The Moon is Down by John Steinbeck Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of The Moon is Down
Book Review: Occupation
Summary: 5 Stars
In 1942, at the height of the Nazi domination of Europe, Steinbeck wrote this novella about a small mining town under enemy occupation. Neither the country nor the aggressor is specified, and the character names are generically European, but everything fits the German conquest of Norway in 1940. Steinbeck wrote the book frankly as propaganda, as a contribution to the war effort; the introduction by Donald V. Coers to the Penguin Classics edition admirably documents the success the novel had in numerous translations smuggled into occupied Europe. Coers also discusses the controversy that the book stirred up among critics in America, some of whom accused Steinbeck almost of literary collaboration.
But therein lies its fascination. At first blush, the subject suggests a story of helmeted Nazis and daring saboteurs by Alistair MacLean or Jack Higgins, and propaganda would seem a rather low literary form. But the amazing thing -- though obvious in retrospect -- is that Steinbeck keeps his own style intact, just as though he were writing of the American heartland. He is less concerned with great events than with the people caught up in them, and he describes them with the same understanding, warmth, and even humor that he would bring to CANNERY ROW or EAST OF EDEN. Furthermore -- and this is what so shocked his critics -- he finds the same humanity in the occupying soldiers as among the victim population. I titled this review "Occupation" rather than "Resistance" because Steinbeck's book really is two-sided, and shows the soldiers being destroyed as much by their own isolation and loneliness as by the overt acts of the people. The nearest thing to a stereotypical Nazi is the keen-as-mustard Captain Loft, who wants to do everything by the book. But his commanding officer, Colonel Lanser, says of him: "He's frightened. I know his kind. He has to be disciplined when he's afraid or he'll go to pieces. He relies on discipline the way other men rely on sympathy."
Lanser, the First War veteran who sees the folly of his orders even as he is forced to follow them, is one of the two richest characters in the book. The other is Mayor Orden, the aging representative of the townspeople, who is confused by events at first, but gradually comes to realize his true role. The scenes between these two men, impossible negotiations unresolved by their shared humanity, show Steinbeck at his best. Even Steinbeck's slightly awkward reach for grandeur towards the end, when Orden tries to quote Socrates, is redeemed by the fact that the old man cannot quite remember the words. Whatever the context, Steinbeck writes best about ordinary people because he can imagine himself in their minds and feelings. The fact that he is writing about a situation he had never experienced in a country he has never visited, makes that feat of imagination nothing less than amazing.
Book Review: Occupied Countries
Summary: 5 Stars
Now it was that the conqueror was surrounded, the men of the battalion alone among silent enemies, and no man might relax his guard for even a moment. If he did, he disappeared, and some snowdrift reeived his body. If he went alone to a woman, he disappeared. The men of the battalion could sing only together, could dance only together, and dancing gradually stopped and the singing expressed a longing for home. THeir talk was of friends and relatives who loved them and their longings were for warmth and love, because a man can be a soldier for only so many hours a day and for only so man months in a year, and then he wants to be a man again, wants girls and drinks and music and laughter and ease, and when these are cut off, they become irrestibly desirable. "
~John Steinbeck, The Moon is Down
This book, written and released in the first year of of the Second World War, was extremely contraversial for Steinbeck. He had already established himself as a wonderful author whom was loved and respected for his clever word choice and characters, but the authoring of this book called him into question in some eyes.
He tells the story of an occupied country, more importantly, an occupied city, where the invading soldiers come into a peaceable-minded people's town and try to slowly take power; eventually seeing that no one takes well to enslavement, and winter begins. Steinbeck gives each character on each side equal time to tell their reasons for being there, for killing the soldier, for falling in love with the coal miner's wife and visiting her on rounds, for being a mayor who stands up to the colonel but does not consider himself to be very brave.
We find out the minds of all creatures of war, the occupied, the enslaving, the confused and angry.
"Good. Now I'll tell you, and I hope you'll understand it. You're not a man anymore. You are a soldier. Your comfort is of no importance and, Lieutenant, your life isn't of much importance. If you live, you will have memories. That's about all you have. Meanwhile you must take orders and carry them out. Most of the orders will be unpleasant, bu that's not your business. I will not lie to you, Lieutenant. They should have trainedyou for this, and not for flower-strewn streets. They should have build your soul with truth, not led along with lies... We can't take care of your soul."
When I read this, I wonder about our troops in Iraq. I wonder about the Iraqi refugees trying to flee from the destruction and pain we've caused, for whatever end. War is an ugly business, and this book shed light on it for me as just that: a snapshot into war and how it effects the creatures within it.
I recommend The Moon is Down and promise you will be moved by the simple story John Steinbeck tells about this unnamed town somewhere in the snow, fighting for their lives by turning cold, hanging solidly together, while soldiers attempt to hold the entire existence under control, even though they long for the familiarity of home.
"Do you remember in school, the Apology ? Do you remember Socrates says, 'Someone will say, "And you are not ashamed , Socrates of a course of life which is likely to bring you an untimely end?" To him I may fairly answer, "There you are mistaken: a man who is good for anything ought not to calculate the chance of living or dying; he ought only to consider whether he is doing right or wrong'."