The Moon is Down

by John Steinbeck

The French writer and philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre offers a theory that probably accounts for the critics’ divergence of opinion. In his postwar essay What Is Literature? he contends that we can have no true understanding of a literary work unless we know who an author is writing for. To illustrate his point, Sartre recalls a wartime literary controversy similar to that surrounding The Moon Is Down. Another highly popular work of anti-Nazi fiction published in France during the war was a short novel entitled The Silence of the Sea, written by Jean Bruller, a member of the French resistance better known by his nom de guerre, Vercors. Like Steinbeck, Bruller portrayed the Germans as human beings, often intelligent, if misguided, and frequently polite and likable. The Silence of the Sea succeeded as propaganda within occupied France, but it found a hostile audience in French men and women living abroad, many of whom in fact accused Bruller of collaboration. Sartre’s explanation for the mixed reception is that Bruller was writing for compatriots living under the Nazis. He was among them, sharing their feelings and the routines of their existence. He realized that to stereotype all Germans as ogres would have been laughable to those who had daily contact with the enemy and who knew better.