East of Eden LII -- chpt52: DISILLUSIONED, an active state of being

The fantasies of childhood are gone for Abra.  They've been gone--they may have never existed--for Cal.  Adam is broken.  Lee fusses about like a chicken.  Aron is off to war.  Amazing how this boy, so like his mother in fundamentals, is so like his father in practice; but how might the war benefit Aron where it never did for Adam?

What needs to happen before it could even be possible for Abra to love Aron again?

East of Eden LI -- chpt51: "Am I supposed to look after [my brother]?"

Reading Questions
chapter 51.1

1. What part of Adam is it that cries, "Oh, my poor darling!"?  What does this lens into the man show us?
2. What are the two comforts for Lee taken from the little stolen book?
3. I have books that I've "stolen," much like Lee stole this book from Sam'l Hamilton.  What is the advantage to the thief from the quality of the acquisition that is theft?  How might the theft be justified, as my theft, like Lee's, is indeed known to the former owner?

chapter 51.2

1. It is impossible, not to mention irrational, for an author to plug a movie, author, song, or other artist without a specific purpose--metaphoric, allusionary, or something along those lines.  My favorite author for such plugs is Salinger, Cather in the Rye being the most significant, and maybe the best, example.  Here, Cal is remembering leaving Kate's and his singing of the words, "There's a rose that grows in no man's land and 'tis wonderful to see--"  Obviously there's a significance to it.  Is it had by just this line, or do you require the entire lyric (complete words at end of post)?
2. The benefit of burning the bills, like Lee's reading of Marcus Aurelius, is two-fold.  What are the benefits?
3. "Caleb whose suffering should have its own Homer."  (Hmm.  Doesn't it?  What is the ultimate conflict and its incarnation in this epic?)
4. Of the characters, Adam, Lee, Aron, Cal, Cathy, which is the most realistic--or, at least, the closest to a human average?
5. "In the old lands they say of us that we go from barbarism to decadence without an intervening culture."  Is there a practical difference between the two?

THE ROSE OF NO MAN'S LAND

(Jack Caddigan / James A. Brennan)

William Thomas - 1916

Henry Burr - 1918

Charles Hart - 1919

Hugh Donovan (a.k.a. Charles Harrison) - 1919

I've seen some beautiful flowers

Grow in life's garden fair

I've spent some wonderful hours

Lost in their fragrance rare

But I have found another

Wondrous beyond compare....

There's a rose that grows in no-man's land

And it's wonderful to see

Though its sprayed with tears, it will live for years

In my garden of memory

It's the one red rose the soldier knows

It's the work of the Master's hand

'Neath the War's great curse stands a Red Cross nurse

She's the rose of no-man's land

Out in the heavenly splendour

Down to the trail of woe

God in his mercy has sent her

Fearing the World below

We call her Rose of Heaven

We've longed to love her so....

There's a rose that grows in no-man's land

And it's wonderful to see

Though its sprayed with tears, it will live for years

In my garden of memory

It's the one red rose the soldier knows

It's the work of the Master's hand

'Neath the War's great curse stands a Red Cross nurse

She's the rose of no-man's land 

East of Eden XLIX -- chpt49: MURDER

Reading Questions
Chapter 49.2

1. As I said for the previous chapter, trouble is brewing.  Though Cal may not recognize it, why is he all the more justified in being nervous because of Aron's disinterest in returning to college?
2. Why is giving a gift hard, but getting a gift harder?
3. What triggers Cal's shame after Aron's request to move back dinner--something between Aron taking his day, and the jealousy?
4. What evidence does Cal have against himself to indicate an enjoyment for this kind of self-inflicted torment?
5. Is it possible for Cal to give Adam the money and expect nothing--to give it lightly?
6. Why is Cal letting Aron buy the wine?  While I think he intends one reason, and a beneficent one, there is a darker motivation (think rabbits) present as well.

