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Sweet Thursday (Penguin Modern Classics)
In Monterey, on the California coast, Sweet Thursday is what they call the day after Lousy Wednesday, which is one of those days that are just naturally bad. Returning to the scene of Cannery Row, the weedy lots and junk heaps and flophouses of Monterey, John Steinbeck once more brings to life the denizens of a netherworld of laughter and tears from Fauna, new headmistress...more
Paperback, 260 pages
Published
November 30th 2000
by Penguin Books, Limited (UK)
(first published 1954)
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Jul 08, 2008
Meghan
rated it
3 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Recommends it for:
People who liked Cannery Row
The sequel to Steinbeck's Cannery Row, it's difficult to nail down exactly why this novel isn't as good as its prequel. Sweet Thursday is still a very enjoyable book and managed to arouse and audible chuckle from me here and there, but, as the only work of Steinbeck's I've read that could be labeled as a "romantic comedy," it fell short of leaving me with that happy and slightly amazed feeling that Cannery Row succeeded in leaving behind. There were points in the story where I almost wanted to g...more
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I had read Cannery Row something like 15 years ago, and had forgotten a lot of the characters. So, it may not be essential to have read it prior to reading Sweet Thursday, but it does help.
There is a kind of style or attitude that Steinbeck brings to this world which is both sympathetic and very humorous. That's a difficult trick as it would be very easy for us to laugh at Hazel - a man who believes he will become President because of a horoscope reading from the madame of the local whore house...more
There is a kind of style or attitude that Steinbeck brings to this world which is both sympathetic and very humorous. That's a difficult trick as it would be very easy for us to laugh at Hazel - a man who believes he will become President because of a horoscope reading from the madame of the local whore house...more
The second time this book has caught me by surprise. He's got a very... I wanna say "astute," but it's something else. He just keeps "gettin'" (like GOTCHA!) me. Steinbeck has a voice I can tune in to. It's weird, like how singing voices resonate whether I like the music or not, styles of writing... they either rattle your bones, or it's nothing. Just a story. Words completely randomly and inelegantly strung together. end rant. a-a-a-and... :) here's the part...
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"... "You kn...more
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"... "You kn...more
4 likes · like · see review
Jan 30, 2013
RØB
rated it
5 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Recommends it for:
Fans Of CANNERY ROW
Recommended to RØB by:
The Internet
SWEEEEEEEEEEEEEEET THURSDAY! Man, finding out that this book existed, which I did only after reading CANNERY ROW this more recent, second, time, was like discovering a new manuscript of the Dead Sea Scrolls, or something, for me. Only all I had to do was go to the library and check it out! After tossin' back CANNERY ROW and finding myself scarcely able to get a hold of it, of course I was on the internet browsin' around about it to glean every little iota of information I could, and there, stari...more
Set after the end of The War, Sweet Thursday is the sequel to the popular Cannery Row. The nostalgic return to the setting of the first book finds Cannery Row, Monterrey, largely unchanged, with the Palace Flophouse, The Bear Flag, the store and Western Biological all still in existence; only the canneries have closed, a result of over-fishing. Mack, Hazel, Whitey number one and the others still reside in the Flophouse; only Gay is missing, having perished in The War. The new madam of The Bear F...more
It is impossible for me to separate Sweet Thursday from Cannery Row - so I cannot objectively comment on Sweet Thursday as a standalone novel.
Cannery Row is one of my favorite novels. Beginning as a high school assignment and continuing over the next 40 years I have read it a dozen times. Someone told me that Steinbeck wrote Cannery Row as a gift to the country during WWII - as something to make people happy. He succeeded in that goal. Cannery Row is simply magical. It has that certain 'somethi...more
Cannery Row is one of my favorite novels. Beginning as a high school assignment and continuing over the next 40 years I have read it a dozen times. Someone told me that Steinbeck wrote Cannery Row as a gift to the country during WWII - as something to make people happy. He succeeded in that goal. Cannery Row is simply magical. It has that certain 'somethi...more
Entertaining. It worked well as bed reading while on vacation.
Moved to read by Spoken Verse's suggestion, as part of his reading of R Dahl's Snow White & the 7 dwarves:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oSNpCg...
notes:
Brief description of each chapter in the index. Helpful for revisiting.
--126..old type beer can, punch open
--131..fauna (bear flag Madame) warped and nudged and bunted her young ladies toward good nature and kindliness, which are the parents of good sleep
--164..The Arming. Fauna c...more
Moved to read by Spoken Verse's suggestion, as part of his reading of R Dahl's Snow White & the 7 dwarves:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oSNpCg...
notes:
Brief description of each chapter in the index. Helpful for revisiting.
