Where Things Can Happen: California and Writing

Steinbeck Country or Owens Country?: Indigeneity in the California Fiction of Louis Owens

“…8 8 The first lines of Whitman's poem were chosen as one of the featured architectural “inscriptions” at the 1915 Panama‐Pacific International Exposition held in San Francisco. They were inscribed on a triumphal “Arch of the Rising Sun” in the “Court of the Universe.” According to the booklet accompanying the exposition, Inscriptions at the Panama‐Pacific International Exposition , “Walt Whitman was chosen to represent America because his work more than that of any other American author may be said to express the spirit of the American people and the ideals of democracy.” In his article, “Where Things Can Happen: California and Writing,” Owens quotes the poem's concluding question, “But where is what I started for so long ago? And why is it yet unfound?” He argues that “Steinbeck knew the answers to Whitman's question and knew the meaning of the question better than anyone” (153). …”