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John Steinbeck

That dedication is incredible, I'm sitting here with tears in my eyes!

I forgot all about "The Pearl". I read it 20+ years ago, and did not even remember that it was by Steinbeck. It's a simple story about simple people, but underneath it's about human nature and good/evil and pretty much the fundamentals of what and who we are. I'm going to have to check it out from the library and read it again.

I also loved "The Grapes of Wrath" and "East of Eden". Ever hear the Bruce Springsteen CD called "The Ghost of Tom Joad"? Read "The Grapes of Wrath" and then listen to that...it's not cheerful, but it's true.

As for "East of Eden", I always liked the little rhyme that goes:
"Abra was ready when I called her name; I called another but Abra came".
I use that one on my cats all the time, for some weird reason. I call one and the other one comes, or (more often) they both ignore me.
 
Like most people, I started off with Mice and Men. Since then I've read a couple of his other books. My favourite would have to be either East of Eden, or maybe one of his shorter works, maybe Cannery Row, or Tortilla Flat.

Regarding Of Mice and Men, while I appreciate that it's a good peice, I'm not sure why it receives so much attention. I'm not sure why none of his other short works are considered as standard school texts.
 
KissingJudas said:
By far my personal favorite when it comes to Steinbeck (I only saw 2 people mention it...)
I think it's one of his best, even if it doesn't necessarily stick to his normal mold. And the message is not political, in my opinion. I just loved the sociology of it. The metamorphosis of the main character was scary and intense.
One of the small things I really loved was his interaction with a woman who's baby he helps to deliver. There is something very...I don't know...eye opening about it. It transcends what's normally considered decent and traditional into something very often ignored about human nature, and that is what we are often less-than-proud of. But it's what I find most beautiful about human nature, so I was delighted to see Steinbeck include it.
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I think the thing that makes 'In Dubious Battle' a cut above for Steinbeck is instead of it being the "People" versus the "Great Men," he shows land owners, workers, and agitators alike as all being manipulated by larger forces, machines that are indifferent to the individual. An individual farmer who wants to pay higher wages faces the threat of being burned out by his fellow farmers, the laborers are stuck between accepting unacceptable pay and conditions or going along with the Communists, who have an agenda that only partially coincides with the plight of the workers. And in the end, humans and property are sacrificed by both sides, and the leadership of both sides is unmoved, continues the struggle.

Depressing, but such a great analog to so much of life. The closing 'human sacrifice' scene is what makes that book. It's not so much a resolution as a 'this is where we came in' kind of moment.
 
I've read Of Mice and Men, The Pearl and Cannery Row. All three I enjoyed. Never got around to reading Grapes of Wrath or East of Eden but I guess I should.
 
WoundedThorns said:
i liked of mice and men since it was short. grapes of wrath was just a pain to read
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'Grapes of Wrath' gets heavy-handed on the symbolism at times, but don't give up on the man. 'In Dubious Battle' might be too much for you, it's got a bit of throw-weight and if you didn't dig 'Grapes,' forget 'East of Eden.' But that still leaves you some great fun: 'Tortilla Flat,' 'The Pearl,' etc. One of the beautiful things about Steinbeck is, with a couple of exceptions, he wrote only as long as the story required.

As opposed to a James Michener who apparently has never found a subject he didn't think worth 900+ pages.
 
Chixulub said:
'Grapes of Wrath' gets heavy-handed on the symbolism at times, but don't give up on the man. 'In Dubious Battle' might be too much for you, it's got a bit of throw-weight and if you didn't dig 'Grapes,' forget 'East of Eden.' But that still leaves you some great fun: 'Tortilla Flat,' 'The Pearl,' etc. One of the beautiful things about Steinbeck is, with a couple of exceptions, he wrote only as long as the story required.
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yeh the symbolism was definatly prominent. my friend and i did wonder if he actually meant to use all of those religious references.. like noah walking down along side a river...

my english teacher recommended tortilla flat and the pearl. i was going to buy/take it out at a few points, but i decided to take a break from literature at the time.

Chixulub said:
As opposed to a James Michener who apparently has never found a subject he didn't think worth 900+ pages.
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lol
 
WoundedThorns said:
yeh the symbolism was definatly prominent. my friend and i did wonder if he actually meant to use all of those religious references.. like noah walking down along side a river...
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I think it's safe to say that if you see symbolism in Steinbeck, there was no accident about it. 'East of Eden' is even heavier that way. The thing I remember from 'Grapes' as being over the top was the turtle and the trucker. It was valid to his theme, but struck me as ham-handed. Then again, it struck me that way in the late 1990s, in the context of his contemporaries, it's maybe less obnoxious.

It's like 'For Whom The Bell Tolls,' where Hemingway uses the word 'obscenity' in the place of obscenities. In a book that is supposed to be social realism, it's a bitter pill today. But you have to remember that Henry Miller, James Joyce, etc., were being censored in a huge way at that time. Hemingway probably saw it as an alternative between accepting a clunky approach and get the story out, or be too real and find the book unpublished and unread.

There's a reason Steinbeck is one of the Big Three: of all the writers in the first half of this century, Steinbeck, Hemingway, and Faulkner did more to advance American ficiton than any thirty writers before or since you want to name.
 