--126..old type beer can, punch open
--131..fauna (bear flag Madame) warped and nudged and bunted her young ladies toward good nature and kindliness, which are the parents of good sleep
--164..The Arming. Fauna c...more
Pretty Suzie
Certo, Doc non è Richard Gere, ma un biologo sgangherato e disincantato che torna a Vicolo Cannery dopo la guerra in uno stato di torpore e indolenza ben lungi dall'essere l'uomo di successo del film.
Eppure ho un debole per Doc, sin da quando l'ho incontrato in Vicolo Cannery o ne La Battaglia, così come doveva averlo anche Steinbeck per il suo amico fraterno, il biologo Ed Ricketts, che fu costantemente per lui influente fonte di ispirazione al punto di rappresentarlo, come in quest...more
Certo, Doc non è Richard Gere, ma un biologo sgangherato e disincantato che torna a Vicolo Cannery dopo la guerra in uno stato di torpore e indolenza ben lungi dall'essere l'uomo di successo del film.
Eppure ho un debole per Doc, sin da quando l'ho incontrato in Vicolo Cannery o ne La Battaglia, così come doveva averlo anche Steinbeck per il suo amico fraterno, il biologo Ed Ricketts, che fu costantemente per lui influente fonte di ispirazione al punto di rappresentarlo, come in quest...more
I read this book and loved this book a long time ago, when I was young and didn't know anything. So I re-read it and loved it, but at least now with the knowledge that comes from living on this planet for 40 years. I love how Steinbeck is mythic and straightforward at the same time, both amazingly complex in his construction of character and sparse in his language. I've always found him to be one of the profound writers; I admire that he can get at deepest and most truthful observations of human...more
Both more focused and more flighty than "Cannery Row," this nine-years-later sequel (1954) surely is one of John Steinbeck's most fun and delightful books. From the get-go, it's obvious things have changed a bit in Cannery Row, and Steinbeck's approach has, too. In the prologue, Palace Flophouse dweller Mack is complaining to a cohort about the first book, including the lack of chapter titles. "Sweet Thursday," it turns out, becomes the only Steinbeck novel with chapter titles (and often with ob...more
My Take:
Sweet. The relationships of the town are endearing. Suzy is difficult to care about, but grows on you after awhile. It is about love led astray - it seems really simple concept of getting these two together. I can't say that it affected me though, but I do like that Suzy broke away to try to make it on her own, without any help. It shows a strong, independent woman, which I appreciate rather than a weak woman stereotype. I believe in self-sufficiency, but can also appreciate a hand when...more
Sweet. The relationships of the town are endearing. Suzy is difficult to care about, but grows on you after awhile. It is about love led astray - it seems really simple concept of getting these two together. I can't say that it affected me though, but I do like that Suzy broke away to try to make it on her own, without any help. It shows a strong, independent woman, which I appreciate rather than a weak woman stereotype. I believe in self-sufficiency, but can also appreciate a hand when...more
This is Steinbeck's sequel to Cannery Row. Using the scale of any other writer it's a great book, but since Steinbeck has a higher scale, it gets only three stars. Doc returns to Cannery Row from fighting in World War II. Some of the other characters from the first book are still around. "Mac and the Boys" still bum around, but Lee Chong and Dora are gone. Lee Chong sold the store to a man named Joseph and Mary. It took some getting used to before I could read "Joseph and Mary" and realize that...more
I just finished this one this morning. Utterly, utterly brilliant. I read Cannery Row a while ago and bought Sweet Thursday a while ago too. Since the bairns came along, my books tend to be consumed in audio fashion rather than in the more tangible paper form. As we were travelling to Scotland and back recently and would be spending time in a B&B, I thought I would take a book along. I grabbed this one off my shelf and was hooked right from the start.
It's hard to describe why this is so goo...more
It's hard to describe why this is so goo...more
I have to say I was kind of hoping this book would have been just that much better than Cannery Row, given that Steinbeck would have had another 10 years' experience under his belt. But I wouldn't say his writing had changed much or improved from the previous look at the Monterey neighbourhood. In fact, surprisingly, this is a full on romance story. It doesn't change much in difference to most romance novels except that the main characters aren't the ones being active in their own roles. Instead...more
I read this right after Cannery Row and taken as a whole, this is a very good book. But split in two, you can't help compare the two. Both take place on Cannery Row and has more or less the same main characters with a few exeptions. Cannery Row is about a party Mack and the boys want to throw for Doc which goes very wrong and is a picture of this little community with little plot whereas Sweet Thursday takes place after WWII and when Doc comes back, he's a bit disillusioned and that effects all...more
published nearly a decade after cannery row, sweet thursday is a revisiting of the characters popularized in steinbeck's earlier work. the row again serves as the backdrop, though this time during the years following world war ii. old faces abound (doc, mack, hazel, eddie), as do some new ones. the bear flag, the palace flophouse, western biological, and lee chong's (under new management) are each here as well, and life on the row seems to have sauntered on all the while.
