East of Eden (Oprah Book Club Series) (1952 original; edició 2002)

Now I understand why Steinbeck's literature has endured. East of Eden is allegory, philosophy, psychology, American history, and a great story—and I may have missed a few things. It's set in Connecticut and the Salinas Valley. I've lived in both, and Steinbeck's painterly descriptions of these environments kept me interested until I got swept up in the story.

Steinbeck placed his big reveal of the allegorical underpinning of his story right at the halfway point. And when he did, I was as excited as the main characters. His characters are bigger than life, yet complex and masterfully drawn. I'm gushing.

East of Eden was banned for language and morality. It has a religious subtext and may have been too avant garde for its time.

I found the gorgeous Penguin Steinbeck Centennial Edition at the Goodwill store. It was printed in the USA and set in Janson.

Around the year in 52 books challenge notes:
#10. A book that is between 400-600 pages. It's 601 pages actually, but the text starts on page 3, so I think it fits. ( )

An incredible story. Samuel Hamilton, Cathy Ames, and Caleb Trask might be three of my favorite and most interesting characters I've ever read about. The biblical motifs were extremely well done, and had a profound effect on me, even being as non-religious as I am. The philosophical questions this book brought up were amazing and it dealt with deep topics in a very interesting and digestible way. Topics such as what it means to be human and innate evil vs good, free will, and original sin as presented in The Book of Genesis with the story of Cain and Abel. ( )

I'd like to believe in a version where Lee and Sam Hamilton elope and wander the world. ( )

Entre la guerra de secesión y la primera guerra mundial, dos familias viven a lo largo de tres generaciones en el lejano valle de Salinas. Tras acompañar a la familia Hamilton en su épico asentamiento en California, el lector penetra en el sofocante mundo de los Trask, en el que Adam, un hombre de costumbres estrictas y severas, intenta educar en el recto camino a sus hijos Aron y Cal, tras ser abandonado por su mujer, a quien nadie en la familia se atreve a nombrar. Aron es trabajador, obediente y cumplidor. Cal, inquieto y siempre insatisfecho, no soporta el peso del silencio en torno a su madre, cuyo carácter indomable cree él —y secretamente también Adam— que ha heredado; así pues, ya es inevitable la lucha soterrada por el reconocimiento del padre, cuyo rechazo hacia Cal conduce a éste a la más provocadora rebeldía. Un día, Cal se siente extrañamente atraído por la misteriosa Cathy Adams, que regenta el burdel más célebre de la región. A partir de ese instante, la maldición caerá sobre Cal, condenado irremisiblemente a permanecer al este de un elusivo Edén...

This is an excellent book that suffers from what I call 100-Years-of-Solitude syndrome. It spans three generations of the same characters, and the allegories reiterate themselves from generation to generation. It's a good read, but any one of the generations would have been a fine book on its own, and in aggregate they don't do much more than hammer home the same blunt Biblical allusions. Is it neat that the three generations echo and rhyme? Absolutely! But it's a hard thing to keep up steam for over the long haul.

Anyway, that's the bad. The good is the book itself. There are lots of fascinating characters, each of whom exemplifies some aspect of human psychology. Reading through East of Eden feels a lot like casting acquaintances from your life into book form; there are lots of characters, and with the exception of Aron, each of them rings true. My girlfriend suggests that we can learn more about the human condition from fiction than we can from psychology, and books like these make me thing she might be onto something there.

Is this the best book I've ever read? No, but I'm happy I made it through. It could have used an aggressive editor, but the scale of the world, the characters, and the recurrent themes make it a breath of fresh air compared to most modern literature. I doubt this book will stick with me, but I can see why it's considered a classic. ( )