Image credit: Print, Moon-Light, 1847; Engraved by John Sartain (1808 – 1897); After Thomas Stothard (British, 1755–1834); mezzotint and engraving in black ink on paper; 9.5 × 15 cm (3 3/4 × 5 7/8 in.); Gift of Anonymous Donor; 1952-60-6. Courtesy of Smithsonian Institute Open Access.
Part of an ongoing series of recommended movies, shows, books, music, or other form of artistic expression.
I went through a John Steinbeck phase 25’ish years ago. I’d read Of Mice and Men, a staple of high school English curriculum, in the 11th grade. Who knows what brought me back to Steinbeck in my late 20’s. But I tore through Cannery Row, Travels with Charley, Tortilla Flat, The Red Pony, and those American opuses, East of Eden and The Grapes of Wrath (the latter of which I maintain is a story about Ma Joad, not her (in)famous son Tom.).
It must have been during this Steinbeck-steeped era that I acquired a used, little blue hardcover novella, The Moon is Down. It was a mesmerizing read that I experienced more like a fable than a piece of literature meant to indict the current events at its publication in 1942. Not a fable as in ‘unbelievable;’ more that it employed very tight writing without very much in the way of set design. It was spare, and it was powerful.
Re-reading The Moon is Down, which I have done a handful of times over the years, is always a writing masterclass for me. It absolutely influenced a short story that I have been kicking around for decades. (Seriously, my first draft of said short story is dated 2000. I promise, it’s probably almost nearly done.). A reread earlier this winter hit different. At 188 pages, you can likely finish it off in a weekend (some of you I know can clock that in a day.).
Why do I recommend this old, barely heard-of novella? Buckle up, Friend.
**SPOILERS AHEAD!**
“I don’t know. The people are confused and so am I.”
The novella opens in the drawing room of an unnamed town’s Mayoral ‘palace,’ after some big action having already taken place. That big action being an invading military battalion handily capturing what appears to be a tranquil seaside town with an economy rooted in coal mining and commercial fishing. It’s the former the invading force wants.
(Isn’t it always about coal or oil or some valuable resource like that?)
Mayor Orden and Doctor Winter, his advisor, are a couple of old guys just trying to make sense of the invasion, the deaths of a handful of the town’s young men in the process, and what could possibly come next.
Indeed.
Tears and Furies
Okay, so when I said the fable-like writing didn’t offer much in the way of set design, that’s not entirely true. The reader does get a good amount of background on the invaders. The motivations of this handful of soldiers and the invading force’s motivations writ large.
It’s good framing:
“[They have been] trained in the politics of the day, believing the great new system invented by a genius so great they never bothered to verify its results.”
And this gem:
“They were sentimental young men given to tears and furies.”
In Steinbeck’s incisive writing, the reader learns the young, male, (seemingly white and hetero) soldier mentality of our conquerors. And I gotta say, it’s rather… unflattering.
Seems as if one wants to cause a lot of trouble to satisfy greed, a lust for power, and probably hide low self-esteem, you need a bunch of impressionable, sentimental young men given to tears and furies to do that dirty work, unquestioned. Just sayin’.
(And I can’t help but read “given to tears and furies” as “easily triggered and hysterical.” <chef’s kiss>)
“The people are calm and sensible.”
The violence of the invasion leaves the townspeople understandably flummoxed to inaction. The atmosphere is quiet enough that the battalion’s self-congratulatory talk meanders into the men daydreaming about settling down (here) with a local gal on a pastoral farm once the war ends. And a draftsman works on doodles for a model train railroad bridge because there’s no need for infrastructure designs. Their Colonel, who has Seen Some Things, doesn’t discourage them but also knows this calm is untrustworthy. Easy to invade doesn’t mean easy to conquer.
Speaking of self-congratulations, we can’t forget Mr. Correll, the town’s shopkeeper who quietly took the kinds of notes on ‘who’s who and what’s what’ that made for an easy invasion. And a quick roundup of folks and firearms.