sweet thursday is as ric...more
sweet thursday is as ric...more
Sweet Thursday is the sequel to Cannery Row, one of my favorite of Steinbeck’s books. I’ve read the epic masterpieces, like East of Eden and Grapes of Wrath. I’ve read the shorter morality tales, like Of Mice and Men and The Pearl. Yet after all of those brilliant works, my favorites remain his road trip memoir, Travels with Charley, and Cannery Row. I may get more depth and inner turmoil from his other works, but these are the ones I relate, the ones I want to return to.
Sweet Thursday quickly...more
Sweet Thursday quickly...more
Sequel to Cannery Row this may be, but this is an entirely different book that we're dealing with.
What I missed most in Sweet Thursday, that had been present in Cannery Row were the beautiful passages of nature writing. We still have Doc visiting the tidal fields but there's no magic in there. Aside from such lyrical musings on the perfect days of the title, there's nothing like it to be found. Instead of the place we get the people; shoddy, post-war versions of people.
OK, so that may come off...more
What I missed most in Sweet Thursday, that had been present in Cannery Row were the beautiful passages of nature writing. We still have Doc visiting the tidal fields but there's no magic in there. Aside from such lyrical musings on the perfect days of the title, there's nothing like it to be found. Instead of the place we get the people; shoddy, post-war versions of people.
OK, so that may come off...more
Having all ready read Cannery Row I was very much looking forward to this novel. In this return to Cannery Row very little seems to have changed apart from the Arrival of the devious Patron, Joseph and Mary, who has taken over Lee Chong's Store.
As the story evolves we find that Doc is undergoing a personal crisis and appears to be suffering melancholia. This causes his friends great dismay and, as they soon set about helping Doc, the consensus is to pair him with the newly arrived Suzy, who is s...more
As the story evolves we find that Doc is undergoing a personal crisis and appears to be suffering melancholia. This causes his friends great dismay and, as they soon set about helping Doc, the consensus is to pair him with the newly arrived Suzy, who is s...more
I could never give Steinbeck less than a fourth star rating. His literature is easy to follow for a left brainer like myself. This story brings the extemity of solitude from the main character who has the heart to help everyone around him but himself. He is intelligent and successful with no one to share it with. As soon as his friends and the hooker with the golden heart sees an opportunity to fix this, everyone else around town plays a part in setting him up with the new kid in town. Nerds and...more
Lightning never strikes twice. You can't go home again.
So, Cannery Row is my favorite novel of all time. This is the sequel to it written nine bumpy years in John Steinbeck's life later, which included the tragic death of his close friend Ed Ricketts who inspired the character of Doc. This book has the same humor, charm and meticulousness underneath the meandering surface but it doesn't quite measure up. Part of me desperately wants to give it 4 stars because I so much enjoyed reading about Can...more
So, Cannery Row is my favorite novel of all time. This is the sequel to it written nine bumpy years in John Steinbeck's life later, which included the tragic death of his close friend Ed Ricketts who inspired the character of Doc. This book has the same humor, charm and meticulousness underneath the meandering surface but it doesn't quite measure up. Part of me desperately wants to give it 4 stars because I so much enjoyed reading about Can...more
Apr 04, 2013
Jamie
rated it
5 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
favorites,
the-wild-west
Had I known this was a sequel to Cannery Row, I would have read this the minute I finished Cannery Row. (How did I not know there was a sequel to Cannery Row!) But, thank you, Elmore Leonard. I decided that this year, I’m taking my favorite authors and reading the books they’ve read. To follow that thread, that slow-burn rapture, the world unfolding from a singular point of view. And thus: I found Sweet Thursday, the sequel to Cannery Row, from the man that makes more sense than anybody that he’...more
I read this before, years ago. When I was in junior high-high shcool (I guess calling it junior high kind of dates me), the girl friend and I went on a real Steinbeck jag. I still remember her coming back from Pentwater one summer, I'm sitting on the balcony, and she's coming down the street yelling that she just read the greaterst book. Not sure it was this one, I think it was Cannery Row, which was the precursor to this book.
It's funny, most of the stories that I remember from the movie "Canne...more
It's funny, most of the stories that I remember from the movie "Canne...more
"Cannery Row" is my favorite John Steinbeck novel. So, when I found out about the sequel, "Sweet Thursday," I immediately added it to my reading list.
