I hate this book. Hate. Ponderous, pretentious, melodramatic, self-satisfied, patronizing to its readers, with ultimately nothing to say. Can be summarized thus: a bunch of people with no formal education whatsoever sit around discussing the time they read the Old Testament in Hebrew. They then tell us all how to live. Uh...right. I knew we were in trouble with the unbelievably lame introduction -- some forced, self-congratulatory metaphor about a box, if memory serves -- but it's hard to believ More...

My review of East of Eden is posted on The Chaotic Reader.

This book is mind blowing. It is John Steinbeck at his sharpest. He said that every author really only has one "book," and that all of his books leading up to East of Eden were just practice--Eden would be his book.

I could write a summary of the book, but it would be more trouble than it's worth. You will often hear it referred to as a "modern retelling of the Genesis story of Cain and Abel" but that is too simplistic. Steinbeck takes the story of Cain and Abel and makes Cain (in the form of Ca More...

I am on a golden roll of amazingly fantastic books!! East of Eden by John Steinbeck was our book club pick for this month. I almost didn't read it. You see, it's an old friend...and I ALMOST didn't re-read it... and that would have been tragic.


East of Eden is an epic story about good and evil. It tells the story of two families: the Trasks and the Hamiltons. It spans 3 generations and retells the Biblical story of Cain and Abel set in the Salinas Valley of Northern California.


Perspective...life More...

I finished this last night and afterwards, I lay back on my pillow extremely satisfied just thinking about it. It's so rare that I read something that delights me from beginning to end. While there were a few turns on the journey that confused me and seemed to take the book in a different direction, his connecting all the characters, the stories and do it with profound meaning is nothing short of brilliant. And to do it through his own person history, and one of the oldest stories of the Bible o More...

Although I do like Steinbeck’s strong, simple style of writing, this book let me down. With this book Steinbeck is delivering a message to his readers. I do agree with the message imparted, but I dislike that it is pounded into us. It isn’t enough to draw the story of Cain and Abel in one generation of a family, but Steinbeck repeats the story in the next generation of the family too. The message becomes a rant. God blessed Cain with freewill. That is the message, and it is up to us to choose wh More...

I want to marry this book and have it's babies. I can't remember the last time I felt such a deep sense of satisfaction after finishing a book. Every part of it was a delicious page turning delight. This was pretty close to perfection and it's up there as one of my top ten favorite books.

Steinbeck weaves his tale amongst gorgeously saturated descriptions of the Salinas valley, a truly beautiful part of the country. It's such a sweepingly epic and engrossing read which has everything a wonderful More...

i been lovin' on this book REAL hard. don't know how else to put it, really. too many different directions for praise. i adore the characters in this story, even the chillingly evil ones. and i love the short little chapters that steinbeck just shoved in every once in a while in order to assert his musings on the state of america. or writers. or war. or life. here's probably my favorite chapter in the whole book--it's one of the few random times Steinbeck writes in second person:

"You can see how More...

You can't take it with you when you go. That's how the saying goes. Whether you do or do not believe in an afterlife it doesn't matter, I just want you to mull on something for a moment. Some religions and cultures believe you can and must have things in the after life (money, food, protection from evil spirits, etc.) If I could take objects with me when I go, books would be my singular necessity. East of Eden being a must-have to nourish my eternal soul.

East of Eden is a classic, dense in quot More...

So, I'm going to take a stab at this...before I get too busy and before I forget what I've read -- and thought. (I've already moved on to another book...;-)

Overall, I thought this was a masterful piece of work - and realized this on the first page. I've glimpsed around a little bit on the internet and know that J.S. has received some criticism for this book (along with praise, too), but I didn't look too closely because I wanted my thoughts to be my own. I definitely saw/heard some pretty laudat More...

This book completely took me by surprise. I had to read it over the summer for my English class, and I put it off. This procrastination was due to the fact that I absolutely detested The Grapes of Wrath and was not looking forward to a novel that looked even longer and more boring. I finally was pressed to read it due to an impending test, and I was disappointed in myself that I had "judged a book by its cover". This novel was amazing. I never got bored, it was engrossing and the characters were More...

Before he started writing this novel, Steinbeck conceived of it as a gift for his sons. He wrote:

They are little boys now and they will never know what they came from through me, unless I tell them. It is not written for them to read now but when they are grown and the pains and joys have tousled them a little. And if the book is addressed to them, it is for good reason. I want them to know how it was, I want to tell them directly, and perhaps by speaking to them directly I shall speak directly

More...

A friend recommended this book to me as Steinbeck's best, and as a somewhat reluctant Steinbeck reader in the first place (I'd read Of Mice and Men in high school), I wasn't ecstatic to begin reading it--as I did at said friend's insistence. I will admit to a certain prideful stoicism in doing so--I felt like I was doing something supposedly "good for me," like avoiding trans fat or reading Beckett. But as I read I discovered that I liked it--Steinbeck had written an expansive, multigenerational More...

This is a long, long sermon masquerading as a novel. Its aim seems clear- to be the great American novel. In spite of, or maybe because of this overreach, it is completely unsatisfying. The characters are mere symbols. Most of the themes pertain to the characters’ moral dilemmas, but it is difficult to be drawn into these since the characters lack any real complexity. The men are various superlatives (greatest, kindest, wisest). There are two women characters, one evil and exaggerated to the poi More...

Oddly, I recently read East of Eden while running a medical clinic in the mountains of Guatemala. Without other electronic distractions and inhibited by my abysmal Spanish, the evenings were free to consume this “massive” tome in large chunks. A novel consumed over a short time is a rare treat indeed in these harried multi-tasking times. I confess to burning through the pages until the wee hours of the night; John Steinbeck’s self-proclaimed attempt at an “American classic” simply took me in.

