What can happen when an oppressive military force becomes aware that they are surrounded and outnumbered by those that they have invaded?
 
A seemingly tactile and efficient military group known only as “the invaders” have besieged and taken over an unnamed town located somewhere in Northern Europe. The residents of the town are collectively bemused as to what has happened because the invasion was carried out so quickly. It turns out that the invaders had help from inside the town through a local shopkeeper. After successfully seizing the town, the invaders have been ordered by their superiors to seize coal from the local coal mines. The citizens are made work the mines to gather the coal.
 
As time goes by, the invaders settle in billets and maintain the occupation of the town. The enslaved townsfolk begin to fall silent and appear more obedient than usual. However, their eyes are persistently fixed on their tyrannical enemy, filled with looks of anger and ever-growing hatred. Over time, the silence and stares of hatred begin to intimidate the invaders, progressively subverting any authority they held over the townsfolk. Soldiers associated with the invasion force have begun disappearing, and the citizens set about initiating their own clandestine retribution.
 
Published in 1942, The Moon is Down was intended to act as an allegorical piece of literature aimed at advocating the resistance of the allies against the Nazis in occupied lands throughout Europe. This novel was said to be one of the most popular works across Western Europe and China during WWII. With its great popularity, there were, of course, criticisms which followed. However, its popularity triumphed and criticisms were outnumbered by praises. The novel became categorised as allied propaganda and was secretly translated, printed, and published in numerous languages at great risk those doing so. It was both covertly and widely supplied to citizens in occupied countries all across Western Europe and China. A member of the Italian resistance had remarked how merely owning a copy was an offence, punishable by death.
 
The key themes behind this tale centre around the nature of power and the correlative unpredictability of the human being, how circumstances drastically impact the value of a human life, the brutal realities of military occupation, as well as, how the durability and viability of a democracy is dependent on the shared notions of endurance, commitment and core values of its citizens. Furthermore, this story serves as an excellent illustration of the unequivocal necessity of resistance against pervasive forces which aim to suppress and subjugate. Steinbeck provides a great insight into how centralised decision-making against a different culture motivated by callous attitudes, malevolent intentions, and an unrelenting desire to establish despotic ordinance will only ever be met with resistance.
 
When progressing through the book, I kept thinking about the infamous French resistance and their ironclad ambition to drive the Nazis out of France and take back their country with the help of allied forces. However, another WWII event also comes to mind when I recall the invaders swiftly taking hold of the town early on into the story, and their desire to extract coal from the mines. Namely, the rapid invasion of Norway in 1940. An act committed by the Nazi war machine through the use of Blitzkrieg, to gain access and control of the ports, and create secure supply routes to seize Swedish iron ore. Additionally, the intentions that the Nazis had of establishing Norway as a base of operations to assist in them in their battle against the Soviet Union.
 
From the introduction of this novel, I learnt that Steinbeck worked alongside the Office of Coordinator of Information (COI) in 1941. His affiliation with the COI allowed him to be in contact with citizens who had been displaced from native countries which had been taken over by the Nazis; countries including both Norway and France among other countries like Denmark, Belgium and Holland. It would be logical to assume that Steinbeck engineered some of the events in this story based on civilian accounts of what was happening in their homeland. A likely example being Norse citizens sharing events from the aforementioned invasion of Norway, allowing Steinbeck to form fresh ideas, such as the townspeople being made to extract coal from the mines within the novel.
 
I remember being at school and was told to read Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men. I wasn’t an avid reader back then and had never completed it. I was more concerned about getting home from school and playing Mortal Kombat on my PS2. However, I remember being in class and learning about Curley’s wife’s red dress and how it represented her promiscuous nature and so on. That was my very first exposure to an allegory within literature. Something which I failed to appreciate at the time.
 
On the subject of allegories and Steinbeck, the novel’s title “The Moon is Down” is rather aptly chosen by the author. It is from the second act of Shakespeare’s Macbeth; “The moon is down; I have not heard the clock”. The moon symbolises the human spirit, that of hope, freedom and resistance. When the moon is down, it depicts an encounter from the dark and subduing forces of oppression, and exemplifies how authoritarianism can temporary quash this previously mentioned hope and freedom. As this ordinance briefly considers itself victorious, the moon is inexorably set to rise again and illuminate over those who have been oppressed and liberate them from the confines of subjugation. The message behind this novel’s title. and the story within, is that tyranny can never hold a permanent place in the world, especially when in the presence of both resilience and resistance.
 
On an unrelated matter altogether, I have been wondering if Albert Camus ever read this book and used it as a means of influence for his own novel “The Plague” which was published 5 years later.
 
Conclusively, this book has served as a great introduction to Steinbeck. Reading the introduction and learning about the enormous sentimental affects that this book had on people during their experiences of extreme anguish, and the risks that were taken to keep this novel spreading across Western Europe and China throughout the war will stay with me for a long time. This novel stands as a symbol of the power behind civilian resistance, and as a reminder of the endurance that can be found in oneself during even the most severe of hardships. I am looking forward to reading more of Steinbeck’s work in the future.
 
Overall, a fully enjoyable read. Highly recommended. - (Especially, if you have read or aim to read The Plague by Camus).
 
 I will end this review by leaving you with some quotes that stayed with me:
 
 • “...he tried not to think what he knew – that war is treachery and hatred, the muddling of incompetent generals, the torture and killing and sickness and tiredness, until at last it is over and nothing has changed except for new weariness and new hatreds.” (p.23).
 
• “...he was a solider, given orders to carry out. He was not expected to question or to think, but only to carry out orders; and he tried to put aside the sick memories of the other war and the certainty that this would be the same. This one will be different, he said to himself fifty times a day; this one will be very different.” (p.23).
 
• “In marching, in mobs, in football games, and in war, outlines become vague; real things become unreal and a fog creeps over the mind. Tension and excitement, weariness, movement – all merge in one great gray dream, so that when it is over, it is hard to remember how it was when you killed men or ordered them to be killed. Then other people who were not there tell you what it was like and you say vaguely, “Yes, I guess that’s how it was.”” (p.23).
 
• “That is a mystery that has disturbed rulers all over the world – how the people know. It disturbs the invaders now, I am told, how news runs through censorships, how the truth of things fights free of control. It is a great mystery” (p.44). 
 
• ““...the one impossible job in the world, the one thing that can’t be done” - “And that is?” - “To break man’s spirit permanently.”” (p.50).
 
• “If you think that by killing men you can prevent someone from censuring your evil lives, you are mistaken.” (p.109).
 
• “The people don’t like to be conquered, sir, 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.” (p.111).