I read this due to my Steinbeck kick. I was a little worried about reading it immediately after The Grapes of Wrath but it was the perfect antidote to my melancholy mood. This is a travel journey by one of America’s preeminent authors who decided that that he no longer felt in touch with America and her people and wanted to find her again. Discontented seems to best describe the way he felt with his life when he set off on his journey in 1960 […]
Mine eyes have seen the glory
Buckle up, this one is pretty long. I finished this book a few days ago and the impression it made on me was so visceral, I had to wait to write about it. When I consider what it takes to be a classic, regardless of the medium, my first thought is timelessness. Will this item stand the test of time and all that entails? I believe that the term classic is bandied about too often and too frivolously. We call anything that we like […]
Living in Steinbeck’s World
Save your drafts as you go! I lost a really long double review for these books due to my own negligence. Ugh…. I moved to Monterey a year and a half ago, the home of Steinbeck and the setting for both of these novels. Both take place at real locations in the greater Monterey area, though Tortilla Flat is a fictional neighborhood, which added to my interest. Both novels follow a few main characters who live together and experience the effects of their shenanigans. […]
You’re bound to get idears if you go thinkin’ about stuff
What even is this novel? I read this in high school and didn’t know what to do with it, and then in college I was too under the influence who did not think Steinbeck was a good writer. She was obviously wrong, or more so entitled to her opinion, but this novel is unbearingly sad and unbearingly good. It’s not the most beautifully written novel, but it must be the most righteous one I’ve ever read. First off, the structure of the novel goes back […]