From California to Beyond—An Interview with Brook Thomas, professor of American Literature at the University of California, Irvine①

Brook Thomas Xin Qu

In this interview Xin Qu chats with Brook Thomas, professor of American Literature at the University of California, Irvine.Book Thomas is a fellow of the Von Humboldt Foundation in Germany, the Woodrow Wilson Center, the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS), and the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH).Early in 1993, Professor Thomas’s paper:TheNewHistoricismandOtherOld-fashionedTopicswas translated and included inTheNewHistoricismandLiteratureCriticism, published by Peking University Press.Xin Qu ready to share the interview with the reader.

Qu: Good Morning, Professor Thomas! I sat in on your class on the Literature of California last semester.It would seem that no other state in the Union could show more original and dramatic power.The glory of the eschscholtzia, the weirdness of the madrone, the grandeur of the unsurpassable redwoods, the awe of the desert mescal—all blossom into a strange verse that can only belong to the Pacific Coast of California.In this land, openness of mind, largeness, freedom, and contact with nature have enlarged the soul of people.In your opinion, what is the most unique and representative in California Culture?

Thomas: California is characterized by its diversity, both in terms of people and landscape.The land has mountains, desserts, fertile valleys, and an extensive coastal region.It is populated by people from all parts of the world.Its culture has resulted from those various groups of people interacting with one another and with the diverse landscape.Its literature dramatizes those interactions and the dreams and conflicts they have produced.

Qu: To be distinguished from other literatures, California Literature must possess some distinctive qualities.What makes the literature Californian?

Thomas: The name “California” itself comes from literature.InTheAdventuresofEsplandian, a romantic tale of the exploits and adventures of a Spanish knight published in Madrid in 1510, there is an island, very close to the “terrestrial paradise” called California.In 1535 when troops of the Spanish conqueror of Mexico, Hernando Cortés, sighted the tip of what today we call Baja California they called it “California” after the magical land in the romance.California, in other words, from the start, has been associated with dreams and romance.But dreams and romance are inevitably accompanied by disillusionment.California literature expresses both the dreams of some of the highest aspirations of human kind and the failure of any one place to embody those dreams and aspirations.

Qu: Then, how many phases has California Literature fallen into?

Thomas: The first phase of California literature is pre-conquest.It consists of efforts to record the oral legends and myths of the various Native American tribes that inhabited what today we call California.The next phase is the period of conquest and exploration, when first the Spanish and then, after its independence from Spain, Mexico ruled the land.It lasts from 1769 to 1848.It includes works both in Spanish, such as Pedro Faces’sAHistorical,Political,andNaturalDescriptionofCalifornia(1773), and English, such as selections from Richard Henry Dana’sTwoYearsBeforetheMast(1840).The next phase follows the incorporation of California into the United States after the Mexican-American War.Covering the early years of statehood, it lasts until the outbreak of World War I in 1914 and includes Mark Twain, Brete Harte, and Helen Hunt Jackson, who first introduced California to a large reading public in the United States, Joaquin Miller, John Muir, and Mary Austin, who described the land’s stunning topography, and Jack London and Frank Norris, who helped to establish a unique California tradition.The period from World War I through the end of World War Ⅱ is an important one for California, as it both developed the film industry in Hollywood and became the destination for many people attempting to find new hope during the economic depression.Some of California’s best authors wrote during this period: the poets, Robinson Jeffers and Yvor Winters, the novelists, John Steinbeck, Dashiell Hammett, and Raymond Chandler.The final period is from the end of World War Ⅱ to today, when California emerges as the most populated state in the Union and develops an economy larger than most states.Major writers in this phase are too numerous to mention.

Qu: During each epoch of Californian Literature, however, milestones have been erected along the way, and some of these have been typical of the times.Possibly, the tale of Californian writers will never be told completely.All writers have produced works that will live, be read by thousands.The higher the human motive, the better the art, and the truer the result.It is a kind of spirit that inflames the minds of the writers.Do you think there exits the California Spirit in the California Literature?

Thomas: There is a risk of mysticism in speaking of a “California Spirit.” Nonetheless, as I noted above, California literature does dramatize both aspirations and conflicts that arise out of the interaction of various groups of people among themselves and with the land they inhabit.To give one example, the valleys and coastal regions of California are extremely rich.But they are, for the most part, arid.California is known as the “Golden State” not only because of the Gold Rush but because of the color of its landscape, which is, for much of the year, dry and yellow, not, as in many other places, green.Frank Norris’sMcTeague(1898) ends in Death Valley and Mary Austin’s most famous book, set not far away, is calledTheLandofLittleRain(1903).It would not be an exaggeration to say that the development of California is a history of efforts to locate and relocate water.Without water, people’s thirst for improvement could never be satisfied.Thus, the need for massive irrigation projects.The result was not only destruction of unmatched physical beauty, as when a dam was built to fill the Hetch Hetchy Valley, which rivaled Yosemite in splendor, but also violent and entangled disputes over water rights.The ways in which the development of California is linked to the transformation of the land as well as political and economic corruption to gain control of water is dramatized in numerous works of literature, perhaps most poignantly in the filmChinatown.The need to provide water to feed the California Dream means that the spirit of California literature expresses more than the complicated interaction between human aspirations and disillusionment.It also expresses the dark side of those aspirations.That the genre of the detective novel finds a fertile soil to develop in the arid landscape of the Golden State is no accident.

