What got me going on this book was a random post or article that I read, where someone (who?) said this was their essential book. I realised I hadn’t read anything by Steinbeck; the nearest I have come to his work was to go and see a stage production of Of Mice and Men with my son Joe when he was about eleven years old. The experience made a great impression on him, and he remembers it to this day (he is now 40). I wasn’t sure what to expect, but ordered a copy from the library and dived in.
The first thing I must say is that this is not a short book! It arrived from the library as a compact paperback, but with very small print. Page count: over 700. The language is not difficult and the events happen sequentially, so it really does read as a story.
And what a story. Steinbeck begins by telling us about his grandparents’ early days in California as newly-arrived migrants from Ireland in the 1870s. The Hamilton family is a large one, and Samuel is a larger-than-life character who, although not the main protagonist of the story, is key to its unfolding. His neighbour Adam Trask holds centre stage, and a good chunk of the early part of the book is devoted to Adam’s ‘back story’, his childhood and youth in Connecticut, his domineering and deceitful father and his aggressive brother Charles. Adam has an unsteady life until he falls helplessly for the other main character in the story, the manipulative and seemingly unfeeling Cathy. Is Cathy the embodiment of pure evil? Or is she rather the product of her own upbringing and the choices she has made in life? Her relationship with the adoring Adam could be her salvation, but she uses him as she has used others throughout her life.
The latter part of the story shows us Adam’s relationships with his twin sons as they grow into young men. The Trask family is held together by their Chinese servant Lee – more of a friend than a servant – and this surprising all-male household seems to show an alternative view of family life with all its tensions, and beneath it all, love.
This book might be called an epic. Without reading any reviews or critiques (and surely this is the kind of book that must be on many a school or university reading list) I can say that the characters inhabited me, and I doubt they will go away any time soon. Each of them has failings, and there are several moments where Adam is ready to give up on life. His barely acknowledges his twins for ten years after Cathy leaves him, so wrapped up is he in her (or his image of her). It is not until Lee shows him that she is now running a brothel, and he goes to meet her and recognises her cold heart, that Adam comes out of his trance. Even then, you suspect he has not stopped loving her.
I could go on… and I apologise (too late) if the above narrative is something of a spoiler. During the ‘lockdown’ imposed by the coronavirus epidemic, I have had the luxury of keeping my library books longer than usual. I will have to give this one back eventually – but I can see myself buying a copy to read again. Nearest comparison: Middlemarch (which I have read several times).
A rug and a book 