East of Eden: (Penguin Orange Collection)

Is is possible that Netflix may boost literacy? I just did a Netflix mini-retrospective look at James Dean's films: "Rebel Without a Cause," "Giant" and "East of Eden." Watching the complex story of "East of Eden," reminded me that I had never read the Steinbeck novel from which the film was adapted. This came as a surprise to me, since I am a huge fan of Steinbeck's writings and have long considered "The Grapes of Wrath" among my favorite novels. So, I embarked on reading the novel. I was expecting it to be good; I was unprepared for the depth of the writing and the brilliant insight into human nature that marked Steinbeck's writing at this stage of his career. In my opinion, if he had never written another novel besides "East of Eden," he would have been worthy of the Nobel Prize that he won in 1962. The story is a complex and very moving modern setting of the Cain and Abel story told at multiple levels through several generations of the Trask family. Adam and Charles Trask lay the groundwork for the narrative by vying for the affection of their father, an ersatz Civil War hero who carved out a reputation and a fortune by misrepresenting the role that he played in key battles of the War Between the States. The saga continues into its main section with Adam's two sons - Cal and Aron - struggling to please him. Adam is raising them as a single father - with the not inconsiderable help from Lee, the live-in Chinese cook - after his wife abandoned the family shortly after giving birth to the twins. The most profound musings that stand as the intellectual and spiritual center of the novel are found exactly halfway through the narrative. The setting is that Lee, the Chinese cook, is having a theological discussion with a neighbor, Samuel. The crux of the discussion bears on varying translations of Genesis 4:7, in which God addresses Cain and implores him to overcome the temptation to sin. Lee describes the result of two years' of study by elders in the Chinese community who had undertaken to understand the issue in all of its subtleties: "After two years we felt we could approach your sixteen verses of the fourth chapter of Genesis. My old gentlemen felt that these words were very important too - 'Thou shalt not' and 'Do thou.' And this was the gold from our mining: 'Thou mayest.' 'Thou mayest rule over sin.' The old gentlemen smiled and nodded and felt the years were well spent. It brought them out of their Chinese shells, too, and right now they are studying Greek. Samuel said: 'It is a fantastic story. And I've tried to follow and maybe I've missed somewhere. Why is this word so important?' Lee's hand shook as he filled the delicate cups. He drank his down in one gulp. 'Don't you see?' he cried. 'The American Standard translation orders men to triumph over sin, and you can call sin ignorance. The King James translation makes a promise in "Thou shalt not." meaning that men will surely triumph over sin. But the Hebrew word, the word timshel -"Thou mayest" - that gives a choice. It might be the most important word in the world. That says the way is open. That throws it right back on a man. For if "Thou mayest" it is also true that "Thou mayest not." "Yes, I see. I do see. But you do not believe this is divine law. Why do you feel its importance?" "Ah!" said Lee. "I've wanted to tell you this for a long time. I even anticipated your questions and am well prepared. Any writing which has influenced the thinking and the lives of innumerable people is important. Now, there are many millions in their sects and churches who feel the order 'Do thou,' and throw their weight into obedience. And there are millions more who feel predestination in 'Thou shalt.' Nothing they may do can interfere with what will be. But 'Thou mayest'! Why, that makes a man great, then gives him stature with the gods, for in his weakness and his filth and his murder of his brother he still has the great choice. He can choose his course and fight it through and win." Lee's voice was a chant of triumph. Adam said, "Do you believe that, Lee?" "Yes, I do. Yes, I do. It is easy out of laziness, out of weakness, to throw oneself into the lap of deity, saying, 'I couldn't help it; the way was set.' But think of the glory of the choice! That makes a man a man. A cat has no choice, a bee must make honey. There's no godliness there. And do you know, those old gentlemen who were sliding gently down to death are too interested to die now?" (Pages 301-2) Steinbeck's argument reminded me of the exquisite Grand Inquisitor passage in Dostoevsky's magnum opus, "The Brothers Karamazov." The Inquisitor confronts a Christ who has returned to earth during the Spanish Inquisition and excoriates him for having condemned mankind to freedom of choice. Both Steinbeck and Dostoevsky are delving into levels that represent the quantum physics of the soul. This is great literature - writing that combines story telling as an art form with profound examination of the human condition. Even in the age of Netflix and Grand Theft Auto IV, there is still room for great writing - and great reading. Enjoy! Al