Qu: There are so many unique aspects about California Culture, but California Literature exists within the larger body of American Literature.So what’s the status of California Literature in American Literature?

Thomas: I just mentioned the “California Dream.” It is a special case of the “American Dream.” The word “American” does not, like “California” originate in literature.Even so, as the Mexican historian Edmundo O’Gorman pointed out, America was not discovered—after all, how can you claim to discover a land that was already inhabited?—but it was invented.“America” was invented by the European Renaissance imagination, which projected numerous dreams onto the land.For some people, it was a land of romantic possibility, a place where dreams impossible to fulfill in the “old world” could be realized.Thus, myths of romance, like the “fountain of youth.” For others, it was conceived as a place of great wealth that could be mined for riches.Thus, the myth of the “Seven Cities of Gold”.For yet others, it was a bountiful garden, a new Eden.The California Dream intensifies each one of these three aspects of the American Dream.If people found that their dreams remained unfulfilled in other areas of the country, as they moved west, they could still project those dreams onto the state bordering the Pacific Ocean.The Joads in Steinbeck’sTheGrapesofWrathimagine California as a paradise; another of Steinbeck’s works is called East of Eden.While California was still a possession of Mexico, American politicians coveted what they imagined was a rich and productive vineyard that would open trade to the Orient.What those politicians did not know at the time was that the vineyard also contained vast deposits of gold.It was the Gold Rush of 1849 that sparked the first great wave of immigration.Even in Cantonese California is known as the “Gold Mountain”.And, of course, nowhere in the United States is more associated with romance than the Tinseltown of Hollywood.California’s world-famous film industry is founded on people’s collective dreams—and illusions.All three of these aspects of the California Dream play crucial roles in its literature.

Qu: Study of literature is far more than a mere investigation into words and manners.It is a probe into the inner world of the man who used the words, into his thoughts, feelings, emotions, environment, social and political life, religion, and aspiration.Actually, those great writers speak for themselves.Bret Harte, with his manipulation of English and awareness of peculiar human nature; Mark Twain, with his perennial spring of humour and his exploration into some social themes; Joaquin Miller, with his poetic wittiness and lively prose; John Muir, with his stylish descriptions of California.Of the women writers of California, Gertrude F.Atherton, Kate D.Wiggin, and Ina D.Coolbrith have won recognition abroad as well as at home.Who are the outstanding writers, in your mind, that have emerged in California’s brief history?

Thomas: Mark Twain, as W.D.Howells noted is one of a kind.The fact that he is seen as a formative figure for California literature is just one sign of his notoriety.He and Brete Hart helped put California on the literary map.But his best works are not about California.Of those whose primary works are set in California, to my mind the best nature writers are John Muir and Mary Austin.Nathanael West’sTheDayoftheLocust(1939) is the best of a long line of excellent Hollywood novels.Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler perfected the genre of the detective novel, elevating its status worldwide.Frank Norris, Jack London, and John Steinbeck played a major role in giving California a special place in American literature.Of the numerous outstanding writers since World War Ⅱ, my favorite is Maxine Hong Kingston with her imaginative accounts of how people of Chinese dissent have worked on and with classical American myths while inhabiting California soil.

Qu: California has produced two great novelists, Jack London and John Steinbeck.Their works have been the treasures in California Literature.What are their influences on California Literature?

Thomas: If California got its name from a 16th-century work of literature about the aspirations and adventures of a knight, both London and Steinbeck focus on the common man and his struggles with the natural, social, and economic forces aligned against him.Their works appealed to a global audience as well as one within the United States, giving California a reputation not only as a place with a unique landscape and lofty dreams but as a laboratory for social movements in the twentieth century.London, for instance, in the former Soviet Union was considered one of the major American writers.Steinbeck’s Noble Prize was especially important for elevating the stature of California literature, a literature as diverse and productive as many national literatures.

Qu: Thank you, Professor Thomas.Your talk has taken me to the imaginative, beautiful, and adventurous California with its outstanding writers of literature.I believe your talk will inspire the chinese readers of the literary field.The wealth and variety of California Literature will start to be investigated, and its far-reaching significance will be appreciated by the Chinese readers.I do hope that you could have the chance to visit China and meet the literature readers there in the near future.We wish to meet you with hospitality.