MobileRead Book Club April 2015 Discussion: Cannery Row (spoilers)

[BelleZora]

I first read Cannery Row about 20 years after it was published when I was about sixteen. I adored it because I had known - or been related to - many similar characters. But unlike most books, they are seen through each other's eyes, and therefore with love and humor, rather than through the eyes of the rest of society who would see them as stereotypes and outcasts.

Perhaps, Issybird, you have led a sheltered life. I also found Lee Chong to be far from inscrutable. I've loved Steinbeck from my earliest years. He heard the people with no voice and told their stories in his books. At times he was more successful than others, but he was always real.

[issybird]

Originally Posted by BelleZora

Perhaps, Issybird, you have led a sheltered life.

That's a tad personal, don't you think, and unwarranted? Sheltered life or not, and I think it's a mistake to make such an inference based on a negative reaction to a book, one does not have to have experienced something to have empathy, nor does the contrapositive necessarily hold.

Breifly, to me, the characters read "cute" and Steinbeck's attitude toward them was condescending. Personally, and now I'm bringing the personal to it, but I'm talking about myself, I tend more toward Thoreau's "The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation." There wasn't enough desperation in this sanitized Cannery Row for it to ring true to me. No doubt a reflection on something lacking in my background.

[BelleZora]

You are absolutely right, issy, and I apologize. That certainly sounded more personal and judgemental than I intended. I have enjoyed, and learned from, your posts over the years, and have immense respect for your background that has made you such a delightful contributor to MR.

Apparently I am a bit too emotionally attached to John Steinbeck.

[treadlightly]

Originally Posted by issybird

There wasn't enough desperation in this sanitized Cannery Row for it to ring true to me.

This is exactly it. The tone of the book seemed too "happy".

[issybird]

Originally Posted by BelleZora

I apologize.

I'm sorry I was snarky about it.

Originally Posted by treadlightly

This is exactly it. The tone of the book seemed too "happy".

That's why I thought the legless train track sleeper a necessary but insufficient reality check.

[BelleZora]

Speaking only out of my own experience, particularly when young when I identified with this book, desperation and humor go hand in hand. This was their life. There was no point in self pity or hand wringing, but there was always plenty to laugh about.

Full disclosure since I've already revealed myself to be a biased participant in this thread: Steinbeck's viewpoint was like that of my father (and Will Rogers) who could turn the most desperate situation into an occasion for hilarity and reveal the most disreputable people to be lovable. That is why it felt real to me. It is impossible to be unbiased with those kinds of associations.

But from now on I will try hard to be objective.

[sun surfer]

I really enjoyed the book. It's a good evocation of a very particular setting that has resonance anywhere.

I can see the criticism of Steinbeck being condescending and the more rosy disposition of the novel. Perhaps Steinbeck is an antidote to Dostoyevsky?

However, I don't necessarily see this cheerfulness as a bad thing. I thought the book was still revealing about human nature and it had an optimism about it that I liked. Maybe the book wasn't written simply to let us who are in comfortable homes have a view of these people's bleak or desperate existences, but rather to illuminate how people living a hard and low-caste life can be good people, are still just people like anyone else and can still make the best of things, have good times and enjoy life despite it all - and even despite themselves - without being too saccharine and while still maintaining a certain level of realism. It can come off as condescending but I think he was celebrating these people. I liked how Steinbeck correlated "whores, pimps, gamblers and sons of bitches" to "Saints and angels and martyrs and holy men", and I also liked this excerpt:

"It has always seemed strange to me," said Doc. "The things we admire in men, kindness and generosity, openness, honesty, understanding and feeling are the concomitants of failure in our system. And those traits we detest, sharpness, greed, acquisitiveness, meanness, egotism and self-interest are the traits of success. And while men admire the quality of the first they love the produce of the second."

[Merischino]

I just finished. I remember, vaguely, having read the Grapes of Wrath and The Pearl and Of Mice and Men but to be honest I don't remember whether I liked them much or not.

spoilers ahead

Spoiler:

I did enjoy Cannery Row from start to finish although like others I thought it lacked a plotline. My favorite bit is how Eddie collects the undrunk alcohol in a jug with a funnel... yuck and yet how ingenious.

I thought the legless man towards the end was gratuitous ... I would have wanted to know more about him before the misfortune, or if not at least some mention of his transition after. I disagree with some of the other comments about the book being too "happy". I think that people at the low to nonexistent end of the income scale have memorable moments of friendship and contentment, too and the sort of gentle slow movement from one vignette to another I thought worked well.

