Homeless Lit: Cannery Row

	Cover of the first edition of John Steinbeck's 1945 novel.

This is the first in a series looking at how homelessness is presented in literature. Does fiction present homeless folk realistically? Are we romanticised? Are we presented as scummier, less-wholesome beings than the good people most of us are? Are the homeless people of yore different from what we're like today?

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"a poem, a stink, a grating noise, a quality of light, a tone, a habit, a nostalgia, a dream"
-- A description of the street Cannery Row,
from the first sentence in the book.

Cannery Row is the story of many poor and interesting people who live on Cannery Row, a street next to the Pacific Ocean, where many sardine-canning factories stood, in Monterey, California.
A character called Doc is usually identified as the main character in the story, but, truly, the plot of the story results from the many actions of "Mack and the boys," a group of men who are homeless at the beginning of the book, and whom the omnipotent third-person narrator tracks most closely for the whole of the story.
As I say, Mack and the boys are homeless at the beginning, but in Chapter I, they gain possession of a Cannery Row building, thereafter refered to as the Palace Flophouse, where they take up residence without need of paying rent. A solid mass of text describing Mack and the boys concludes Chapter II [emphases, mine]:

Mack and the boys [spin] in their orbits. They are the Virtues, the Graces, the Beauties of the hurried mangled craziness of Monterey and the cosmic Monterey where men in fear and hunger destroy their stomachs in the fight to secure certain food, where men hungering for love destroy everything lovable about them. Mack and the boys are the Beauties, the Virtues, the Graces. In the world ruled by tigers with ulcers, rutted by strictured bulls, scavenged by blind jackals, Mack and the boys dine delicately with the tigers, fondle the frantic heifers, and wrap up the crumbs to feed the sea gulls of Cannery Row. What can it profit a man to gain the whole world and to come to his property with a gastric ulcer, a blown prostate, and bifocals? Mack and the boys avoid the trap, walk around the poison, step over the noose while a generation of trapped, poisoned, and trussed-up men scream at them and call them no-goods, come-to-bad-ends, blots-on-the-town, thieves, rascals, bums. Our Father who art in nature, who has given the gift of survival to the coyote, the common brown rat, the English sparrow, the house fly and the moth, must have a great and overwhelming love for no-goods and blots-on-the-town and bums, and Mack and the boys. Virtues and graces and laziness and zest. Our Father who art in nature.

There's lots of interesting stuff in this paragraph.

First, Steinbeck [as an omnipotent, crotchety third-person narrator] calls Mack and the boys [Mack, Hazel, Eddie, Hughie and Jones] "the Beauties, the Virtues, the Graces." He is refering to the Charities of antiquity. Quoting wikipedia, "In Greek mythology, a Charis (Χάρις) is one of several Charites (Χάριτες; Greek: 'Graces'), goddesses of charm, beauty, nature, human creativity and fertility. They ordinarily numbered three: Aglaea ('Beauty'), Euphrosyne ('Mirth'), and Thalia ('Good Cheer'). In Roman mythology they were known as the Gratiae, the 'Graces.'"
Certainly, the five homeless men friends are very admirable in many ways, as are the biggest subset of the homeless in Sacramento. They are clearly, basically good-hearted and well-meaning and mostly oblivious to their own self-interestedness and destructiveness.
An early tangential story, within the greater story of Mack & boys' efforts to throw a big party for good old Doc, has a lonely watchman, named William, trying to make friends with the five homeless guys. For no particular reason, the homeless guys reject William, and after some other insensitive encounters, William plunges an ice pick into his heart. "It was amazing how easily it went in. William was the watchman before Alfred came. Everybody liked Alfred."
From an unsourced commentary, found online, some wisdom about the 'tragedy within merryment' which repeats in Steinbeck's sad novella:

The symbolism of chaos-and-order is basic to Cannery Row; various characters, each in his own fashion, try to arrange and observe what cannot, in any essential aspect, be changed. As Steinbeck says in one of his "inter-chapters" or digressions, it is the function of The World - of human communication - to create by means of faith and art an Order of love which is mankind's only answer to that fate which all men, and indeed all life, must ultimately share. And if John Steinbeck turns to the "outcasts" from society as symbols for this vision, it may be that only the outcasts of machine civilization can still remember who they truly are.

Once again, even in this most charming of books, Steinbeck recapitulates the themes
so integral to his work: the need of the human animal to organize, to combine for purposes beyond that of the mere individual appetite; the corruption and poison of moral pomposity and insane acquisition; and the loneliness-within-brotherhood of all flesh and mortality.

