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Segment Title: Steinbeck | Tide Pool From Cannery Row, 1945 John Steinbeck (1902 - 1968) One of California's best loved writers, John Steinbeck is known for helping the world to a better understanding of the depression-era conditions endured by migrant workers. But besides being a keen observer of human social conditions, Steinbeck was fascinated by the interplay of lives within the natural world. The natural world was a major them in one of Steinbeck's early works, the 1933 novel To a God Unknown. But he was also deeply influenced by his friendship with Ed Ricketts, the marine biologist, who helped Steinbeck better understand the intricate web of life in our oceans, as in this passage from the 1945 novel, Cannery Row. The sea is very clear and the bottom becomes fantastic with hurrying, fighting, feeding, breeding animals. Crabs rush from frond to frond of the waving algae. Starfish squat over mussels and limpets, attach their million little suckers and then slowly lift with incredible power until the prey is broken from the rock. And then the starfish stomach comes out and envelops its food. Orange and speckled and fluted nudibranchs slide gracefully over the rocks, their skirts waving like the dresses of Spanish dancers. And black eels poke their heads out of crevices and wait for prey. . . . A wave breaks over the barrier, and churns the glassy water for a moment and mixes bubbles into the pool, and then it clears and is tranquil and lovely and murderous again.Steinbeck's friendship with Doc. Ricketts is a subject of The Log from the Sea of Cortez, the chronicle of a 1940 research trip the two friends made to Baja California. Audio Files | Script Index |
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