Notes by bookhound

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East of Eden

(Penguin Orange Collection)

By John Steinbeck

From the Penguin Orange Collection series

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There's a lot I could say here, but I just have time to jot down some key themes:

• Goodness and evilness are not predetermined. We can always make the choice (thou mayest/timshel)
• Money and expensive gifts are often spurned or at least not prized by most of Steinbeck's "good" characters, and when money does come about it's usually from questionable sources (with the exception of Will Hamilton, perhaps); this is consistent with his other writing
• Cathy/Kate is pure evil - perhaps the serpent in this biblically-inspired book. (This bothered me at first because she's the only character that doesn't seem to have any nuance until he began describing her more and more as some sort of supernatural creature -- which in itself seems like such a departure from Steinbeck's works. Once I believed that she was not human, it was an easier pill to swallow that she was so one dimensional. Even as a one dimensional character, she was clever and wicked in relatively novel ways.)
• Steinbeck weaved his own family's story into this one. I'm not entirely sure why unless it was to provide a counter-example to the Trasks. Not sure that was entirely necessary though and why not just dedicate an entire book to his own family? There's plenty to work with! (His side stories about Dessie and Olive and Tom were very rich.)
• Sam and Lee are the wise, reflective, and charasmatic characters. I would also love to read entire books dedicated to their own stories. (We got a lot about Sam's already but I feel like there's more to tell with Lee. His birth story is one of the most horrifying and heartbreaking scenes I've read.)

TLDR: Worth reading for the character Lee alone, but otherwise not my favorite Steinbeck work. (To be fair, though, that's a high bar.)

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608 pages

Published Oct 17, 2016 by Penguin Classics

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Fiction - Classics

Fiction - Literary

Fiction - Sagas

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