East of Eden is an immaculate American narrative that spans decades in the lives of the Hamiltons and the Trasks in California's Salinas Valley. Steinbeck considered this novel to be his magnum opus, capturing the totality of his talents and efforts throughout his career. It was one of his final novels, and he received the Nobel Prize in Literature a decade after publishing it. The mythological scope that Stenbeck achieves in the book takes on an almost biblical scale – a grand, mystical and allegorical examination of several major aspects of humanity. He identifies the struggle of sculpting a personal existence and identity in the face of uncertainty – what is the difference between the internal and the external, and what does this mean in the context of families and relationships? He also examines time as a cyclical burden, as if its trajectory is that of a spinning arrow. We are ultimately tied to this track no matter how we fight against it, and sometimes it is the very fight against it that can cost us more dearly, or at least sooner, than if we accepted that we have no control over it. Some lose a freight car of produce, and others lose their lives. Finally, and perhaps the most notable of all of the thematic examinations that Steinbeck explores, the persistent question of what it truly means to be good or evil. Throughout the novel, we are presented with choices that characters need to make, and these choices are often difficult since there is a spectrum of consequences and victims to all choices. Additionally, these choices are complicated by their place on the character’s alignment like in Dungeons and Dragons - where Catherine is Chaotic Evil, Lee is Lawful Neutral, et al. These thematic ideas lead to the central point of the novel discussed several times: Timshel. That we all have our own power to choose our ideas of good and bad. To choose our destiny. That we have one go at it. It is philosophically revisited over and over again in the novel both literally (in conversations between Lee and others) and symbolically (through situational actions and reactions). In the end, Timshel is the only answer: that our destiny is in our hands, and we alone are responsible. I absolutely loved this book. Steinbeck is a master storyteller, and he is most masterful with is his sweeping portraits of characters and locales. This book is captured in vivid time and a place. What I found to be a bit surprising was that this was his third-to-last novel, simply by its length compared to his other novels save Grapes of Wrath. Many writers tend to try to say the most they can using the least amount of words, but in the case of this novel, we are treated to an epic and sprawling modern romance of the highest order... I just wondered quite often whether everything in the novel was necessary and if it was as long as it needed to be with some scenes that I simply didn’t understand having any gravity or importance... Still, easily one of the most immersive reading experiences I have ever had, and look forward to treating myself to many times more in this lifetime. A pure and striking examination of existence, good and evil, the nature of humanity, the nature of identity, and how our choices and lives are entirely within our control even when the consequences aren’t. A beautiful, beautiful novel. You can read about my Timshel tattoo in an article I wrote for Assignment Magazine by googling "assignment magazine timshel" since I can't post a link here.

This is a story about the endurance of the human soul, about choosing to be who you would like to be rather than believing you were cut with a mold that can’t be broken. But also it’s a story about forgiveness, the freedom of choice and the long road one must walk between one’s beginning and one’s end, and all the causes and effects in-between. Steinbeck’s masterpiece, for to call it anything less is impossible, has left me with a sense of loss. When I came to the end of this epic tale of family and humanity, I felt abandoned simply because I ran out of words to read. I wanted to carry on in his characters’ lives, spying on their darkness, watching them evolve and bloom and outrun the forces haunting them. No book has made me feel quite so much sadness and excitement at once. Perhaps because I’m a writer, I relished the painterliness of Steinbeck’s prose. I turned every single one of its six-hundred and one pages at a furious pace, and yet I indulged and languished and roamed the landscape he had painted for me, and me alone. The story is so personal, a reader might feel it is written for her. It is a story we must hear, a story we know, a story with which we can connect, as we do with all the ones passed down from civilization to civilization. We commune with great stories, religious accounts, epic tales, because we see ourselves most readily in them, and as Lee (one of "Eden’s" finest characters) says, that’s why we keep telling, and retelling, them from one generation to the next. Steinbeck draws on the "Old Testament," turning over the story of Cain and Abel and making it his, for us anew. And because we see ourselves in it—our good and evil—we devour his retelling as though it were medicine to save our soul, the cure for all our ails. But perhaps I exaggerate, indulging in the power of the writer a little too much. Or maybe I do feel my soul a little shaken by my experience, swept up in the writer’s