Thoughts on east of eden?

i feel like it doesn't get as much as appreciation as it should b/c it was force-fed to us in school

>muh timshel

Fuck off with your reddit-tier literature

you're pathetic

My favorite book. It will stick with you forever.

right? i love it because it has steinbok's amazing description and style but it isn't as naturalistic as his other books...man actually has a shot creating his own destiny...

Lee and Cathy are the best characters.

i went through all of school without having to read any steinbeck, can you believe that? but i did end up reading him on my own. I've only read grapes of wrath, cannery row, and travels with charley.

someday i will read east of eden. im sure it is very good.

east of eden is a lot different ~message~ wise!!! i hope you get a chance soon!

I like Abra a lot as well. Cathy and Lee are definitely the most interesting. Completely opposite in morality haha

the last third was shit

*sucks own dick*

Cathy is one of the least interesting characters in all of western canon. Don't get me wrong, I'm a huge Steinbeck fan , but he shit the bed making such an arbitrarily evil character.

I thought it was a very good book. Quite similar to Jean Paul Sartre in its philosophy.

>Right?

Lee felt too much like he was reading the script more than he was smart.
Cathy was a very well done psychopath but I think she's overrated when people claim she's one of the great villain in fiction. She's just alright. Though I find it interesting that Steinbeck makes it almost a point that psychopaths are the ones who are the most free to fuck with people because they lack empathy.

She wasn't evil as much as she was just a psychopath. Anyone with half a brain could tell that she was insane and had to be tied up to a bed.
The strong only respect the strong, and Cathy never had someone who took her by the throat.

This. The most emotional part was the end of Sam and Tom Hamilton's stories. When the book focused on the kids as adults it got too schmaltzy.

I liked East of Eden but Grapes of Wrath was much better.

>babby's first epic

Can someone tell me what it's actually about? All the descriptions online suck dick.

did you read this in school? I was under the impression that most US schools that taught Steinbeck used Mice and Men or Grapes.

Not OP, we were assigned Of Mice and Men but we got to choose a great American novel to write a term paper on and many are encouraged to read East of Eden.

yeah! It was summer reading and then we discussed it at the start of the year. we did of mice and men as well a different year but no grapes of wrath

follows the lives of a couple families in the town of salinas (where steinbeck actually grew up!) for generations. i think its loosely based off his own family

John Steinbeck is in the book. His mother is one of the Hamiltons. He even describes being fond of Tom. Not sure it really happened.

Bump

how's taste

As I got further and further on, Steinbeck pushed humanism more and more. "Triumph of the Human Spirit" type stuff seems awfully phony, especially the part where Kate is distraught after Cal confronts her and tells her that she is scared (or something like that). Books like this tell you just as much about life as Candide; sure they're cheery, but there is almost a saccharine sweetness to them.

>i feel like it doesn't get as much as appreciation as it should b/c it was force-fed to us in school
i dont know