Birthday Book Recs 45/50 : East of Eden by John Steinbeck
East of Eden by John Steinbeck
Birthday Book Recs: 45/50
East of Eden by John Steinbeck
Still truckin’ along here…even though I’m now closer to 51 than 50.
I went through a big John Steinbeck kick in my late teens early 20s. I wanted to put a Steinbeck — and East of Eden in particular — on this list for 3 reasons:
1) His novels capture a “new” America. (Of course there are much newer versions of this country as well. Here’s to evolving and refining and fighting the bumps along the way.) I do enjoy some good ol’ early American lit (à la Hawthorne et al), but if someone told me that the American Canon could only include pre-20th-century works and that is all I could ever read, I’d reply “I would prefer not to” in the spirit of Herman Melville’s “Bartleby, the Scrivener.” I lived in the Northeast for many years but my gaze — like a covered wagon — is always pointed Westward.
2) Despite the heft, East of Eden is so damn readable. I plowed through this one — for fun (!) — during my senior year of high school while on a spring break trip with my family in Central Oregon. (Which is also when Kurt Cobain died, so all this is tied together as a super core memory for me.) Call me crazy, but I think this 600-ish-page novel about two families in California’s Salinas Valley set mostly during the early 1900s would make a great vacation read. In hindsight, I’m wondering if the Genesis allusions are a bit heavy-handed and sentimental, but that’s ok…sometimes obvious symbolism can make something profound feel effortless.
3) BBR Number 45 was a toss-up between East of Eden and The Grapes of Wrath, but I went with this one because Grapes was a school read for me, and I thought an 18-year-old reading this of her actual, own volition might move the needle. Oh, and a Netflix limited series is apparently coming out in the fall? And of course James Dean starred in the original adaptation! So there’s pop culture relevance that will maybe move the needle even more. If you need even more needle moving, here’s your reminder that Oprah championed East of Eden 23 years ago, and I do believe that she’s the ultimate needle-moving celeb book pusher.
You can find all my 50th Birthday Book Recommendations HERE.
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