Enjoy. It is a mammoth read, and it is worth every second of time spent reading. Grapes Of Wrath might get all the attention, but East Of Eden is far superior.
I've read everything that Steinbeck wrote (including all of his letters) and I'm glad you brought up something other than East of Eden or Grapes of Wrath. To a God Unknown wasn't my favorite, but it's a bit disappointing that some of his shorter novels get overlooked by his two biggest ones. The man certainly had a way with words.
I agree that he has so much more to offer than East of Eden and Grapes of Wrath, though they are notable and deserve recognition. My favorite Steinbeck will always be Cannery Row, but he is so versatile that there are many great pieces that I wish people were more exposed to.
Oh, I agree. EoE and GoW are two of my favorite books and they deserve recognition. It just seems like a lot of people read those two and skip his other work. It might be because those two are often required reading and people who may not have liked them have decided that they don't like Steinbeck in general. It might be that those two are so good that they shadow his other work because they're the ones that get recommended.
Cannery Row and Sweet Thursday are probably my favorite shorter Steinbeck novels. You're right; He was versatile. He wrote funny stuff, sad stuff, depressing stuff, covering a variety of themes. He's a renowned author, but it's unfortunate that some people might not be aware of some of his other work that they might appreciate on a different level.
I'm a huge Steinbeck fan myself. Actually getting ready to visit Salinas, CA and check out Cannery Row :) I also thought The Pastures of Heaven is never given enough credit for what an incredible work it is.
That's true, good point. It was a good book and deserves recognition. But I would argue that it gets its popularity from being required reading in highschool English classes. The reason's not really important, though. You're right, it is fairly popular. But still, that's only three out of dozens(?) of books he wrote.
Great book. Along with Winter of Our Discontent, Cannery Row, and Sweet Thursday, it's one of my favorite shorter works by Steinbeck. He did a great job making me care about the characters and then tore my heart out at the end.
When those topics come around about the most evil characters ever, Dolores Umbridge is always at the top but I always think of this character. The most truly wicked character I've ever encountered.
Timshel was such a powerful concept. I was talking with a friend who gave me a really interesting take from it. She showed me this video which talked about how the Vietnamese have no subjunctive tense in their language which means that things are never spoken about as "I will do this". Rather, it's "I'm doing this". Here's the video for anyone who is curious.
You should know that the things expressed in that video are pretty much pseudo-psychology. It implies that Vietnamese is "lacking" or that as a culture they can't rationalize these things even though it's pretty obvious that they can.
I think I understood that. I was just getting at that it's an interesting notion to entertain. In relation to timshel, what if we didn't have an understand of "could or should" but rather just action? Would it be better or would we be worse off? As they said in this video "accepting things as they are" can be the first step towards action in a lot of folks.
Read this recently after taking a break from reading the Foundation trilogy. Steinbeck's writing is just so much more poetic and resonated much more with me than Asimov's style. I've had a hard time going back to the Foundation.
Yeah, lot's of those early Sci Fy guys like Dick and Asimov don't write poetically, they just put their ideas out there plainly and let your imagination take over. I am not a big fan of it.
Absolutely. It's my favorite novel and I find it to be a great corollary to Man's Search for Meaning. The concepts of Timshel and Logotherapy really have SO much power to change lives.
I read this book in high school for class. I loved it and finished pretty quickly. Funny thing was nobody else read it so i was the only one passing the tests. This is the book that got me started in reading. After I read this I read all the assigned reading for 4 years of high school in about 6 months. Of course it was boarding school so there wasn't really any other shit to do.
The Hamiltons were John Steinbeck's family. Samuel is his maternal grandfather. The book is semi-autobiographical (with some liberties taken, obviously), and the inclusion of the Hamiltons is the pretext for telling Adam's story. I love the interactions between the two families.
Right, but it felt like he was just plugging his life into the book for the hell of it. I liked the interactions between the two families as well, but from what I remember, he spent a lot of time just describing all the members of his family. I felt like Samuel and Will were the only Hamiltons that added anything to the story.
As I understand it, it had a lot to do with contrast. The Hamiltons were a very close family while the Trasks were always at arms length to one another. The contrast serves to illustrate what can happen in an ambivalent family, which I believe is one of the major themes of the novel. The beginning of the book shows how such a family can come about and later we meet the Hamiltons and Samuel is delivering his children while Adam is running from his past. Sorry I dont have the book in front of me to be more detailed and I am being a little vague because I dont want to get the specifics wrong. East of Eden is one that is worth multiple readings.
I read this for the first time a couple months ago. I love how the book delves in to how we are all descended from Caine and redemption. This book is beautiful.
I had always hated reading. It was always slow and boring, then I randomly picked up Grapes of Wrath in my first year of college and I loved reading it. It was the first book that made me love reading.
Others followed: Angela's Ashes, Siddhartha, and almost all Steinbeck.
How old are you? I can guarantee it probably didn't have to do with maturity.
Steinbeck just speaks to me.
Not sure if you've read any of his other stuff, but sometimes it just takes awhile to get used to an author. I was that way with Hemingway. Struggled through the first 2 I read, by the third I finally clicked with him.
You can always give it a try later on down the road! Sometimes experience influences how you take in a book as well.
I'm reading this for the first time right now and I'm loving it. Every other page Steinbeck drops a truth bomb that makes me reevaluate how I view the world.
This is the only book that has successfully reduced me to tears. Not tears of sadness or desperation, but tears in respect for the beauty of this masterpiece.
Yeah, I think it first came to my attention when Oprah re-started her book club for this book. She has done a ton of good for mainstream American culture!
Didn't expect to see this one ranked so highly! This book gave me a lot of insight into personal interaction when I was younger. I read it a couple times when I was about 16.
Where are you at now? I loved the whole book, so I'm not sure if it's goingmto get better for you or not. But I will say, the ending was really where the heart of the story is.
I think I'm about 40% in. Basically at the part where Kate is "adopted" by Faye.
I like the book, but it seems a bit scattered and I can't help but feel like this is still leading to the actual story, if that makes any sense.
In my opinion, Kate's part of the story is the weakest. The first half of the book is just setting Adam up as a character. You're right in that the meat of the story is coming up. The relationship between Adam, Cal, and Aron is where the "story" is. It tries to cover a large timespan and multiple people's perspectives, so I understand it seeming scattered. It becomes much more focused as it progresses.
I hope you end up enjoying it. I know people's tastes differ, but I found it to be really inspiring.
I read East of Eden, and I guess my hopes were too high. I got to the end and it felt like a shaggy dog story (like the term shaggy dog story, not the movie where the man turns into a dog). The ending I guess was supposed to be really moving but it felt way to much like a ”Ha Gotcha!" to me.
And now after all of these comments I will read this book. Never been a huge fan of Steinbeck, but it was on my list still to read because I'm an avid reader and I know it's a classic.
This book inspired me to change my own life. I read it on a weird trip with my family—I had been separated from them for a couple years because of my husband at the time. It helped me to see the situation I was in and how I could be so much better than he was letting me be. I realized how much I missed my family. I finished the book in five days. I went back home, divorced my abusive husband, and took my life back. I think it would have taken me much longer to realize how terrible the situation was if I hadn't picked it up right then.
so glad East of Eden was at the top. Really helped a young man confused about conflicts of faith and science....religion and education. Transformative in my life.
I hated Steinbeck until I read this book. The Pearl is still one of my least favorite books ever written, but I'll always recommend East of Eden to anyone who hasn't read it.
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u/captainkelpy Dec 07 '14
John Steinbeck - East of Eden.