William Souder

The book provides some welcome context on the era from which Carson’s sensibilities sprung. But really gets off track from time to time in providing too much, as if trying to make a causal argument for the existence of her calling. The most important context is her attention to her surroundings, not the random mention of the tragic exposure of Japanese fishermen to Pacific hydrogen bomb testing. She wrote, I believe, to take aim at the arrogance of man which puts us at not only the top of the food chain, but global life itself.

Somehow I got through listening to the audiobook, competently read by a gentleman who sounds a lot like Ted Baxter from the Mary Tyler Moore Show. Or someone who has sincerely practiced reading the phonebook. With feeling.

Amusements aside, she represents the end of the beginning of a collective conscience regarding earth jurisprudence. The author wins that point again and again. And again.… (mere)

As biographies go, this one is well-researched, clearly organized, and easily accessible. Souder avoids the pitfalls of deep speculation and meandering through philosophical analyses, but perhaps that's because Steinbeck himself, as a subject, permitted a clean approach by his mundane character. He was just a 'dude,' and a somewhat shallow one at that. If anything, my most significant criticism of "Mad at the World" is the preponderance of the banal discussed; much of Steinbeck's personal life and professional drives seem to seethe from a life of gossip-fueled cliques, intense if superficial socialization, quests for booze and sex, and avoiding adulthood while slogging through it and taking notes.

To my eye, Steinbeck comes across as a soul stuck in adolescence, rather selfishly seeking both stimulation and private space. His rage at the very real injustices in the core of American life almost ring like hot, youthful idealism given that perspective, but that image is put somewhat at abeyance by his (in my opinion, as many others') masterful ability to write what he needed to say. A proud but truly insecure, successful but defensive, clever but _kinda dense_ man, Steinbeck would've been tough to get along with but Souder succeeds in making me feel like I know him better.… (mere)