I m More...

Then the Lord said to Cain, 'Where is your brother Abel?' 'I don't know,' he replied. 'Am I my brother's keeper?'

In the famed Biblical tale of Cain and Abel, the two brothers both make an offering to God. God likes Abel's offer, but not Cain's; out of jealousy, Cain slays Abel, and then is marked by God.

East of Eden is John Steinbeck's rather lengthy ode to that story. It follows two families, the Trasks and the Hamiltons. It's the Trask family, though, that represents Cain and Abel, with two s More...

Back in high school, I was required to read Grapes of Wrath for summer reading. You know what's NOT fun for a moody teen during a scorching August heatwave? A depressing story about dry, parched earth and poor farmers toiling endlessly but still getting screwed.

And then there was my encounter with Of Mice and Men. Not with the book... but with the OPERA. Yet again, courtesy of my high school, trying to inculcate culture into our gum-snapping brains.
Just imagine: George, the mildly-retarded Lenn More...

I have read this book at least ten times. It is one of my favorties of all time. Steinbeck's tendency to digress with scrillosophical passages that are in no way (?) connected to the story being told is probably the most egotistical and easily critiqued feature of his style of writing. It also accounts for some of my favorite passages.

"The spring flowers in a wet year were unbelievable. The whole valley floor, and the foothills too, would be covered with lupin and poppies. Once a woman told me t More...

And i finally finished.
Another thing about the re-read, it takes quite a bit longer! But I am so immensely satisfied that I did it, and I will do it again!
2nd reading: Dec 2007-April 2008
I have been immensely enjoying that a re-read means I go way slower through the text - finding words with meaning, rather than simply being all-consumed by the plot (which is oh so fabulous, by the way)

I also found my favorite chapter this time around. Cal gets the very first taste of how much his father has end More...

"It seems to me that if you or I must choose between two courses of thought or action, we should remember our dying and try so to live that our death brings no pleasure to the world.
We have only one story. All novels, all poetry, are built on the never ending contest in ourselves of good and evil. And it occurs to me that evil must constantly respawn, while good, while virtue, is immortal. Vice has always a new fresh young face, while virtue is venerable as nothing else in the world is."

From th More...

Even after a BA in English, the only Steinbeck I'd ever read was "Of Mice and Men" and really didn't like it. I read this on a friend's recommendation and WOW! Let's hear it for a modern-day classic! Besides the increcibly beautiful writing, this book has given me a lot to think about, both during and after reading. I've mostly been thinking of how many times a day, all through the years, we choose between good and evil, even in its lesser forms. East of Eden was a powerful story of where those More...

I literally could not put this down. Loose biblical parables have been around forever in literature, but what makes this so great is that it never just cops out by reducing down to one. Maybe the characters are fated or whatever, but they're also among the strongest characters he's written. Who wouldn't want to sit down for a beer with someone like Sam Hamilton or Lee? Who wouldn't want to claw out Cathy Ames's eyes? Who wouldn't want to offer some kind of reassurance to someone like Caleb Trask More...

I think that no literary character has ever so terrified me as Cathy Ames. This book troubled me while I was reading it, and it troubles me still now that I'm through.

I'd like to say that I liked the book, and in many ways I did--the plot, characters, narrational commentary, and general development were all compelling and fascinating to a very high degree. Yet I can't help but feel like reading this book and gazing into the soul (or lack thereof) of Cathy Ames ultimately had a net negative impa More...

I enjoyed the sections about the Hamilton family (Steinbeck's real ancestors) much more than the sections about the primary characters, all of whom are allegorical. Perhaps if there hadn't been the contrast between realism and allegory, I would have been able to enter into the allegorical world and enjoy it more. As it was, I simply wanted to read more about the Hamiltons. I did also enjoy the chapters that filled out the picture of life in Salinas at a particular time in history. The chapter in More...

"East of Eden" has a pretty endless series of delights. There's the writing--lyrical and spare at the same time. The richness of the characters--even the background players that only get a handful of lines will manage to make an impression. The observations about human nature-- they ring so true you have to slow down and let them rattle around in your head for a little bit.

I absolutely loved this wonderful book. And I didn't want it to end. The last book I felt this way about was "Cannery Row", More...

I read this book for my Book club (meeting and discussion is tonight) and I am so glad that I did. I know I read Steinbeck in school--The Pearl, Of Mice and Men--you know, the shorter novels--and then of course Travels with Charlie, but there was a dog, what's not to love--but I have never read E of E, never even had a desire. This book is amazing! There is so much going on in it, it tries (and mostly succeeds)in describing an entire world--the people are believeable, and scary at times, there i More...

i read this one years ago...navy, 32nd street naval station, library, on board either the john s mccain or the hepburn...probably the hepburn...
anyway, i wanted to read it again as i've read the grapes of wrath and of mice and men a number of times and i thought both of them to be great reads...of mice and men one of the best stories, ever...so, here i am again...a revisit to a story i first read in '78...even before i begin i begin to recall those times...

this story from 1952 begins:

the salinas More...

This books jumps to the top of my list for being an all time favorite. I was so skeptical picking it up, because I just hated Grapes of Wrath and assumed all of Steinbeck's work must be politically charged. But I found this to be a gripping page turner full of an authentic desire to seek and understand not only other people but our own motivations and the age old question "what am I here for?" So many layers of complexity to this novel, I think I'll be revisiting it in my mind over and over, pee More...