In Zen terms, the novella hones in on the idea of interbeing [A state of connectedness and interdependence of all phenomena], or, similarly but perhaps better, circuminsessional interpenetration. We all both deflate and delight each other, usually without much awareness of our powers of destruction and our ability to bring joy. We are also oblivious to the realization that each other is all we have and that the one thing we don't have is ourself. [We stupidly, endlessly defend the illusion of ego.]
In the quote from Chap II, Steinbeck writes about "fear and hunger," which is, again, the paired cheribim of "fear and desire" [in the garden of Eden] which destroy us and hold us back, and is what we must overcome to save us. In the rescue mission in Sacramento, fear and desire ["you risk going to hell" and "jesus would love to see you in heaven"] are used to rescue homeless men from the fear and desire ['destitution/meaninglessness/drudgery of the homeless condition' and 'alcohol! drugs! immediate relief!'] outside the rescue-mission property gates. [I would say that instead of swapping one's fear-and-desire for some other set of fear-and-desire, life's purpose is to overcome fear-and-desire, altogether, and -- as with most things that suppress us -- we overcome them by examining them closely and finding them not to be so special or to be a real threat.]
In the novella, Mack and the boys cause a lot of trouble while, mostly, having good intentions. In the wake of their parties and clever adventures, other people's lives are damaged. But, Doc, the book's great good supposedly-responsible character, too, is rather-unintentionally the cause of destruction. A character in the shadows, a retarded lad named Frankie ["Frankie drifted about like a small cloud."], hangs out at Doc's lab. Because he loves Doc, he steals a clock as a present for him. As a result of the theft, Frankie is hauled away to a life in an institution with Doc being rather oblivious to it all.
Late in the book, Doc makes some observations about Mack and the boys to a friend with whom he is drinking some beer and listening to classical music:

Doc said "...Mack and the boys know everything that has ever happened in the world and possibly everything that will happen. I think they survive in this particular world better than other people. In a time when people tear themselves to pieces with ambition and nervousness and covetousness, they are relaxed. All of our so-called successful men are sick men, with bad stomachs, and bad souls, but Mack and the boys are healthy and curiously clean. They can do what they want. They can satisfy their appetites without calling them something else."
and a little later ...
"It has always seemed strange to me," said Doc. "The things we admire in men, kindness and generosity, openness, honesty, understanding and feeling are the concomitants of failure in our system. And those traits we detest, sharpness, greed, acquisitiveness, meanness, egotism and self-interest are the traits of success. And while men admire the quality of the first they love the produce of the second."
"Who wants to be good if he has to be hungry too?" said [Doc's friend].
"Oh, it isn't a matter of hunger. It's something quite different. The sale of souls to gain the whole world is completely voluntary and almost unanimous -- but not quite. Everywhere in the world there are Mack and the boys. I've seen them in an ice-cream seller in Mexico and in an Aleut in Alaska. You know how they tried to give me a party and something went wrong? But they wanted to give me a party. That was their impulse."

Certainly, Mack and the boys are romanticised and overly admired by the narrator and main character, Doc, compared to the harsh glare of reality. But there is an element of truth to all that the narrator & Doc [that is, Steinbeck] is saying. From being alienated to the madness of a regular back-stabbing life, the bums of Cannery Row and the acclimated-homeless people of Sacramento enjoy a certain availability to wisdom and openness and genuineness that is -- damn it -- admirable.

Whatever Happened to "Love Thy Neighbor?"

One thing that is mostly missing from Union Gospel sermons, and is intermittent in what a homeless person experiences staying in the mission dorm, is the ideal of brotherly love or ‘love thy neighbor.’ And, indeed, in the sermons, there is far, far more hate talk about earthly society than mention of anything in the vicinity of lovingkindness.

This bugs me. Most of the homeless guys I know have a lot of problems, including addictions, unemployment and a hardscrabble life getting anything done, due to the time-devouring way all the homeless-service providers in our world are organized. Getting kindness and endeavoring, ourselves, to be kind is a rather obvious need.

Christianity didn't used to be stinting with kindness and talk about kindness. Writes Elaine Pagels early on in her book Beyond Belief:

Jesus … said, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, and soul; and you shall love your neighbor as yourself.” What God requires is that human beings love one another and offer help – even, or especially, to the neediest.” [Mark 12:29-31]

Such convictions became the practical basis of a radical new social structure, Rodney Stark suggests [in his book The Rise of Christianity, pg 86-87] that we read the following passage from Matthew’s gospel “as if for the very first time,” in order to feel the power of this new morality as Jesus’ early followers and their pagan neighbors must have felt it:

For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink. I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me…. Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these, my brethren, you did it to me. [Matthew 25:35-49]

These precepts could hardly have been universally practiced, yet Tertullian [in his book The Apology] says that members of what he calls the “peculiar Christian society” practiced them often enough to attract public notice: “What marks us in the eyes of our enemies is our practice of lovingkindness: ‘Only look,’ they say, ‘look how they love one another!’”

