jlrothstein

Thinking Zone. Wednesday afternoon in my little Black Sea village, and I come across a story about John Steinbeck that makes me feel a certain respect for the literary abilities of Irish Setters, although I suspect their editorial methods would not meet with the approval of any publishing house. In May 1936, Steinbeck was working on Of Mice and Men when his puppy Toby, left alone for an evening, turned half the manuscript into confetti. Two months of work were destroyed, and no other copy existed. In a letter dated 27 May, the writer admitted that he had been rather angry, but allowed that the poor animal might have been exercising literary criticism. He added that he would not wish to sacrifice a good dog for a manuscript whose quality he himself was not yet certain of. I particularly like that last detail. Steinbeck evidently possessed the rare ability to acknowledge that even his own work was not necessarily beyond criticism, although I doubt he expected the objection to arrive by means of canine teeth. Later, he promoted Toby to the rank of lieutenant colonel in charge of literature. I must admit that such an appointment seems entirely deserved, especially considering how many literary critics have achieved considerably less impact with far more words. The most remarkable development, however, came in 2023, when a surviving fragment of the manuscript, bearing visible teeth marks, was offered at auction by Bonhams and sold for $10,000. Now that is a magnificent literary irony. Not only did Toby destroy part of the first draft of a novel that would become a classic, but decades later, his teeth marks acquired a market value of their own. And this Wednesday afternoon, I find myself thinking that Steinbeck had a remarkable sense of humour, but Toby possessed something even rarer among literary critics. He managed to leave a lasting mark on a work without ever having read it.