magic. Either way, I am satisfied to credit Steinbeck for my joy at venturing into his Eden. And it is the great landscape, the backdrop of his tale that speaks most readily to the reader. Steinbeck’s setting is in fact a large part of the whole. Like the characters he unearths, the soil on which they stand seems to reach for the sky, yearning to live too. You can’t read "East of Eden" without experiencing the tan valleys of Northern California and the lush green dales of Connecticut. You see his East and his West, you practically smell the air of each, and you believe the world he creates to be the same one in which you live. The opening of the book sets you up for that, tells you, dear reader, you will feel every ounce of nature’s beauty just as the narrator does; her dangerous flirtations, her permanency, her changeability, her gales, her forces, her perpetual and enduring spirit. We do not simply live in nature, but come from it. We embody it; all her forces. I think Steinbeck reminds us of this in such subtle and rare ways it seeps into the subconscious as we follow his narrator through the story of Adam Trask, Samuel Hamilton, and all the characters in-between and after. “I remember my childhood names for the grasses and secret flowers. I remember where a toad may live and what time the birds awaken in the summer—and what trees and seasons smelled like—how people looked and walked and smelled even. The memory of odors is very rich.” Effortlessly, Steinbeck strings you along with his prose, fooling you into not seeing the great and gargantuan task he is laying before you. “Timshel,” he teaches you. “Thou mayest,” the two words from "Genesis" that seem to speak most profoundly, for they admit to free will, and your ability to choose to rule over sin. John Milton’s "Paradise Lost" also speaks of this freedom, one in which man has often stumbled, misunderstanding his disobedience, his choice between good and evil. Steinbeck examines this idea throughout the narrative, and shows you the outcomes of those who struggle with the same, and it is in their differences that choice becomes apparent. I have said little about the characters, the plot, the style and themes, and yet I have said everything I can about a work that has touched me so deeply. I will leave you with this short quote, said once again by Lee, the Chinese American who is the most philosophical, and enlightened of Steinbeck’s family of characters, the sage most inborn to the writer: “But ‘Thou mayest’! Why, that makes a man great, that gives him stature with the gods, for in his weakness and his filth and his murder of his brother he has still the great choice. He can choose his course and fight it through and win.”

I really liked the story but there were so many characters and so much time in between it became difficult to follow. It could be because I waited too long to get back to the story. From about 50% until the end it became more interesting. I wouldn't say its my favorite of Steinbeck's but certainly worth reading. Just don't let weeks go by between readings like I did. I was also reading his "Journal of a Novel: The East of Eden Letters" at the same time.

When I’m considering watching a movie I first check the running time. If it’s more than 120 minutes I think twice. Between the screenwriter, the director, and the editor most stories can be told in less than two hours. A significantly longer running time indicates someone who doesn’t know what he or she is doing, or someone in love with his or her own work. There are exceptions, of course, such as biopics or sweeping historic accounts. The same is true for books. Especially in non-fiction many 600-page books could be edited down to 300 pages. But even in fiction the 300-page metric (or so) tends to hold. There are exceptions, of course, such as "East of Eden." I did not mind this book’s 600 pages at all. The first word of the second paragraph tells the reader the story will be told in first person. Along the way that fact needs remembering. "I" as a pronoun, indicating the author, appears just a handful of times. Mostly the narrative seems omniscient. Clearly Steinbeck chose first person as a means to deliver his personal philosophies, present to a notable degree. This deliverance would likely have been awkward in third person. The story tells about the Hamiltons and the Trasks. Adam Trask leaves New England for California. Samuel Hamilton sails from Ireland, only to make his further way clear across the continent. Adam Trask has inherited money, enough to buy a fine ranch. Samuel Hamilton has nothing. His dusty spread, gained by government allotment, is, even in the better years, only marginal. The basic story is simply one of good and evil, but Steinbeck went on for 600 pages because a parable cannot illustrate the fluidity of both good and evil that flows back and forth through human lives. In this fluidity evil inadvertently oozes out of good people and goodness sometimes escapes from an evil life into that very life. Both despite their struggles and because of them, the Hamilton clan possesses a human wealth beyond purchase. Still, illustrating the oozing, Tom Hamilton, son of Samuel, is, genetically, a brooder. His outlook is of his nature, largely unchecked by his nurture, as