Status
Available
Call number
Collection
Publication
Penguin Classics (1999), Edition: Illustrated, 240 pages
Description
Just after the iron curtain fell on Eastern Europe John Steinbeck and acclaimed war photographer, Robert Capa ventured into the Soviet Union to report for the New York Herald Tribune. This rare opportunity took the famous travellers not only to Moscow and Stalingrad - now Volgograd - but through the countryside of the Ukraine and the Caucasus. A RUSSIAN JOURNAL is the distillation of their journey and remains a remarkable memoir and unique historical document. Steinbeck and Capa recorded the grim realities of factory workers, government clerks, and peasants, as they emerged from the rubble of World War II. This is an intimate glimpse of two artists at the height of their powers, answering their need to document human struggle
User reviews
LibraryThing member JBreedlove
Steinbeck's travels around officially sanctioned USSR with Robert Capa.
LibraryThing member petterw
This book reminded me why I love Steinbeck's books so much. His tone, his warm and quiet humour, his ability to be wise without being a cultural snob, his humanity. For me he is the best writer ever. And his journal from his trip , together with Robert Capa, to Russia right after WWII, is a very,
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very good read. Most readers of Steinbeck skip his non-fiction. My strong advice: Don't... And even if you're not already a Steinbeck fan, read it anyway. A Russian Journal is a rare glimpse of Stalin's Russia as seen through the eyes of two rather apolitical artists meeting the Russian people. not the rulers. Show Less
LibraryThing member chrisblocker
In my journey to read all things Steinbeck (I'm well over half way now) I have a brief layover in Russia. Steinbeck visited Soviet Russia in 1947 accompanied by photographer Robert Capa. The fact one of America's most prized writers at the time was allowed into the Soviet Union with an acclaimed
What I found most interesting about A Russian Journal was not so much what Steinbeck said, as what he didn't say. He spends considerable time talking about the food and the work-ethic of Russian people, as well as their pleasant demeanor. But he also spends a lot of time complaining about flights, talking about the beauty of the women, drinking, and seeming uncharacteristically crabby. He never addresses any personal issues in the book, rarely even mentions himself. Having gotten to know the author as well as one can an author from an earlier time, I couldn't help but feel like something was amiss. I suspected problems at home, and I ventured to guess they had something to do with Gwyn, Steinbeck's second wife and the model for Cathy Ames (East of Eden). After finishing A Russian Journal I did a little research and learned that Steinbeck was indeed in his final year of marriage with Gwyn. While I can't say for sure that marital issues may have fueled his temperament—nor can I say for sure Steinbeck was out of character—it seems the logical factor to deduce.
What does any of this have to do with the book? I think it affects the quality greatly. I could be wrong, but I got the feeling that Steinbeck didn't utilize his time in Russia very well. I get the feeling he spent more time brooding about Gwyn and partying with fellow American dignitaries that he didn't have much time in the field. This is a work that could have been immensely eye-opening, but it's rather light in the end. And perhaps none of this has to do with Steinbeck's personal life. Maybe he really was a communist sympathizer, and the lack of material has more to do with his covert training sessions and debriefing meetings. But I could be wrong.
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photojournalist astonishes me. This was the beginning of the so-called cold war; the United States' challenges toward Russia were growing, Russia's distrust of America was strong. So Steinbeck makes it into Russia and he does what he knows best, he gets amongst the people. He journeys from Moscow to war-torn Stalingrad; he visits the farmers and townsfolk of Ukraine and Georgia. His intention is to get to know the people and report honestly, without making conclusions, without editorial comment. He succeeds. The Russians aren't war-crazy peasants who live in constant fear of Stalin. They're simple, warmhearted, hard-working people who live in fear of another world war brought on by the divide between capitalist nations and communist nations. Of course Steinbeck's efforts only fueled the suspicion that Steinbeck himself was a socialist, a belief that had been running strong since The Grapes of Wrath was first published.What I found most interesting about A Russian Journal was not so much what Steinbeck said, as what he didn't say. He spends considerable time talking about the food and the work-ethic of Russian people, as well as their pleasant demeanor. But he also spends a lot of time complaining about flights, talking about the beauty of the women, drinking, and seeming uncharacteristically crabby. He never addresses any personal issues in the book, rarely even mentions himself. Having gotten to know the author as well as one can an author from an earlier time, I couldn't help but feel like something was amiss. I suspected problems at home, and I ventured to guess they had something to do with Gwyn, Steinbeck's second wife and the model for Cathy Ames (East of Eden). After finishing A Russian Journal I did a little research and learned that Steinbeck was indeed in his final year of marriage with Gwyn. While I can't say for sure that marital issues may have fueled his temperament—nor can I say for sure Steinbeck was out of character—it seems the logical factor to deduce.
What does any of this have to do with the book? I think it affects the quality greatly. I could be wrong, but I got the feeling that Steinbeck didn't utilize his time in Russia very well. I get the feeling he spent more time brooding about Gwyn and partying with fellow American dignitaries that he didn't have much time in the field. This is a work that could have been immensely eye-opening, but it's rather light in the end. And perhaps none of this has to do with Steinbeck's personal life. Maybe he really was a communist sympathizer, and the lack of material has more to do with his covert training sessions and debriefing meetings. But I could be wrong.