I particularly liked the frog economy though I felt bad for Lee Chong having fully lost out on his investment. I wanted to know how the skater ate and drank -- who was at his service bringing meals and/or timing the potty breaks so as not to invalidate his eligibility for the record if he made it that far. I wanted to know why cod liver oil helped reinvigorate the puppy and how anyone could find a long succession of girls who would be willing to live toilet-free in a boat for months at a time. I felt bad for Gay and his change in plans after leaving the greatly modified "model T" truck.

I spent a lot of time looking up words... mostly various forms of marine life that, without a picture in the dictionary or wikipedia, I was only able to further identify into categories like "fish" or "marine life not a fish but attaches to something " or "marine life not a fish swimming freely" or no description. I was quite grossed out by Doc's chicken salad consisting not of chicken but sea cucumber... but not having ever seen or et a sea cucumber perhaps I shouldn't assume that would be gross.

All in all it was an enjoyable book to read and I'm glad the book club chose it because otherwise I likely never would have.

Originally Posted by sun surfer

...<snip> and I also liked this excerpt:

I thought about posting that very same excerpt as I read it. I'm glad you did.

[WT Sharpe]

Originally Posted by sun surfer

...and I also liked this excerpt:

Originally Posted by Merischino

...I thought about posting that very same excerpt as I read it. I'm glad you did.

I didn't post it, but I did highlight that passage as I was reading it. It is food for thought.

[caleb72]

I really enjoyed Cannery Row.

Last year I read Grapes of Wrath which I gave 4 stars, intending 4.5 stars, but now nostalgically remembering as 5 stars. Although this was a very different reading experience to GoW, I felt there was a similarity in how Steinbeck treated the characters.

Like some others have mentioned, I really sensed the love Steinbeck had for the characters in Cannery Row, but I felt it equally in the darker novel.

However, I don't necessarily see this cheerfulness as a bad thing. I thought the book was still revealing about human nature and it had an optimism about it that I liked. Maybe the book wasn't written simply to let us who are in comfortable homes have a view of these people's bleak or desperate existences, but rather to illuminate how people living a hard and low-caste life can be good people, are still just people like anyone else and can still make the best of things, have good times and enjoy life despite it all - and even despite themselves - without being too saccharine and while still maintaining a certain level of realism.

Yes, yes, yes.

While reading this "novel", I remembered the stories my mother and father used to tell me of growing up in very poor homes. Their stories (particularly my father's) were of larger-than-life characters and humorous events. And despite the obvious lack of means, the memories are of joy and mischief, and the tales of struggle are always told with a certain fondness and nostalgia. This is what I felt when reading Cannery Row.

In the end, I didn't quite like it quite as much as Grapes of Wrath, but I definitely enjoyed it. I haven't decided on my next Steinbeck, but there will definitely be one.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by caleb72

....
In the end, I didn't quite like it quite as much as Grapes of Wrath, but I definitely enjoyed it. I haven't decided on my next Steinbeck, but there will definitely be one.

perhaps "Of Mice and Men" (if you haven't read it already)

[caleb72]

Originally Posted by kennyc

perhaps "Of Mice and Men" (if you haven't read it already)

I should have mentioned that I've read that one already - in high school. I really liked it too.

[CRussel]

The only Steinbeck in my current TBR is Travels With Charley - In Search of America:

Spoiler:

In September 1960, John Steinbeck embarked on a journey across America. He felt that he might have lost touch with the country, with its speech, the smell of its grass and trees, its color and quality of light, the pulse of its people. To reassure himself, he set out on a voyage of rediscovery of the American identity, accompanied by a distinguished French poodle named Charley; and riding in a three-quarter-ton pickup truck named Rocinante.

His course took him through almost forty states: northward from Long Island to Maine; through the Midwest to Chicago; onward by way of Minnesota, North Dakota, Montana (with which he fell in love), and Idaho to Seattle, south to San Francisco and his birthplace, Salinas; eastward through the Mojave, New Mexico, Arizona, to the vast hospitality of Texas, to New Orleans and a shocking drama of desegregation; finally, on the last leg, through Alabama, Virginia, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey to New York.

Travels with Charley in Search of America is an intimate look at one of America's most beloved writers in the later years of his life—a self-portrait of a man who never wrote an explicit autobiography. Written during a time of upheaval and racial tension in the South—which Steinbeck witnessed firsthand—Travels with Charley is a stunning evocation of America on the eve of a tumultuous decade.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by CRussel

The only Steinbeck in my current TBR is Travels With Charley - In Search of America:

Yep, I need to read that one, one of these days!

[WT Sharpe]

Sounds like a great travel book.