Recently, on consecutive nights, Brett Ingalls of Vacaville Bible Church and Jimmy Roughton of Capitol Free Will Baptist Church gave tremendous, inspiring sermons that had a lot to say about goodness, the near cousin of "love thy neighbor." Hooray, them.

Brett Ingalls used the whole of his time to talk on the topic of "forgiveness." He had a lot to say that was fascinating and he anchored what he said to Scripture. Christians should endeavor not to be angry with each other, but when one is aggrieved, he should discuss what is wrong in a kindly way with the other who has hurt or harmed him. A Christian who transgresses against another should prepare himself to apologize, humbly and genuinely. And, how ever much someone has hurt or harmed us, we must forgive, fully.

There was a second part to this -- a "vertical" aspect -- where Christians humbly and genuinely seek forgiveness from God, when appropriate.

I wish I had an audio or transcript of what all Pastor Brett said, or had taken notes. From the gist of what I remember and will retain, I see the elements of outstanding guidelines for best behavior.

Jimmy Roughton, the next night, was in top form, speaking passionately and pacing back and forth in front of the altar like a caged jungle cat. His sermon was on the idea that Christians needed to be wonderful examples to others both for themselves, to live as manifestations of their dear faith, and so that nonbelievers will see them as beacons of the transforming power of belief in Jesus.

While many of the Union Gospel preachers make becoming a Christian sound like a burdensome, horrible chore, Reverend Roughton spoke of it as something that is in all ways wonderful and joyous and burden lifting. Roughton ended his surmon with one of his varietions on Pascal's Wager, saying that he would rather be wrong with all he believed about God and Jesus, and suffer no penalty, than be a nonbeliever and be wrong -- and, thus, be hellbound. Roughton is the only mission preacher who uses Pascal's Wager (though never identifying his argument as such). By the reaction of the guys in the seats, "the wager" seems motivating to many. It doesn't work on me; I feel I'm stuck believing whatever seems to be true.

While I think Ingalls's and Roughton's sermons were excellent and effective, I await a sermon that is very directly about lovingkindness, addressed to the tough rescue-mission crowd. Such a sermon might talk about how the guys should think about their behavior being too selfish or me-centered.

Today, getting a bed at the mission requires aggressiveness with some pushing and shoving at the sign-up window, outside. Lining up for dinner is competative, with many guys using sneaky means to move up in the serving line. A lot of guys have a need to maximize the space they have at the dining table; they put their arms on the table at either side of their tray.

A lot of the selfish nonesence is understandable. There are benefits that accrue from being selfish in Homeless World Sacramento. For people who don't have much, having a little extra by way of being aggressive is meaningful.

At Loaves & Fishes, there are tussles to get better or earlier services than others: There's a 7am race to get early men's showers and low lunch-ticket numbers. We live in a race to the bottom; because so many are extremely self interested, others of us have to act in self interested ways to get something close to 'our share.'

Homeless World Sacramento is full of mostly-wonderful people [truly, truly], but the tough time-devouring circumstances in which we live makes ungenerous and suspicious people out of us. Teach us to be kind, O Preachers.

Born to be Good

A new book that I haven't seen yet and my library doesn't have yet has gotten my attention due to two reviews I read.

The book, Born to be Kind, has Confusian, rather than Buddhist, roots, but I like the idea behind it: That the best way to describe human origins is not survival of the fittest, but survival of the kindest. [I can't say that "kindness" sounds more likely to be true, but I'm hopeful.]

The author, Dacher Keltner, is on tour, promoting his book now. Below, a YouTubed statement by the writer about why he wrote his book.



Here's the review in the Jan-Feb, 2009, issue of Psychology Today:

Through his studies on facial movements, tones of voice, goosebumps, dinosaurs, and beauty, Berkeley psychologyist Keltner has forged what he calls a "new science of positive emotion." His conclusion: Human beings have evolved a set of positive emotions -- gratitude, mirth, awe and compassion -- and it is these that enable us to lead meaningful lives. The key to happiness, he says, is to let these emotions arise in ourselves and to evoke them in others. Human beings are wired to be good -- so much so, Keltner says, that the best way to describve our origins is not "survival of the fittest" but "survival of the kindest."

The second review I read was in Library Journal. Couldn't find it at their website, but did find it at Barnes & Noble.

UPDATE 1/27/09: Bill Harryman has a post on "Born to Be Good" over at Integral Options Cafe. Word of this book is spreading, and its POV is causing discussion.

UPDATE 3/3/09: There is a GREAT comprehensive review of Keltner's book in Slate, reviewed by the great Howard Gardner: "How Good Are We, Really?" At its end, the review is not altogether an endorsement of Keltner's book, since Keltner doesn't prove what he sets out to. But the book does entrigue Gardner, and me, because of what it does and can say about goodness in human beings.

Update 3/21/09: I've added two quotes from Keltner's book, related to compassion: Compassion in Born to Be Good, #1; and Compassion in Born to Be Good, #2.