Cannery Row Catalysts: John Steinbeck and Ed Ricketts
Ed Ricketts at his lab on Cannery Row
© Pat Hathaway Collection/www.caviews.com
Creative Inspiration among Friends
We should all be so lucky to have a friend, a creative inspiration, like Ed Ricketts.
John Steinbeck said that “knowing Ed Ricketts was instant.”
After the first moment, I knew him; and for the next eighteen years I knew him better than I knew anyone.
They were best friends. They fed each other ideas. They told each other truths. The jolted each other beyond the boundaries of the ordinary. They refreshed each other.
Character and Charisma
The unique elements of Ed’s character showed up often in Steinbeck’s work. He was Doc in Cannery Row and Sweet Thursday, Dr. Phillips in the short story “The Snake,” Friend Ed in Burning Bright, Doc Burton in In Dubious Battle, Jim Casy in The Grapes of Wrath, and Doctor Winter in The Moon is Down.
...
