East of Eden by John Steinbeck
Why on earth did it take me so long to read this? I picked up a lesser-known work of his, Sweet Thursday, a year or so ago from my favourite bookshop; the local charity shop. And thought it was wonderful. Simple, honest, insightful, intelligent, caring and humane writing. This one physically comes in much, much bigger. I took a deep breath, opened it and dived in. And goodness. It was a delight every night to open the pages and fall into another world. Evocative of California in the early 20th century, in that turning time from pioneer country to consumer-driven world power. All the big meaty themes of life are here, with characters doing what it takes to make a living from the soil, from the army, from shops, from inheritances, and given what seems to be for Steinbeck a rather familiar relationship with whorehouses, from lying on their back.
For me he seems to move things along wonderfully as a story-teller, and through his characters drops into insights of the human condition with as much power as Shakespeare – our greatness and our futility, our quirkiness and our wisdom. Take this, as a character describes his old horse: “Do you know I paid two dollars for him thirty-three years ago? Everything was wrong with him, hoofs like flapjacks. He’s hammer headed and sway backed. He has a pinched chest and a big behind. He has an iron mouth and still fights the crupper. With a saddle it feels like you are riding a sled over a gravel pit. He can’t trot and stumbles over his feet when he walks. <and on and on it goes> I have never in thirty-three years found one good thing […]