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LibraryThing member yougotamber
Overall a good book. Steinbeck and Capa have a great chemistry going on that flows throughout their travels. Robert Capa (the photographer) writes a small chapter of his disgust and annoyance (more of a rant in form of a letter). It sheds some light and humor on the trip and gives a perspective
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different from Steinbeck. I enjoyed the dynamic between the writer and the photographer and the styles of personality that shine through while traveling in such a drastic difference of culture. They clashed, worked together and bonded.The information gathered is unlike any other, being more of a human nature. More of a documentation viewing the life of the Russian people, not the politics. Pieces of it bored me and I found myself dragging but as I was dragging I found my interest being perked in the next section with something just as interesting. This made me easily like the book, writing and content. The bits that were dull were dreadfully dull but the interesting bits are more then enough to make up for it.
Steinbeck does a wonderful job telling the story with a varied eye. I believe this is why I find myself on this roller coaster, he makes sure there is something for everyone and doesn't miss a beat on anything he sees or experiences. It is a very thorough account of the travels. The photographs alone tell a wonderful tale and aid in the story, putting you right there and keeping you wondering about the life and times of the Russian people after the war.
Some of my favorite bits were about the obsession the Russians have over soccer (as in most Europeans). They have a great passion for the game. Point in case:
"The only really heated argument we heard during our stay in Russia concerned Soccer". I also particularly liked the parts about Georgia and the Georgians and I now find myself wanting to visit that part of the country very badly. Not to forget that I now have a desperate need to visit and try all the food that he writes about. Yum!
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LibraryThing member emed0s
Some good things about this book:
- No amount of previous WWII books and documentaries had made me "see" the devastation the Nazis caused in the east as this book has. The scarred earth full of trenches and craters in the former front lines, the ubiquitous metal skeletons being recycled into Soviet
- The take on censorship and generally working under the Soviet institutions is eye opening, think bureaucracy not fighting you but itself and making everyone who dares come near its victim.
- The love for partying of both Steinbeck and Capa, plus the numerous quirks of the latter, will never let the smile disappear form the reader's face.
Bad things ... I cannot think of anything I didn't like.
- No amount of previous WWII books and documentaries had made me "see" the devastation the Nazis caused in the east as this book has. The scarred earth full of trenches and craters in the former front lines, the ubiquitous metal skeletons being recycled into Soviet
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tractors and cars, the long lines of Germans POWs moving rubble ... the marks on the belts showing the improving conditions and the harsh past years.- The take on censorship and generally working under the Soviet institutions is eye opening, think bureaucracy not fighting you but itself and making everyone who dares come near its victim.
- The love for partying of both Steinbeck and Capa, plus the numerous quirks of the latter, will never let the smile disappear form the reader's face.
Bad things ... I cannot think of anything I didn't like.
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LibraryThing member southernbooklady
A Russian Journal by John Steinbeck of all people. I picked it up because Travels with Charley is a favorite of mine so I thought, oh, I like Steinbeck's travel writing! But he's a bit of an ass in this book. The trip was a somewhat impromptu affair, the idea of which came from a conversation in a
"In the papers every day were thousands of words about Russia..What Stalin was thinking about, the plans of the Russian General Staff, the disposition of troops, experiments with atomic weapons...all of this by people who had not been there, and whose sources were not above reproach. And it occurred to us that there were some things that nobody wrote about Russia, and they were the things that interested us most of all. What do the people wear there? What do they serve at dinner? Do they have parties?...How do they make love, and how do they die? What do they talk about?
etc, etc. It's a series of very naive and condescending questions, but it prompted enough interest to organize a trip as a kind of cultural exchange. Steinbeck et al deliberately traveled without journalist credentials, which would have put them under the oversight of the Foreign Office. Instead, they ended up under the care of various cultural departments and writers' unions, which minimized their interactions with state security services, but also meant they had to navigate some truly labyrinthine bureaucracy.
It is the "et al" of the group that is of most interest here, because one of the people traveling with Steinbeck was Robert Capa. As a documentation of "real Russia" Steinbeck's account is not much of a success -- he spends more time talking about the travel conditions and the inconveniences of idiosyncratic plumbing than he does talking about, or to, those real Russians. However, Capa's photographs, which illustrate the book, more than make up for it. They are a wonder. And frankly, they rescue the text from its often petulant myopia.
The best section is the time they spend at several collective farms in the Ukraine and Georgia, where Steinbeck forgets himself enough to really pay attention and talk to the people he encounters. And they talk to him, asking hundreds of questions about farming conditions and political ideas in the United States, most of which he doesn't know how to answer. In this section, Capa's photographs show people working, or dancing, or baking bread, and and they are smiling and proud everyone is barefoot since shoes are too rare to use in the fields:
There was one woman, with an engaging ace and a great laugh, whom Capa picked out for a portrait. She was the village wit. She said, "I am not only a great worker, I am twice widowed, and many men are afraid of me now.." And she shook a cucumber in the lens of Capa's camera.
