“Sweet Thursday” is a delightful read. It was published in 1954 and written by John Steinbeck. It is the sequel to “Cannery Row.” It is set after WWII where “Cannery Row” is before the war. Many things have changing. The Bear Flag is now run by Dora’s sister Fauna, after Dora passed away, the local market is run by El Patron, Jesus and Mary, after it was sold to him by the Chinaman. The boys of the flop house are still there, minus one who didn’t come back from the war. Doc returns to the Western Biological Laboratory, after it was abandoned during the war. He begins to rebuild his business.
We add to this mix of characters, Suzy, who arrives new to town, is destitute, and takes up residence and profession at the Bear Flag. She becomes a project of Miss Fauna, who prides herself in marrying off some of her prostitutes to good men. They are her gold-star girls. She earmarks Suzy for Doc.
Doc has his own struggles. He wants to do something important with his life. He takes to writing a paper about octopi. He can’t get anything on paper however. He struggles, but the words don’t come. He studied 20 of them, until they all died. Now to continue his project, he has to get more octopi when the tide is right, from La Jolla. Steinbeck interprets Doc’s problems with three voices. The lower voice, “I am lonely” seems to be the strongest. Above these voices are those that I have to achieve, and you’ll only fail anyway.
Fauna manipulates Doc into taking Suzy on a date, and they have a good time. However Suzy reports they don’t even kiss. Then the big day arrives. A party is planned, to present Suzy to Doc as a desirable mate. Suzy dresses like Snow White. However, Suzy can see in Doc’s eyes that he is being forced rather than actually going for it of his own free will, or out of love. She takes off, falling in the mud, and confessing her love. She is not willing to give into it due to her own pride. She does move out of the Bear Flag, takes up residence in a boiler, and works for a diner, supporting herself with tips.
At the same time Doc’s lower voice finally wins out. He realizes he cannot live without Suzy. He just can’t be complete without her. However she won’t have him. The solution comes to Hazel, who is slow intellectually, but knows he has to do something. It is rather drastic. He breaks Doc’s arm with a bat. He now cannot go collect his octopi without help. Suzy comes to the rescue, as she is now finds a place. She has to learn to drive to do it, and drives off with Doc in the car, headed to La Jolla, having knocked the porch off the lab.
I wonder about pride. In this case it almost kept two people apart. There was pride on both sides. Hopefully it doesn’t take broken bones to overcome pride. I think of a Neal Diamond song, “It’s my belief pride is the chief cause in the decline of the number of husbands and wives. Oh the great evil pride. May I keep her in check.
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