Steinbeck's Imaginarium: Essays on Writing, Fishing, and Other Critical Matters by Robert DeMott (review)

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• Steinbeck's Imaginarium: Essays on Writing, Fishing, and Other Critical Matters by Robert DeMott
• Jessica Colleen Pérez López

Robert DeMott, Steinbeck's Imaginarium: Essays on Writing, Fishing, and Other Critical Matters. Albuquerque: U of New Mexico P, 2022. 200 pp. Hardcover, $45; e-book $45.

Robert DeMott's Steinbeck's Imaginarium: Essays on Writing, Fishing, and Other Critical Matters takes readers on the pinnacle of a journey achieved through his lifelong scholarly study of the author John Steinbeck; this book could be described as a memoir of literary criticism: a metalevel analysis of what can be gleaned through a dedicated inquiry into the oeuvre of a single author. Rich in details which could only be put together after multiple decades of Steinbeck scholarship and collaboration, Imaginarium offers something beyond the usual critical analysis by holistically investigating Steinbeck as a single author to offer an unexplored glimpse through little-known details interwoven throughout his novels to provide vital insight into the author's life and work.

DeMott engages with Steinbeck through four distinct parts [End Page 392] in Imaginarium. He begins with the most personal (and in-depth) chapter, "Half a Century with Steinbeck," to unpack his discovery of Steinbeck, and, in turn, the direction Steinbeck provided for his lifelong academic pursuits. Intriguingly, DeMott maps connections to western places like Central California, which, he argues, transform Steinbeck into a unique "cultural or human geographer and his books examples of literary cartography" (15). Next, "The Place We Have Arrived" looks at Steinbeck's continual experimentation to reach across disciplinary boundaries toward wider audiences. DeMott notes, "Steinbeck expected we would talk back, breach boundaries, and become, in short, not merely consumers of culture, but its participants" (50). According to DeMott, rather than just observe, Steinbeck felt himself pulled toward exploration of ecosystems with friend and scientist Ed Ricketts in their collaboration through The Log from the Sea of Cortez, which rippled into his subsequent works of fiction. Following DeMott's examination surrounding the interdisciplinary pursuits of Steinbeck, "Private Narrative/Public Texts" studies his addiction to writing with the tangled connections between his works of fiction and three marriages. While relationships provided unpredictability Steinbeck could not foresee, his writing provided stability that he could see and matured into unique visual abilities as DeMott observes: "Steinbeck's critically acclaimed visual ability, however, his excellence in describing landscape, for instance, may have its source in [an] innate visual sensibility" (84).

While Steinbeck's collective work (formal and informal) produces a uniquely true and important revelation of the whole author concept, the last part of the journey emerges in "Of Fish and Men" to figuratively take this concept one step further. Through making the connections that reveal Steinbeck's need for nature, to have the places and spaces for harnessing his creativity, DeMott reveals the forward-oriented thinking and practice as his "postmodern take on fishing, which sanely emphasizes process over product as the true register of success, is a precursor of a trending activity taking hold on some American rivers, in which dry flies are dressed on a hook that has no bend or barb" (121). Steinbeck, through a combination of keen visualizations and observations, early adult work in a fish hatchery, and later adult work on collaborations with scientists, [End Page 393] knew the value of nature and the fragility of ecosystem balance. DeMott traces the awareness of nature and balance extending through Steinbeck's pursuits, which percolate into his fictional works in ways that just last and insist upon being revisited again and again.

DeMott's unique expedition offered in Steinbeck's Imaginarium indicates that Steinbeck's works continually become more insistent and worthy of attention because he engages deeply with the places and spaces around him. Through his obsession with nature fueled by his obsession for writing to produce works of fiction—which continue to give rich visualizations and insist on the need to engage our own literary and literal geographies—perhaps it is time for readers to realize Steinbeck's vision of becoming active participants in our culture. While DeMott's work is likely better appreciated by those who have spent time previously traveling with Steinbeck, the book...