First Published: 1942

Rating: Excellent

"By ten-forty-five it was all over."

There's a reason my bookshelves are overflowing with novels that I haven't ever cracked: I buy books for superficial reasons. John Steinbeck's The Moon is Down made it onto my shelf several years ago after I bought it at Edward McKay because it was World War II fiction and it was by Steinbeck.

More importantly, it was fifty cents, and I thought the title was pretty. The title is also the reason I grabbed it off the shelf recently, coupled with its small size--something I could knock out easily in a few short sessions, leaving me with the satisfaction of finishing another book.

I promise, I do have standards about the books I read that go beyond shiny covers and volume size, which is why I was surprised when The Moon is Down, for all its 112 pages, turned out to be really good.

Paralleling the Nazi occupation of Norway during World War II, the story begins in medias res shortly after a coal-mining town is taken over by soldiers. The take-over kills half of the town’s twelve-man army, but is otherwise peaceful by the standards of the invaders. The officers settle into Mayor Orden’s house and call it a day, feeling pretty proud of themselves and genuinely looking forward to coexisting peacefully with the people they’ve conquered.

Their mistake, of course, is assuming that they’ve conquered the townspeople. Although initially confused and afraid, the town’s occupants are not as complacent as the soldiers think. After they try and execute a man for killing one of their number, the officers realize they don’t have the control that they counted on, and as the troops begin to understand that the war they are fighting has already been lost, the townspeople reveal that they are nowhere near as broken as the soldiers had hoped.

It’s a simple story in terms of plot, but that puts the focus on the characters--simple, realistic characters that Steinbeck deftly fleshes out during their often brief appearances. Some might complain that these characters come across as archetypes, and perhaps that's true, but they're effective if that's indeed what they are.

One could argue that there are no true villains in the story, and that's part of what makes it work so well. In a time where people clearly delineated good and evil, Steinbeck, a World War II correspondent, refrained from painting the soldiers as purely evil or the townspeople as purely good. The officers are homesick and world-weary--still Nazis, yes, but humans rather than devils, and though Steinbeck may not have intended it, the officers are at times more sympathetic than some of the townspeople.

There’s a plot, of course, but the characters keep everything moving along, and the story skips over days or, on occasion, months at a time between chapters. It flows together well and we’re given the pertinent information, but readers accustomed to today’s world of verbose stories where we find out everything about everyone whether its relevant or not might not be too keen on Steinbeck's style. Nor will those who like their endings handed to them all nice and neat on a platter—Steinbeck doesn’t let the reader off that easily, instead providing a bittersweet ending that's haunting and thought-provoking.

This story is gorgeously crafted, short, and to the point, the way good stories were meant to be. It’s been years since I’ve read Steinbeck’s more popular works Of Mice and Men or The Grapes of Wrath, but now I'm curious to give them a re-read and see how they compare with The Moon is Down.

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