East of Eden
John Steinbeck
It’s not often in a realistic novel that you find the author
turning up as one of the characters. But in this saga about farming in the
Salinas Valley at the turn of the century John Steinbeck is tracing his own
family history. The plot focuses on two families: the Trasks and the Hamiltons.
The poor Hamiltons, on a patch of earth with no water and 6 (I think) children,
struggle by somewhat despite the incapability of the father Samuel Hamilton to
earn any money. The Trask family, one brother Adam moving out to the Salinas
Valley in the course of the novel leaving his hard childhood and scary brother
behind, continues with twin boys, Caleb and Aron (biblical reference obvious).
Now I read Steinbeck’s
most depressing work The Grapes of Wrath
a few years ago, and really enjoyed the vision and the detail, but it is
such a terrible, horrible novel about humans and greed. In contrast East of
Eden has it’s horrible moments, but it is much more rounded. There is young
love and exploitation, the severity of the land and the beginnings of accepting
multiculturalism. Some people find a problem with Steinbeck’s preaching narrator;
personally, I like it when the author lays out their cards as honestly as he
does – you know just whose side he is on and don’t have to guess!
The language can also be perfect:
“It was a deluge of a winter in the Salinas Valley, wet
and wonderful. The rains fell gently and soaked in and did not freshet. The
feed was deep in January, and in February the hills were fat with grass and the
coats of the cattle looked tight and sleek. In March the soft rain continued,
and each storm waited courteously until its predecessor sank beneath the
ground. Then warmth flooded the valley and the earth burst into bloom – yellow
and blue and gold.”
(Opening of
chapter 25)
One of the reasons I wanted to review East of Eden on
here was to have the chance to revel in it a bit further. It’s only when I
typed out that passage that I noticed all the subtleties of Steinbeck’s syntax.
It can be so easy to describe something in prose in a way that means nothing
because you’ve invested too many descriptors and no feeling for how a reader
will read your sentences. For me, this passage is the opposite because it
doesn’t look like it tries hard, but then you find such beauties as “each
storm waited courteously until its predecessor sank beneath the ground”.
Because it is a family saga, the plot spirals around
somewhat and sometimes could be accused of being overtly sensational. I won’t
go into too many details here, with the hope that some of you might still read
it, but the focus on the brothels in the second half of the book definitely
descends down that path. That’s not to say Steinbeck does a bad job at it – I wonder
if he were writing today whether he would have learnt his craft as a script
writer on Eastenders or telenovellas? The character of Cathy/Kate is
fascinating though, and well developed during the course of the novel. She
clearly holds a great deal of power over John Steinbeck:
“I believe there are monsters born in the world to human
parents. Some you can see, misshapen and horrible, with huge heads or tiny
bodies; some are born with no arms, no legs, some with three arms, some with
tails or mouths in odd places. They are accidents and no one’s fault, as used
to be thought. Once they were considered the visible punishments for concealed
sins.
And just as
there are physical monsters, can there not be mental or psychic monsters born?
The face and body may be perfect, but if a twisted gene or a malformed egg can
produce physical monsters, may not the same process produce a malformed soul?"
(Opening of
chapter 8)
This prose may feel outdated, but the theme is still
prevalent today. How can seemingly ordinary people act in ways completely alien
to the majority of society? Is it genetic or is it learnt? What are they
lacking? Steinbeck clearly comes down here on the side of genetical
malformation – i.e. it is nobody’s fault. But it’s a thin line between that and
the nature/nurture debate.
I hope I’ve
given you a taste of what is so enjoyable about East of Eden. Admittedly
it doesn’t have my favourite chapter in Steinbeck in it, the description of the
tortoise on the side of the highway from The
Grapes of Wrath, but the characters are its unforgettable part. I
wouldn’t know which to name as my favourites; they are all so three dimensional
– Sam Hamilton, Adam Trask, Tom Hamilton, Aron Trask, Caleb Trask, Charles
Trask, Lee, Cathy/Kate.
The storyline of the
novel is rather complicated. We are led from America to Paris, then back again
to New York, then back to Paris, then over to the west coast (to the owner of
the piano), all in the vain attempt made by Bea’s brother Marvin to control her
and his children. Marvin has already placed his wife in care, unable to deal
with her mental well-being. In fact the scenes with the wife, although she is such a minor character, have stuck with me, strangely, the most of all. But the novel doesn’t really focus on Marvin; it has
rather a patched-together perspective mainly dealing with Bea and her nephew
Julian. This is partly told through letters between Bea and Marvin, which
convey so brilliantly Ozick’s skill and character painting. I truly loathed
Marvin!