And Capa said, "Perhaps you'd like to marry me now?"
She rolled back her head and howled with laughter. "Now you, look!" she said. "If God had consulted the cucumber before he made man, there would be less unhappy women in the world."
And all in all, despite Steinbeck's general self-absorption, there does emerge a picture of the nascent Soviet Union, before the terrible realities of the Stalinist regime had fully taken hold or the extent of its crimes had come to light. Steinbeck's account lacks this looming cloud of historical hindsight. Instead this is an account of a Russia that -- infrastructure issues and bureaucratic red tape not withstanding -- had won a war at great cost and whose people were throwing themselves into building a new world.
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bar when Steinbeck and a few other literary/intelligentsia types started wondering about what "real Russians" were like. They were conscious, even at this time just post WWII, that the picture they received of the Soviet Union was highly skewed and politicized: "In the papers every day were thousands of words about Russia..What Stalin was thinking about, the plans of the Russian General Staff, the disposition of troops, experiments with atomic weapons...all of this by people who had not been there, and whose sources were not above reproach. And it occurred to us that there were some things that nobody wrote about Russia, and they were the things that interested us most of all. What do the people wear there? What do they serve at dinner? Do they have parties?...How do they make love, and how do they die? What do they talk about?
etc, etc. It's a series of very naive and condescending questions, but it prompted enough interest to organize a trip as a kind of cultural exchange. Steinbeck et al deliberately traveled without journalist credentials, which would have put them under the oversight of the Foreign Office. Instead, they ended up under the care of various cultural departments and writers' unions, which minimized their interactions with state security services, but also meant they had to navigate some truly labyrinthine bureaucracy.
It is the "et al" of the group that is of most interest here, because one of the people traveling with Steinbeck was Robert Capa. As a documentation of "real Russia" Steinbeck's account is not much of a success -- he spends more time talking about the travel conditions and the inconveniences of idiosyncratic plumbing than he does talking about, or to, those real Russians. However, Capa's photographs, which illustrate the book, more than make up for it. They are a wonder. And frankly, they rescue the text from its often petulant myopia.
The best section is the time they spend at several collective farms in the Ukraine and Georgia, where Steinbeck forgets himself enough to really pay attention and talk to the people he encounters. And they talk to him, asking hundreds of questions about farming conditions and political ideas in the United States, most of which he doesn't know how to answer. In this section, Capa's photographs show people working, or dancing, or baking bread, and and they are smiling and proud everyone is barefoot since shoes are too rare to use in the fields:
There was one woman, with an engaging ace and a great laugh, whom Capa picked out for a portrait. She was the village wit. She said, "I am not only a great worker, I am twice widowed, and many men are afraid of me now.." And she shook a cucumber in the lens of Capa's camera.
And Capa said, "Perhaps you'd like to marry me now?"
She rolled back her head and howled with laughter. "Now you, look!" she said. "If God had consulted the cucumber before he made man, there would be less unhappy women in the world."
And all in all, despite Steinbeck's general self-absorption, there does emerge a picture of the nascent Soviet Union, before the terrible realities of the Stalinist regime had fully taken hold or the extent of its crimes had come to light. Steinbeck's account lacks this looming cloud of historical hindsight. Instead this is an account of a Russia that -- infrastructure issues and bureaucratic red tape not withstanding -- had won a war at great cost and whose people were throwing themselves into building a new world.
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LibraryThing member Carmenere
I liken this bit of photo-journalism to Hemingway's A Moveable Feast. Rather than Parisian cafe's Steinbeck and photographer Robert Capa travel to and within Russia in 1947 with the intent to debunk misconceptions about Russian people held by Americans at that time. To capture the typical, everyday
Steinbeck and Capa traveled to Moscow, Ukraine, Stalingrad and Tiflis, Georgia. Along the way they were treated generously by farmhands and sometimes suspiciously by others but always with an over abundance of food, vodka and wine. Their conversations were enlightening and their fears similar to those back home.
Steinbeck's conclusion is heartfelt and just as relevant 70's years hence as he states, "...the most dangerous tendency in the world is the desire to believe a rumor rather than to pin down a fact."
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life of Russians; the type of food they eat, clothes they wear and schools they attend, all while keeping a perfectly neutral view.Steinbeck and Capa traveled to Moscow, Ukraine, Stalingrad and Tiflis, Georgia. Along the way they were treated generously by farmhands and sometimes suspiciously by others but always with an over abundance of food, vodka and wine. Their conversations were enlightening and their fears similar to those back home.
Steinbeck's conclusion is heartfelt and just as relevant 70's years hence as he states, "...the most dangerous tendency in the world is the desire to believe a rumor rather than to pin down a fact."
Show Less
Subjects
Language
Original language
English
Original publication date
1948
Physical description
240 p.; 7.76 inches
ISBN
0141180196 / 9780141180199