Burning Bright: A Play in Story Form (Penguin Modern Classics) [Paperback]

I thought I had read all of Steinbeck's work but found this one untouched on my bookshelf, purchased many years ago. It is problematic as a read in a way his other work isn't. I chose not to read Steinbeck's own forward at the book's beginning, though I did after the first Act, a clue I had missed when I began. The opening descriptive detail is classic Steinbeck, for example in the introduction to Joe Saul,

'A lithe and stringy man of middle age, Joe Saul. His jaws muscled against strain and cables down the sides of his neck. His arms were white and blue-veined, with the long chords of clinging and hanging rather than the lumps of lifting. His hands were white, the fingers spatulate, and palms and fingers calloused from the rope and bar.'

The setting for Act One is a circus, and the opening detail is typically taut and clear in presenting place and the four main characters: Joe Saul, Friend Ed, Mordeen and Victor. We see immediately the tent where Joe is getting ready to perform and the stubbled field where this and others are pitched. We also see immediately that he is a trapeze artist and Friend Ed is a clown, and so on. Simple and succinct and vivid. It is soon apparent, however, that the dialogue is full of artifice. When Friend Ed enters, he speaks with a knowing that doesn't ring true, but background detail - Joe's loss of his wife and partner - is quickly conveyed in the rather heavy opening exchanges.

At this point I sensed the theatricality of the dialogue and turned to the forward where Steinbeck talks about the experimentation of writing this as a 'play novelette' and his rationale for doing so - obviously referencing the roots of this in 'Of Mice and Men' - so my instinct was correct though I should have known this anyway, considering myself to know his work well!

And here is an example of the artifice and melodrama in the speech,

'Joe Saul stirred. 'Yes, I know that. But something like a ceremony, something like a golden sacrament, some pearl like a prayer or a red flaring ruby of thanks. Some hard, tangible humility of mine that she can hold in the palm of her hand or wear dangling from a ribbon at her throat.''

The artifice is carried into the structure too, the four Acts taking us with the same characters and situation/plot into wholly different contexts - from circus, to farm, to the sea [on a freighter], and to a hospital room. The central plot twist is also quite evident near the end of Act One, so it is a highly crafted, and visibly so construction. As a tale of love, friendship, self-sacrifice, deceit and human compulsion, it tackles the major literary and real human themes. I think I would find a stage production inevitably stilted, and because Steinbeck attempts to embrace both prosaic and theatrical genres, it is ultimately - but precisely because it is him - a jack of both and marginal master of each. And perhaps my experimental appropriation of a summation is equally contentious.

So would I recommend it? Of course - it's Steinbeck! Even with the stylised dialogue and plot projection I found the story compelling, from simply wanting to know how it ended, to being fascinated by the experimentation and wanting to see/read it through. When first published in 1951 [as a companion piece to 'The Pearl'; it was first published as a single volume in 1971] it was, apparently, criticised in reviews both as prose and as a play, though the experimentation was acknowledged more positively, this a little condescending though if I'm honest I suspect I too value it for this creative impulse over its realisation.

I did actually finish reading this book today and my reason for posting here is to recommend, but also to say that rather than buy a new edition at the current price, I also today ordered an original 1954 pan paperback edition through an Amazon seller, described as 'used, very good condition' and at £4 including postage I think that's an excellent alternative. So check what's on offer if and when you read this.

Okay, it's Steinbeck and everyone knows that he was an outstanding writer, but does that mean everything he wrote was outstanding? Does a piece of writing have to be "important" because its author was?
Paul Mcartney is an outstanding writer but is every song a classic?

This book is depressing and boring, though it does have two redeeming features, and they are: the reason it was written - an experiment with the form play-novelette, and it is short. Steinbeck explains about the first in the Author's note and the second requires no explanation.

Some of you Steinbeck Disciples will think me a heathen - but no! I understand this book perfectly. It is no more than an artist's sketch, a doodle. In truth: A great writer trying his hand at a different form. Some painters can pick up water colours instead of their usual oils, can they not? A snooker champion can play pool, I think.

Please do not think that this book must contain a hidden and deep meaning because Steinbeck wrote it. Doing that pushes you toward the quick-sand of intellectual snobbery, and once in you may never get out. By all means see the wood for the trees, but when there is no wood, try not to plant one.

Like many of his books this is only short. It is the story of 4 people, a husband and wife, a close freind of the husband and an outsider. The story starts with the wife, realising that her husband is infertile but that he desperately wants a child. Because of this the wife goes and gets pregnant by the 'outsider'. The story takes place over 3 scenes. These scenes change to a different location and change the characters history each time. This makes it slightly confusing but it is still well worth reading.