An Evening in Cannery Row

John Steinbeck begins his book, Cannery Row, with one of the most unique descriptions in modern literature.  He says:  


"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. Its inhabitants are, as the man once said, 'whores, pimps, gamblers and sons of bitches,' by which he meant Everybody. Had the man looked through another peephole he might have said, 'Saints and angels and martyrs and holy men,' and he would have meant the same thing."  (Cannery Row, page 1.)

The context and plot of the book is a fairly simple one, yet so uniquely profound as all Steinbeck literature tends to be.  John had a knack for catching the gritty realism of 1930's California, specifically Monterey and Salinas areas respectively.  Being from these areas he knew them well, but it was due to his relationship with the legendary "Doc" Ricketts that Steinbeck probably became such a deeply intriguing writer.  Ricketts was a brilliant scientist to whom we may thank for pioneering the Monterey Marine Sanctuary and many other Marine Biological discoveries.  He probably introduced Steinbeck to the strange assortment of individuals mentioned above.  


Ricketts encouraged Steinbeck to look deeper into the human condition, an ability "Doc" is known to have possessed both in reality and in his many reincarnations in Steinbeck mythology.  You can find at least one character based on Doc in every Steinbeck book, though Cannery Row probably has the closest incarnation to the real man.  


Decades later, after the death of both men, Steinbeck's fictional depression era description of Cannery Row could be as accurate to the modern city.  Sure, the canneries are gone, replaced by huge gaudy monstrosities of hotels.    There are still scattered weedy lots, strange little "flop houses" atop more expensive restaurants and cliche California Chic stores.  The hum and bustle of life here, however, hasn't stopped.  Indeed, I would venture a guess that if not for the buildings, Steinbeck might feel right at home in the hustle and bustle of life here.  The denizens of the row in that era were working men, not tourists ready and raring to spend their hard earned cash, but there are stories here ready to be told. 


The reason I bring all of this up, of course, is that I love Steinbeck and I love Cannery Row.  I attended college up in Monterey and I always was fascinated that the majority of the book takes place in the immediate two block area of the Monterey Bay Aquarium.  Doc's lab still sits there, an unimposing little wooden house wedged between a huge hotel and the famous fish sanctuary.   When I lived up here I would come here often, hoping perhaps that some of Steinbeck might rub off on me.  Alas it probably never did, but the mythos of the place still retains a lot of its original splendor.  I once commented, of course, that I miss the old row.  There used to be more empty spaces where you could see the ocean.  It was more run down...more true to the story.   Now, well, if you've been there its a man made canyon.    


In any case, we've come up here for my mother's birthday and by luck we managed to get a set of rooms at the Spindrift Inn right on the older part of the row.  Here there are still lots, still places wide open and rugged, tugging at my nostalgic heartstrings.  


Sitting in my room, with a window open on the row this evening, I listen to the quiet hum of the row.  I start to hear the gentle grating nose of cars passing by, the soft swish of the ocean passing over the sandy beach.  There is the smell of the ocean, of fish, birds, people.  Far across the horizon the fading light casts a strange shadow over the buildings and the bay.  The larger crowds have left and the jazz bands in the cafe's have just begun to play.  This is the true essence of Cannery Row, the time between evening and dawn.  A time when life is simpler, a poem waiting to be written by those ready to be like Steinbeck and Ricketts.  They speak if you listen, whispering so softly.


"Get out into that grating noise, that stink and way of life, that dream, beyond the reality of the Modern Row.  The ghosts of that time still wait to be discovered."