perhaps it might have been. He never leaves home, which eventually finds a population of one, himself. He is one of those who constantly loses today because he’s always pursuing yesterday – to simply reclaim it, or to hold it static in order to fix the past. When, from outside his own life, yesterday presents itself he destroys it. His destruction is completely inadvertent, and yet a blindness he has that allows the destruction is one of neglect in his nurture. As further example, Cal (Caleb) and Aron Trask (he disliked Aaron) are Adam’s twin sons by a woman who lacks a certain human dimension, which, by that omission, emphasizes her abilities to manipulate and control others, both for her own specific gain and simply because she can. She abandons her sons days after they’re born. Cal wrestles with the omission, which he has inherited to a degree. Eventually his internal give-and-take delivers him to a battered state of understanding. Aron is unclouded by the omission, is a paragon of goodness, and so becomes a victim of unbalance. Steinbeck grew up in Salinas and the Salinas Valley, the setting of the story. His early life mirrors the time of the story. His paternal grandfather did the emigrating from Germany, so there would have been talk of the old country. He was a war correspondent for the Herald Tribune and worked with the OSS. From his experiences we can infer his acknowledgement of the ability in America to throw off ancient ways, also acknowledging that the farther west one travelled the more one could outpace the tentacles of Puritanism that continued to exist in the East. The cliché and reality of California, which continues today, was an even more utterly contrasted state two centuries back, and even one century back. So, I read the last fifty pages of "East of Eden" in the leafy parking lot of a suburban library branch. The building is new and modern, in a well done mid-century way, leaving me to wonder how the plans ever survived the city council, in these days of varying degrees of neoclassicism. It is attached to what was originally a three-story grade school from the early 1940s that is now the city hall and police HQ of this suburban town. Around in all directions are Cape Cod-y homes, both pre- and immediately post-war. These houses are attractive, well proportioned and well built— somewhat humble contrasts to the Barbie castles. Many are barely larger than the master bedroom suites in those ostentatious, multi-gabled clown shows, and yet were coveted by returning G.I.s eager to find normality again. Early fall is at hand right now, with enough leaves on the ground and beginning colors in canopies to confirm the season. Hurricane Delta made landfall yesterday evening on the Louisiana coast. The system has already moved up the Mississippi Valley and will soon turn into the Ohio Valley to deliver a fair amount of rain tomorrow, and so today, a Saturday, has increasingly become overcast. I point out the day of the week, and the season, because it’s the sort of day I lived for as a kid – open ended, unstructured, free, with a certain contemplation implicit to cooler weather and indirect sunlight. As my wife says, the geography of childhood. And, hell, I still live for these days, days extraordinary simply because they are so ordinary, which is to say "Jesus! I’m a sentient being walking around on the surface of a planet!" And that’s what Steinbeck was after in "East of Eden," and that is just what he achieved—basically a Cheever short story x 500. Steinbeck needed six hundred pages to establish for the reader the pace and canter of daily life – i.e., life – in this California valley, and in one of its small towns. He needed that many words to let us into the life and minds and dreams and nightmares of a dozen or so human beings. That many words to expose the tumult behind the face of conformity, a template that makes it easier for you and me to connect on a same frequency. A hallmark of great writing is an implicit prescience, a story as true today as it was during the time of its creation. "East of Eden" was published in 1952, so we can assume Steinbeck was writing the story in the post-war years of the late 1940s and very early 1950s. In the story evil wins when the truly good are ambivalent, unwilling to spend time and effort to stand up to, or even acknowledge, the calculations of connivers. There could hardly be a better description of our present time.

I've read quite a few books in my life but this one has to be the best of the best. Taking a chance I picked it up. Short end of it, I couldn't put it down. I simply fell in love with Salinas Valley without having seen a picture. It was only afterwards that I understood why Steinbeck called his book "East of Eden." He weaves a tale with such ease and delight. I'll never forget the characters and theology expressed in the book. EOE left me with a sense of melancholy and nostalgia that I didn't even know I had.

A great classic. It covers two families settling Salinas, California. Steinbeck grew up there, and he knows his land and his people. The movie version eliminates an entire family and changes the characters a bit. I wouldn't give it to anyone immature or very young, because it covers some dark topics. Well worth the 602-page read.