Chapter 49.3

1. Why does Cal want--or need--the others to see the giving of his gift?
2. This seems like stretching a metaphor to breaking point and shooting well beyond the author's potentially verifiable intentions, but let's do it anyway: what might be the allegory of Lee's turkey?
3. What is deplorable, for Lee or Sam, about one man only possessing only one tiny wedge of the world, but having it entirely?  "...a specialist is only a coward."  If this is what Adam wants for Aron, what is Lee doing, intentionally or not, by this phrase?
4. Aside from Scrooge and other misers, how is it that nobody wants money?
5. "I hope he lives to a hundred." // "How do you know he's not a hundred now?"  --  It's almost as if Steinbeck is a prophet anticipating Yoda....
6. Is Cal wrong to give the gift at this moment?  What is the inherent trouble--and kicking back to Lee's statement above--with gift-giving, especially extravagant gifts?
7. Why is the gift repellent to Adam, and in a way that Cal couldn't have ever predicted?
8. One more time: What is Aron's gift to his father?  (And how does this seem to defy even the definition of "gift"?)
9. Why does Cal try to make the tears come?  Why are tears preferable to Cal?
10. How is it that Cal has a choice but Adam did not?

East of Eden XXXVII -- chpt37: LETTUCE-HEAD

Reading Questions
Chapter 37.1

1. Why did Lee never fully unpack before now?
2. Notice, via Adam's obsession with ice, that Sam Hamilton yet lives, and will likely live eternally.
3. There is great potential irony in a business plan regarding refrigeration, especially in the context of a book that has one family of immortals and another family recently resurrected.
4. It comes out: how does Will really feel about his father?  Also, it is very easy and natural for a reader to highly idealize both Sam and Tom; look at it from the other side, and instead of villainizing Will, defend him.
5. Is Will right?  When people ask advice, do the really only want the advisor to agree with them?

Chapter 37.2

1. Adam's smile here after the news of the lettuce reminds me an awful lot of the smile he wore after gaining freedom from his wife.
2. The whole episode of the lettuce makes me uncomfortable the way a situational comedy makes me uncomfortable.  In such a comedy, I know what's going to happen, and there's nothing I can do about it, and if the victim only followed sound advice to begin with, wasn't quite so stubborn, and possessed an only slightly greater portion of intelligence--which intelligence every reader of this book believes he/she possesses--it wouldn't happen!  But there's an issue of fate going on here.  Was Adam fated to lose this investment?  Whether yes or no, how does this play with the themes of the book, especially that of Timshel?
3. As Adam is deemed a fool, how might he feel about being a "fool like Sam Hamilton?"

Chapter 37.3

1. Dad fails and Aron moans and groans, and the trouble leads him to second guess everything about his father, including his love.  Dad fails, and what will Cal do, if his personality indeed dictates his actions?

East of Eden XXXV -- chpts34-35: BELIEVE IT OR NOT

Chapter 34

129,864,880

that's a pretty big number

I have heard a university professor of literature claim that there are but three types of stories: The Coming of Age, The Quest, and The Battle.  But if you take Scheherazade as any indication of count, then you might say there are as many as 1001 stories.  According to Google, on the other hand, there are (and I'm writing this out just for the weight of it) one hundred twenty-nine million, eight hundred sixty-four thousand, eight hundred eighty books "in the world."  It's likely that the majority of these are non-fiction, but even if, say, twenty percent represents fiction, that still leaves more than twenty-five million books, many of which will be collections of stories, not to mention all the non-fiction narratives out there.  Let's round up to fifty million stories, just to be safe, in the world.  That's a lot more than three.  That's a lot more than one, which, according to Steinbeck, is all there is.  Of course, he says that all stories boil down to a battle against evil.  Do we trust him?  We do tend to venerate the man here at the Wall.  Is his claim not true?  (...which is another way to request examples of stories that transcend the labels.)


