be disseminated to the peoples of Europe (Steinbeck was a member of the OSS), the novel is of such a fine quality and possessing of such a timeless, well-articulated message that it transcended mere propaganda. Steinbeck later called The Moon is Down a "celebration of the durability of democracy"; indeed, the book works better as an advocacy of ideas than show more as entertainment. The plot is linear and predictable, the language atmospheric but not exactly lyrical.

But as a message, a manifesto, it is exceptional. Steinbeck traces the fortunes of a small town in an unspecified neutral country (popular consensus is that it is Norway) from the shock and surprise of its occupation to the beginning of the end of its resistance. At first, the tone of the book is almost farcical (in a positive sense), as baffled townsfolk fret over the correct etiquette for greeting one's conquerors ("It's been so long since... anybody conquered us. I don't know what is proper." (pg. 9)). Over time, it is realised that their consciences disallow them to collaborate with the occupiers; there "is a spark in little men that can burst into flame" when wronged (pg. 106). The oppressive disdain of the populace begins to fray on the nerves of the occupying garrison - "the conqueror was surrounded, the men of the battalion alone among silent enemies, and no man might relax his guard for even a moment." (pg. 58). This "terrible spiritual siege" (pg. 60) would, of course, in 1942 have been meant as a blueprint for the peoples of Europe, showing how it can be done ("We could fight his rest, then... his sleep... his nerves and his certainties." (pg. 84)) and detailing how the conquerors "grew afraid of the conquered and their nerves wore thin and they shot at shadows in the night." (pg. 59). Steinbeck uses one poetic metaphor - "Flies conquer the flypaper." (pg. 68) - evoking images of an aggressor being unable to prosecute his war if he is constantly bogged down in the territories he has already conquered.

Unusually, and in what was a rather bold move considering this was meant as propaganda, Steinbeck does not shirk the realities of civil disobedience and resistance when the force to be resisted is as cruel as the Nazis. Steinbeck shows, through the plot, how the Germans become less cordial and more hardline in response to the citizenry's actions; Steinbeck does not gloss over the losses made to the town in the form of summary executions, but still makes a convincing case as to why the resistance must continue. Whilst it may initially seem counter-productive as propaganda, it must have been gratifying for resistance movements in occupied Europe to know that their sacrifices were not taken for granted by their de facto allies.

What is even bolder (and remember that this was written at the height of the Second World War, with a target audience comprising of the very people suffering under Nazi occupation) is the sympathetic portrayal of the German garrison. Steinbeck paints the occupiers as ordinary men who just happen to wear another uniform, an approach which is usually reserved for anti-war literature written years after the fact when hatred has subsided. The enemy soldiers talk of "things that they longed for - of meat and of hot soup and of the richness of butter, of the prettiness of girls and of their smiles and of their lips and their eyes." (pg. 70). Some are fearful, perhaps in the growing realisation that they are on the wrong side of history, believing in a fascistic system "invented by a genius so great that they never bothered to verify its results" (pg. 21), but mostly because they know they are deeply unwelcome in this foreign town. One soldier breaks, wanting to be back home among friends in a place where "I could turn my back to a man without being afraid" (pg. 67). We gain sympathy for the Germans despite themselves, especially Lieutenant Tonder in Chapter 6. It says a lot for Steinbeck's genius that this novel was still appreciated by his target audience despite this characterisation.

Above all, this is an inspiring novel, even many years after the people it was initially written to inspire are long dead. Many modern readers (hopefully) won't have to endure occupation of their country by a foreign army, but Steinbeck's words would still be relevant if they did. Steinbeck created a durable "celebration of the durability of democracy"; his assertion that "it is always the herd men that win battles and the free men that win wars" (pg. 111) shows an inspiring amount of faith in the heroism of ordinary people once they have had a taste of freedom. Once tasted, the common people will fight unendingly to safeguard it.

"They think that just because they have only one leader and one head, we are all like that. They know that ten heads lopped off will destroy them, but we are a free people; we have as many heads as we have people, and in a time of need leaders pop up among us like mushrooms." (pg. 105)." show less