1962 -III- Premio Nobel de literatura: John Steinbeck (-11)

Cannery Row. Tenía 18 años cuando me regalaron el libro, una copia usada, vieja, original de 1945, la tapa amarilla, dura, me había llamado la atención y hecho gracia; adentro tiene dos dedicatorias, una del año 1962, y la otra del 1981. Nunca sabrá aquel novio mío, con prisa ese día por haberse olvidado de mi cumpleaños, cuán precioso fue su regalo para mí. Mon premier grand amour. Me contó que lo había encontrado en una tienda de libros de segunda mano, viniendo a mi casa. Sabía que me gustaba el autor. Lo pagó $1. 50, éramos estudiantes y pobres, me lo regaló con mucho cariño y algo de alivio al verme tan contenta con el presente. Cannery Row es una novela dulce amarga sobre los habitantes de esa localidad pesquera, personajes pintorescos, a veces conmovedores, un "doc" que recoge bichitos marinos y sueña con licuados de helado y cerveza... Un chino que no duerme y atiende su local... Las chicas de la casa de putas... Dora, Franckie...Mack..., un librito de retratos, de momentos de vida, de gente sencilla, en California, que trata de sobrevivir. Fue el primer Steinbeck que leí en inglés, los otros eran traducciones, descubrí con él la belleza de su lengua inglesa, la asperidad de las frases, su fuerza poética, su vocabulario fecundo y rebosante. Steinbeck un gran autor americano. Un descubrimiento que no he de olvidar. Un libro que me siguió por todas partes, y que con su tapa mostaza en mi biblioteca sobresalía e invitaba a recordar.

I
Cannery Row in Monterey in California is a poem, a stink, a grating noise, a quality of light, a tone, a habit, a nostalgia, a dream. Cannery Row is the gathered and scattered, tin and iron and rust and splintered wood, chipped pavement and weedy lots and junk heaps, sardine canneries of corrugated iron, honky tonks, restaurants and whore houses, and little crowded groceries, and laboratories and flophouses. " It's inhabitants are, as the man once said, "whores, pimps, gamblers and son of bitches", by which he meant Everybody. Had the man looked through anoother peephole he might have said, "saints and angels and martyrs and holy men", and he would have meant the same thing." (Primera página)

II

Probably the busiest time the girls of the Bear Flag ever had was the March of the big sardine catch. It wasn´t only that the fish ran in silvery billions and money ran almost as freely. A new regiment moved into the Presidio and a new bunch of soldiers always shop around a good deal before they settle down. Dora was short handed just at that time too, for Eva Flanegan had gone to East St. Louis on a vacation. Phyllis Mae had broken her leg getting out of the roller coaster in Santa Cruz, and Elsie Doublebottom had made a novena and wasn't much good for anything else. The men from the sardine fleet, loaded with dough, were in and out all afternoon. They sail at dark and fish all night so they must play in the afternoon. In the evening the soldiers of the new regiment came down and stood around playing the juke box and drinking Coca- Cola and sizing up the girls for the time when they would be paid. Dora was having trouble with her income tax, for she was entangled in that curious enigma which said the business was illegal and then taxed her for it. In addition to everything else there were the regulars-- the steady customers who had been coming down for years, the laborers form the gravel pits, the riders from the ranches, the railroad men who came in the front door, and the city officials and prominent business men who came in the rear entrance back by the tracks and who had little chintz sitting rooms assigned to them. (cap. 16)

Cannery Row, John Steinbeck .