Yep, he’s our story’s Krasnovian businessman who made a ton of money off the very folks he smiled and smiled at while secretly selling them out. Typically, Correll is also campaigning to be appointed Mayor in place of the actual elected Mayor. The Colonel ominously suggests to Correll that he get out of dodge, go back home to a hero’s welcome. Correll refuses, because power is heady stuff.
Does Correll get the iron fist of power he feels is his due? Mmmmmm … I guess you could call it that. He gets a fist alright.
Legal vs. Legitimate
Then there is the case of Alex Morden. His surname pretty much sunk him*. See, Alex, a coalminer, doesn’t much like being forced to work around the clock for no pay for an invader that is going to take the coal away from his community.
* It also doesn’t look good for Mayor Orden.
When a person who knows they are free is ordered to work under those circumstances, welllll…. Alex swung his pick after all. Right into the orderer’s face.
The invaders didn’t shoot him on the spot. No, no. That would be bad optics. Alex is detained and The Colonel arranges a murder trial for him.
Yes, the Colonel, whose own invasion resulted in the murder of six men of the town. So now they plan to use the town’s own legal system to legitimize murdering someone who wouldn’t have murdered anyone were it not for murderers waltzing in being pushy and murder-y.
Now they’ve crossed the boundary between war on a country into war on a people.
In the words of Vivian, a favorite underestimated woman, BIG mistake. Huge.
A Hazy Shade of Winter
The skies turn gray, temperatures drop, and snow begins to accumulate. This quiet is perhaps a little lovely. Winter is when things sleep. Acquiesce to darkness. Or do they?
There are now mishaps that routinely delay the work getting that coal out. The draftsman is quite busy designing the same repairs over and over again. The invaders have cabin fever. The invading men miss good food and women. Their hopes for attention from the local gals has grown colder than the icicles on Molly Orden’s front porch. The snow makes it SO quiet. And they are so lonely.
And then one of them cracks.
“I dreamed the leader was crazy.”
(hmmmm, did you, now?)
Desperate visits to Molly’s porch lay bare his loneliness and growing uncertainty. Molly is pretty. She lets him in. She listens. But she also misses her husband and her scissors are sharp.
The Flies have Conquered the Flypaper
You really should read this book for yourself as this post is not intended as a Cliff’s Notes recap. I recommend buying from your local bookstore, from Bookshop.org, or check it out of your local library.
But there are things you should know about the third act of The Moon is Down. Or the post-intermission portion of any story about governing a people against their will.
- Women and other typically marginalized (read as: ‘underestimated’) folk fuel a resistance.
- Subtle sabotage is an effective demoralizer.
- When your neighbors get wind of your intention to rebel, little care packages may show up to help you (see #2).
The Debt Shall Be Paid
Do you know how to tell when an invader realizes that they haven’t conquered anything? They desperately double down. Even as the roof begins to cave in.
Unfortunately, in The Moon is Down, the double-down means curtains for our old Mayor Orden and his advisor, Doctor Winter. As the draftsman is constrained to keep drawing repairs for exploded tracks, wiped out bridges, and sunk loading docks, the Colonel suspects the town’s leaders of malfeasance.
The Mayor knows the rebellion won’t stand down if he commanded it. (Not that he would do it). And Winter knows what’s coming for them both, now under arrest.
The joke is on the Colonel, and I suspect he knows it deep down. Winter ponders their plight, saying:
“They think just because they have one leader and one head, we are all like that. {…} We are a free people.”
The Colonel, all the invaders, are what the Mayor sees as ‘herd men.’ As opposed to free men, who, he says, don’t start wars but do finish them:
“Herd men, followers of leaders, cannot do that, and so it is always the herd men who win battles and the free men who win wars.”
Epilogue
Ever since my first reading of this novella, I’ve thought it would make a fine stage play. With this re-reading, I have a deep hankering to see it staged. Or at least public readings. Maybe at a library.
Anyhow, a quick internet browse turned up that The Moon is Down was, in fact, adapted for stage. Please hit me up if you see it’s being put on anywhere. I love a good stage play. Especially ones where would-be conquerors FA and FO.
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