"East of Eden" covers the time from the Civil War to World War I. The period between these two big wars offered a perfect slate for examining the human condition which becomes clear by showing the personalities, deeds and actions of two families, the Hamiltons and the Trasks. Yet this book is not simply a study of good vs evil but rather an ode to how conflicted and complicated human beings can be. And it is a story of how each action will bring on a reaction and then the consequences of such actions and individual decisions. There are three sets of characters covered in the book: the Hamiltons, a relatively poor but loving family headed up by Sam, the family patriarch, whose dreams and deeds were so often in the clouds though he had great personal strength and integrity. The Hamilton children are each covered individually. Secondly, there are the Trasks, a family led by a father who preaches duty over all else including love. He had two sons, Charles and Adam. The third character is the land itself, both back East (of California) where Charles lives and farms his rocky acres and especially in Salinas Valley, California. Steinbeck himself grew up in Salinas Valley and he must have greatly loved it for his descriptions are so vivid as to put the reader there with a gentle breeze ruffling tree leaves while scents of blossoms fill the air and one's fingers can feel the richness of the earth. Much has been made of the Cain/Abel comparison to the story in the Bible and with good reason. The two Trask sons, Charles and Adam are opposites and often at odds with one another. Charles never married while Adam's two sons, Cal (Caleb) and Aron (he did not like two A's in his name) are also of opposite personalities. So the age old question once again arises of whether humans are shaped by nature or nurture since both sets of boys lived with the same father under the same conditions. But how much consideration should be given to the fact the fathers favored one son over the other while the unfavored son knew of it and felt it? So clever of Steinbeck to build such strong characters for we, the readers, to ponder such questions! As each character is introduced the nature vs nurture question arises several times. For instance was Cathy Ames born with an evil mind which continued to develop and guide her throughout her life because she learned from an early age that she could manipulate people? No one stopped her or called her out on her negative manipulations and carefully crafted lies. No one asked her to be nice instead so she saw no reason to behave any other way. Cathy (who later called herself Kate) was very petite, extremely pretty and very clever making it difficult for those around her to look for negatives and, if any were found, they were disregarded. So was she (and most other people) born blank slates while the environment/nurture shapes the person? Or in the final analysis is it a combination of both nature and nurture? However, even Cathy/Kate had a few positives such as wounding her husband, Adam Trask, rather than killing him which she later admitted she aimed the wounding shot. As long as those around her completed their tasks to her satisfaction, she paid them what she agreed to with no effort to cheat them even though she was so powerful in her position that she could have done so and gotten away with it. Small things to be sure yet out of character for her overall since she had no scruples against cleverly murdering those who had something she wanted. And once meeting both sons at high school age, why did she favor the nicer one over the one who was more like her? Would the one who was more like her overcome his negatives as he matured? Although Steinbeck did an excellent job of developing and showing the personalities of each character perhaps one of the most pronounced was Lee, the Trask's live-in caretaker. Not only was Lee a learned and intelligent man, he had the inner strength to keep Adam and his two sons, Cal and Aron, reasonably functioning while dealing with his own nuances. There is the old adage: 'like likes like' and so it was with Lee and Sam Hamilton. They enjoyed sparing intellectually and respected each other greatly even though their lives otherwise varied significantly. It is through the development of each very different personality that Steinbeck really shines. Each person has his or her own weaknesses and strengths and his or her own individualism. There was also focus on how all the Hamilton children matured into such different individuals. Did those children differ that much from the Trask children and if so how and why? How each character from both families behaved based on their own personality is so realistic as to give the reader pause at times to stop reading and consider how it could be so. "East of Eden" is a book to be savored, to be absorbed and considered and remembered long after one reads the last page. I read modern love stories and mysteries for pleasure while also over the years having read many of the 100 best books of all time (also a pleasure!). Many of those books are 500 pages or more (East of Eden is 600) which gives the author space to develop characters while letting the reader sort through the angst and/or happiness to draw their own conclusions. Such as that cannot be rushed. It is my opinion that Steinbeck, within his characters, covered the majority of personality strengths and weaknesses found among humankind and he is to be commended for that accomplishment. "East of Eden" is highly recommended for those who like personality driven stories. The 600 pages will disappear before you know it and there you will sit strongly disappointed that the story ended while wishing it to continue. Steinbeck is a great story teller, one so deserving of the Nobel Prize for literature. What an honor that he left behind novels like this one for readers to savor for generations to come. This is true apparently due to his understanding of human nature and his eloquent and expressive use of language, also outstanding. The book could not have ended any other way in my opinion. It is after all up to each individual to choose their own path. A review should not give away too much about a story so know that this book is complex and full of showing to build each character through their deeds and many actions toward one another and to others. I loved this book so much that while I had already read "Grapes of Wrath" I will now read his other books and doubtless re-read this book as well, something I rarely ever do. After all, one remembers the good books while the others are easily forgotten. It will be a very long time before John Steinbeck is forgotten. His literary life will parallel that of Dickens and all those other long-lived writers we love so much centuries after their demise!