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�I am a little man and this is a little town, but there must be a spark in little men that can burst into flame.�

John Steinbeck has always championed the spirit of survival in the face of great opposition, with novels about worker’s strikes, families struggling to survive the Depression, or even the survival of morality in a society increasingly concentrated on profits over people. In his short, 1942 novel, The Moon is Down, written to be adapted to the stage, Steinbeck turns his attention to the battle for democracy in the face of looming totalitarianism. While the countries remain nameless, the brief story concerns the invasion of Norway by the Nazis and the growing resistence of the townspeople in response to the Nazis attempts to control the population. The irony, of course, is the conquerors demands for “civility� in the face of their oppression, tone policing the townsfolk for active resistance in order to self-condone the public executions on the freedom fighters. While brief, this is a powerful book that gives Steinbeck a fresh setting to orchestrate his familiar themes as he examines survival, hierarchy, control and the will of people to rise above and resist in a story that is, ultimately, quite hopeful.

�The people don’t like to be conquered, and so they will not be. Free men cannot start a war, but once it is started, they can fight on in defeat. Herd men, followers of a leader, cannot do that, and so it is always the herd men who win battles and the free men who win wars.�

Set in a Norwegian coastal town that is of military importance for its shipping port, this small cast of characters consists of the “conquerors� who take up residence in the mayor’s palace, and the “conquered� who grow increasingly agitated in an attempt to drive back their invaders. The story was adapted into a stage play for which Steinbeck was awarded the in Norway, and it is easy to see how this was aimed for the theater with the story being dialogue-driven and mostly consisting of people coming and going from the same room with only two major scene changes that would function as an act I act II on stage. This allows Steinbeck to do what he does best: give brief monologues on the human spirit, morality, and instill hope in the hopeless.

�The flies have conquered the flypaper�

The Nazis have tried to establish an impression of cooperation with the town, setting up in Mayor Orden’s home (note the name calls to mind the idea of “order�) and attempting to use him in order to control the populace. When an act of resistance kills an officer when he jumps in the way of a pick-axe to defend a fellow officer, the Nazi troops decide to execute the townsperson as a show of strength. The townspeople begin to organize together in a �slow, silent, waiting revenge� that makes the conquerors uneasy, with an underground network spreading information and characters such as the local store keeper who works with the enemy as a spy and was modeled off . �It disturbs the invaders now, I am told, how news runs through censorships, how the truth of things fights free of control,� says Dr. Winter, and as in almost every Steinbeck book, we can look to the doctor character as a pillar of philosophical morality.

Steinbeck’s story turns into a tale about sacrifice and the icons we build to drive the spirits of others. With the enemy soldiers, we see them attempt to control and create “order,� something ironic as it is their presence and invasion that disrupted the order. The palace in which they reside is an attempt to create a symbol of dominance and peacekeeping, but as the novel progresses we see the palace deteriorating from their continued presence, a sure sign of them as the rot from inside. On the other hand, we see the resistance as lighting a fire in the hearts of the people even in the face of their own deaths. �To break man's spirit permanently,� as the enemy is attempting, cannot occur if the people uplift each other. The Nazis order Orden to control his people but he knows he cannot, and he will go to his death to remind them to resist. �I have no choice of living or dying, you see, sir--but I do have a choice of how I do it,� he says, � I who am not a very brave man will have made them a little braver.� He quotes Socrates saying the debt of his life must be paid, encouraging the resistance to continue larger and braver than ever.

The Moon is Down is a quick little read with a big punch. I would enjoy seeing this as a play and it captures all the classic Steinbeck elements in something that feels so grand scale and epic, showing the power of good over evil represented here as democracy over fascism. He never lets me down.

3.75/5