Steinbeck and the Oak Tree

Along Jolon Road


"Stop," I shouted.  "That's it.  That's it."  Even though To a God Unknown is a work of fiction, I cannot pass an oak tree without thinking of this book.  Yes, I wanted to see the San Antonio de Padua Mission, but I also wanted to see the landscape surrounding it.  I wanted to find the Oak.

This has to be it!  All that remains of the oak tree once imbued with the spirit of Joseph Wayne's father.  This is the spot where Joseph built his house.  The branches of the tree "stretched a protecting arm over its roof."  As long as the tree was alive, the land lived, the winter rains came, the family thrived and the cattle grew fat.  But once it died,  "The earth grew more grey and lifeless . . . and the haystacks dwindled."

To a God Unknown was Steinbeck's second novel, published in 1933.  Fresh out of Stanford, he is a young man wrestling with ideas and with words.   Clearly, the great philosophers influenced him.  His characters struggle with inner demons; their gods are created from pagan and Christian sources.  Some of them seem crazed like the old man who sacrifices an animal every night, but most of them are simply misguided.  That the main character takes on the burdens of the world is the ultimate vanity.  That cause and effect are on his shoulders is ludicrous, but Steinbeck writes about it with such fervor, the reader begins to believe it himself.

  Joseph was warned that this valley goes through periods of drought, but he refused to believe it.  "I'm failing to protect the land . . . The duty of keeping life in my land is beyond my power."  In the end, it is his own blood that finally brings the rain.

This book is a dress rehearsal for greater works to come.  Steinbeck is not a "happily ever after" writer, so it took several more books before the public finally began to buy them.  I love To a God Unknown  for the beautiful descriptions of the San Antonio Valley.  All of these photos were taken in the vicinity of the mission, mostly along Jolon Road.

 "Two flanks of the coast range held the valley of Nuestra Senora close, on one side guarding it against the sea, and on the other against the blasting winds of the great Salinas Valley . . The huts of Indians clustered about the mud walls of the church, and although the bells were broken, the Mexican Indians still lived near about and held their festivals, danced La Jota on the packed earth and slept in the sun."

"There was a curious femaleness about the interlacing bough and twigs . . ."

"The endless green halls and aisles and alcoves seemed to have meanings as obscure and promising as the symbols of an ancient religion."

"He drew up to look at the long grassy meadows in which clumps of live oaks stood like perpetual senates ruling over the land."

Reading literature enhances the experience of travel.  California is Steinbeck country.  He is our native son.  He wrote about the state with an honesty and a  precision that angered many of the locals in his day.  He eventually left this golden state to escape the criticism.  But, oh, how we welcomed him back!  I carry one of his books with me whenever I hit the road.