I walked in Monterey one day
With the heat on Cannery Row
After the time of the pilchard steam
When the President was low
And I heard the clang of Suzy’s door
As the boiler house banged too
And the curtains moved in the old Bear Flag
When Doc had burned his stew
Passed Lee Chong’s grocery I strolled
The patron moved within
Down past the Palace flop-house
And sniffed the sniff of kin
When Mac was in my memory
Both Whitey one and two
And Hazel slept ‘neath the Cypress tree
And Fauna turned the screw
By the way, I didn’t catch this - I thought Tortilla Flat, another great, short “magical Steinbeck” book about life in Monterey, was the King Arthur-inspired one.
Steinbeck comes in at least a couple of flavors: short, magical novels (my faves by far); big American Commentary novels where everybody dies ;); oh, and short stories…
I took my Dad there earlier in the year. He lived at the nearby US army base (Ford Ord) with his father (an officer in the British Army) around 1960. He is a huge Steinbeck fan.
Needless to say Cannery Row has changed ALOT since then. Back then it really seemed to be right out of a Steinbeck novel. Nowadays (with the Bubba Gump shrimp restaurants and tourist boutiques) not so much.
I’ve read *Cannery Row *two or three times. I loved the section where he talks about how Our Father in Nature loves ne’er-do-wells. It’s a great little book and I think Steinbeck is America’s finest novelist.
I second this recommendation, I even believe Sweet Thursday is marginally a better book. Since seeing the movie, I always hear the exposition in my head using John Huston’s voice. It makes it that much better. I don’t know why, but Tortilla Flat sort of disappointed me. Maybe I should read it again.
Great book…a few questions:
-did the sardines ever come back?
-“Doc Ricketts”-did he get rich off his Pacific Biologicals business?
-when the sardine fishery folded, was there ever an attempt to go after other species?
last time I was in Monterey, I had breakfast in a local cafe, frequented by fishermen. They told me the only thing they caught was squid-why isMonterey Bay so biologically barren?
The sardine were overfished and left - based on what I see at the Aquarium (I was just there last week) I get the impression they have come back somewhat but it is no longer economically attractive to set up fisheries - have you seen real estate prices in the Monterey area?! It’s no longer factory/warehouse zoning!
Rickett’s never made a ton of money. My dad reads up a lot on Ricketts’ life - he was pretty much as Steinbeck portrayed him - a great guy and naturalist who carved his own path. My dad has a presentation copy of the Log of the Sea of Cortez that Doc had presented to a friend. It is one of my dad’s most cherished possessions…
The Old Cap bookstore used to be just down the street from Gianni’s - I ran and used the phone at Gianni’s to check with an expert friend when I found a first edition of Faulkner there for dirt cheap! But the bookstore closed down (long story - not just big store competition) and a tattoo parlor moved in…
**jsc **- PG is the best. This past week (actually two weeks now), we’d get up every morning, grab breakfast at Holly’s Lighthouse Cafe and then go climbing the rocks at Lover’s Point and look for seals and otters…and it was right before Pebble Beach, so each town had its own car show and PG had two - the Little Car show (featuring cool mini-type cars) and another of just fun-but-not-worthy-of-the-Concours (said with nose in air!) cars…really cool.
Heh. Doc Ricket’s is the name of a club in downtown Monty now. There’s a set of monkey bars running the length of the bar, and if you tip the bartender $5 she’ll swing from one end to the other. It’s kinda cool, they have a call-and-response with the other bartenders so everybody knows what’s happening and nobody gets kicked in the head.
Oh, and point of interest, Ford Ord is no longer the Army base in Monterey, it got closed down, and whatever Army facilities that are still operating there are now part of the Presidio of Monterey, across town (the Presidio, meanwhile, was an annex of Fort Ord for a while).
I’ve been inspired by all this to order a Steinbeck anthology of his six short novels for my Kindle. I read Grapes and East of Eden many, many years ago, but missed some of his other works.
Plus, dig that authentic frontier music Dr. John played all on that movie. “Well, about 5, the police found their car on the beach.” So much great delivery from the actors (including Huston). The movie is a stone classic.
No love for Henri? He was one of my favorite characters. If only he’d built boats instead of trying to paint with chicken feathers and nut shells, he’d have made enough money for a bathroom.
What was the name of the couple who lived in the discarded boiler?