Steinbeck is underrated. Undeservingly so. I'd strongly recommend you read The Winter of our Discontent, it's a remarkable portrayal of a man, a very humorous and sympathetic man, who is the only person in his community, and most importantly his family, quite content with being relatively poor or at least not wealthy. It was that which won him the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1962. If you like works such as Bellow's Herzog or McEwan's Saturday, I think this is especially good.

Steinbeck's essays are also quite interesting. There's a collection from Penguin called Men and their Making which includes pieces on Arthur Miller, America, Communism and so forth. Worth checking out.
 
Morty said:
Steinbeck is underrated. Undeservingly so. I'd strongly recommend you read The Winter of our Discontent, it's a remarkable portrayal of a man, a very humorous and sympathetic man, who is the only person in his community, and most importantly his family, quite content with being relatively poor or at least not wealthy. It was that which won him the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1962. If you like works such as Bellow's Herzog or McEwan's Saturday, I think this is especially good.

Steinbeck's essays are also quite interesting. There's a collection from Penguin called Men and their Making which includes pieces on Arthur Miller, America, Communism and so forth. Worth checking out.
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'Winter' is on my 'to read' list still, also 'Cannery Row' and 'Sweet Thursday.'

The only non-fiction of his I've read is 'Travels with Charley,' which makes a nice companion read for 'On the Road.'
 
Been quite a time since a post was thrown up here, so I figured that I would update it a bit. I agree that Grapes is quite a slog, but if you make it through it, there is a great reward. I started a thread on the Grapes of Wrath and Sitaram had an excellent post regarding Steinbeck's imagery and subtle philosophical messages and related to what he and a person that he was trading e-mails with at a given time where going through:


few years ago, a total stranger read things I had posted on the internet, and wrote me a long E-mail, ending with this well-known quote from The Grapes of Wrath

“Before I knowed it, I was sayin’ out loud, ‘The hell with it! There ain’t no sin and there ain’t no virtue. There’s just stuff people do. It’s all part of the same thing.’ . . . . I says, ‘What’s this call, this sperit?’ An’ I says, ‘It’s love. I love people so much I’m fit to bust, sometimes.’ . . . . I figgered, ‘Why do we got to hang it on God or Jesus? Maybe,’ I figgered, ‘maybe it’s all men an’ all women we love; maybe that’s the Holy Sperit—the human sperit—the whole shebang. Maybe all men got one big soul ever’body’s a part of.’ Now I sat there thinkin’ it, an’ all of a suddent—I knew it. I knew it so deep down that it was true, and I still know it.”

- Jim Casy, Chapter 4 (It may be significant that Jim Casy's initials are "J.C.", which can bring to mind Jesus Christ.)

This stranger had read my accounts of my life in a Greek monastery, and how I slowly drifted away to other beliefs, other interests, other ways of life. One famous iconographer, whom I worked with, left that monastery and went to Colorado, to found his own monastery. This stranger wrote me to say that he had spent time in Colorado, with that iconographer, and had experienced many of the exact same changes and disillusionments as I described in my posts. His life and my life had evolved in an uncanny parallel fashion. For him, that Steinbeck quote summed up how he felt.
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Definitely some interesting tangents and religious overtones to the book, though Steinbeck took quite a zen like stance in them. This part makes the book a tantalizing treat, as it's more than just a one-sided political piece, it speaks to greater things in our collective unconsciousness.

Just recently finished The Moon is Down, one of his lesser known, but equally controversial books. Steinbeck was horrified at the effectiveness of the Nazi propaganda machine and proposed to make a book for occupied peoples in Nazi held regions. While he didn't specify a country, he did originally set it in the U.S. When bureaucrats rejected it(thinking it would be too demoralizing on the American public) he then set it in the present Norway/Denmark region. Steinbeck was widely criticized for not demonizing the German soldiers. He felt that speaking of the Huns or of a blood-soaked Attila wouldn't be taken seriously. in Moon, the soldiers appear as normal human beings, who desire warmth, and the average things of life that the rest of us want. They are in a place where people don't speak to them, people distrust them, and they are isolated from home(I would point out similar circumstances today, but that's for another day)

So in response to the topic question, I'd rate the following Steinbeck books in this order(until I've had time to read others)

1.-Grapes of Wrath
2.-The Moon is Down

On-deck; The Winter of Our Discontent.
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i've only read Grapes of Wrath and Of Mice and Men for school. i prefered Of Mice and Men. Grapes of Wrath had more substance behind it, but i enjoyed reading Of Mice and Men a whole lot more. Grapes of Wrath just never.. ended.
 
I have read :

East of Eden
Grapes of Wrath
Of Mice And Men
Winter of Our Discontent
Tortilla Flats
Cannery Row
Sweet Thursday

And enjoyed every one of the books. I would find it difficult to pick a favorite. IMHO there is no comparison between Steinbeck and Michener. Steinbeck is in a class by himself. Michener I struggled with all of his books that I tried except The Source, which I enjoyed somewhat.
 
I have read East of Eden, Of Mice and Men, Cannery Row, The Pearl, and I'm currently reading A Russian Journal. I enjoyed all of them a lot, especially East of Eden and The Pearl. If your in the mood for a long read that is going to take some time to finish go with East of Eden but If you want a quick read that you can do in a night go with The Pearl. Either way you will not be let down.
 
jaybe said:
Yes, The Red Pony is sad. I like sad endings, and ponies.:D
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my sister vented about that book sooo much when she had to read it a few years ago. i'll probably end up reading it just to see what she was venting about
 
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