"Sweet Thursday" takes readers back to the familiar denizens of Cannery Row. In this book, Mack and Hazel, two of the fellows from the Palace Flophouse, decide that nothing will do but that they must arrange for Doc Ricketts to be married. And, of course, the bride-to-be must be Suzy -- the new girl at the Bear Flag (for those unfamiliar, the Bear...more
"Sweet Thursday" takes readers back to the familiar denizens of Cannery Row. In this book, Mack and Hazel, two of the fellows from the Palace Flophouse, decide that nothing will do but that they must arrange for Doc Ricketts to be married. And, of course, the bride-to-be must be Suzy -- the new girl at the Bear Flag (for those unfamiliar, the Bear...more
I read "Sweet Thursday" having just read "Cannery Row" and in all honesty i would not say i enjoyed this book much more than "Cannery Row" or much less. Having said that "Cannery Row" like "Sweet Thursday" was an enjoyable read and in the overall a worth-while read.
The book keeps its Main chracters that we warmed too in Cannery Row while introudcing a few more chracters that we soon warm to two. There was times where I cracked a grin or shimmerd a cheeky smile, there was also times where i woul...more
The book keeps its Main chracters that we warmed too in Cannery Row while introudcing a few more chracters that we soon warm to two. There was times where I cracked a grin or shimmerd a cheeky smile, there was also times where i woul...more
In Monterey, on the California coast, Sweet Thursday is what they call the day after Lousy Wednesday, which is one of those days that are just naturally bad. Returning to the scene of Cannery Row—the weedy lots and junk heaps and flophouses of Monterey, John Steinbeck once more brings to life the denizens of a netherworld of laughter and tears—from Fauna, new headmistress of the local brothel, to Hazel, a bum whose mother must have wanted a daughter.
Nobel Prize-winning author
I'm in the middle of too many books, but being in Monterey this weekend I had an unquenchable thirst for Steinbeck. Since I loved Cannery Row, I thought I'd like to catch up with what happened to the denizens after the war.
Wondering if Steinbeck's greatest strength is his ability to capture relationships between people -- especially friendships. Friendships of the oddest sort -- between the hapless denizens of the Palace Flophouse, who landed there like jellyfish on the ocean beach and Doc, a me...more
Wondering if Steinbeck's greatest strength is his ability to capture relationships between people -- especially friendships. Friendships of the oddest sort -- between the hapless denizens of the Palace Flophouse, who landed there like jellyfish on the ocean beach and Doc, a me...more
I was delighted to find that this existed. I unfortunately had no idea somehow and it came to my attention at a $1 table in a used book store. There is a long and romantic tale of how/why I came to read and idealize Cannery Row that I will not go into. I felt that Sweet Thursday captured the town in a weird eddy, a decline. The bigger questions it made me contemplate were what does it mean to not have fulfilling relationships in a town but stay there anyway. Do Doc and Suzy really make "sense" f...more
If you like Cannery Row, you'll like Sweet Thursday. (It is the sequel after all.) At first, I was disappointed. Some of Cannery Row's familiar characters are no longer present, so I thought it was going to be one of those lame sequels that suck the life out of the first. But I kept reading and ended up really enjoying it. I loved Doc in Cannery Row, but this time around the seemingly dim-witted Hazel is the unlikely, loveable hero. As usual, Steinbeck captures the essence of people and their re...more
I can't help myself -- I really enjoyed this book. Steinbeck's Cannery Row reprise has a lot of heart and is a lot of fun. I kept waiting for tragedy and spoiler alert -- it never happened. A feel good novel replete with loads of Biblical imagery which gives the book a feeling of Bible-lite. The prophet steals candy bars. The savior is someone who can't even count their own toes and redemption is something that comes from the trinity of the individual, the other and the community. Definitely a s...more
| topics | posts | views | last activity | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Did anyone read this without reading Cannery Row? | 11 | 20 | Jan 30, 2013 11:10am | |
| Goodreads Librari...: Page number | 2 | 21 | Sep 11, 2012 02:38pm |
John Steinbeck III was an American writer. He wrote the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Grapes of Wrath, published in 1939 and the novella Of Mice and Men, published in 1937. In all, he wrote twenty-five books, including sixteen novels, six non-fiction books and several collections of short stories.
In 1962 Steinbeck received the Nobel Prize for Literature.
Steinbeck grew up in the Salinas Valley...more
More about John Steinbeck...
In 1962 Steinbeck received the Nobel Prize for Literature.
Steinbeck grew up in the Salinas Valley...more
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“You've seen the sun flatten and take strange shapes just before it sinks in the ocean. Do you have to tell yourself every time that it's an illusion caused by atmospheric dust and light distorted by the sea, or do you simply enjoy the beauty of it?”
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