If we look again at the three stories brought up once by that university professor, they are actually three types of stories, as is good versus evil a type of story, or narrative.  The Coming of Age is man vs. self, The Quest is man vs. nature or other natural and supernatural forces, and The Battle is man vs. man.  When it comes right down to it, any one of those twenty-five million plus stories represents one or more of these three narrative types.  Look again, and you'll see that each of these three story types is a battle against evil.

1. "Do you not consider me lucky?"  "How can I tell?  You aren't dead yet."
2. What are the categories for the life stories of the three deaths the narrator "remember[s] clearly"?
3. "It seems to me that if you or I must choose between two courses of thought or action, we should remember or dying and try so to live that our death brings no pleasure to the world," and I might add: "yet pleasure to ourselves."

***

Chapter 35

There and Back Again

• Lee is right, as he usually is.  "It's my observation that children always surprise us."  However, not all boys--children--surprise in the same way.  This, however, is not my point of contention (yes, point of contention!).  My issue is Steinbeck's portrayal of these boys as their surrogate father walks out on them (BECAUSE THAT'S WHAT HE DOES).  I know kids who would have been crushed--and I don't think I know a kid who wouldn't be--by his departure, crushed exactly as if it had been a parent who left.  I think this may be one of the only places I disagree with Steinbeck in his various philosophies of life.  In the first moments of Lee's departure, I agree with the depiction.  Yes, I can see Cal asking about tickets to the game and Aron talking about hot dogs, but in the days that follow, the loss would begin to set in, and they would feel abandoned.  Knowing what little I do about Steinbeck's life, I wonder if this is perhaps beyond his realm of experience or understanding.  Thoughts?

• When I first read East of Eden, laying on my hide-a-bed in my realtor's basement, my family across the country waiting for the house to finalize so we could move in, I cried twice in this chapter.  I was--and it surprised me, the superlative of emotion the book brought, likely particularly so for the context of my read-- "incomparably, incredibly, overwhelmingly glad to [have Lee] home."

East of Eden XXXIV -- chpt 33: THE GREAT ACORN CONTEST, scheduled perhaps on a day particularly perfect, as it happens, for bananafish

Yes.  Pigs do eat acorns, though I don't know what that does to the flavor of their bacon.


Reading Questions
Chapter 33.1

1. Tom and Dessie are living quietly on the ranch, each pretending that he/she is not miserable, simply for the sake of the other's conscience.  Neither ever speaks of self, and neither knows anything of the other.  What a sad way to live!  Can you be happy pretending there are no problems?  Finally it comes to head--however puny (or maybe it's gigantic, but instead of messily popping it with fingernails, they reverently sterilize a needle to lance it, but neither ever admits it was even ever there in the first place (gross analogy--sorry)) --and the each admit knowledge of the other's misery.  So what do they do?  They decide to make plans to go to Europe.  There's a trend in this book, however, that anyone wanting to travel abroad, first, never makes the trip, however well-intentioned, and second, never actually wants to go in the first place.  SO WHY PLAN OR TALK ABOUT A TRIP TO EUROPE?  What does this bespeak of the characters?  What does this bespeak of the author?
2. As for the acorn hunt, isn't it funny how we can let ourselves be tricked into the most menial labor, if we're just offered prizes.  And maybe life isn't a rat race; maybe life is an acorn hunt.  But are we the children or the pigs?  Both?

Chapter 33.2

1. Who commits the fatal mistake of this section?  Can Tom be blamed?

Chapter 33.3

1. (Interesting how Tom engenders poetry from his author.)  We have the difficult gelding which Tom bought on the cheap.  But Tom is not the one trying to break the horse.  Tom is the horse, and his rider is life.  Samuel himself talked about how Tom would dig into and through things trying violently to get at their meanings and whys and wherefores.  Tom will not let life break him, even if he knows it's exactly what he needs.  It's a sacrifice he won't make, though he wouldn't be able to say what might be sacrificed.  He is so different from Will and Liza.
2. There is also, of course, added significance taking this approach into a reading of the letter he writes next to his brother, Will, in which he claims to have been thrown and kicked in the head by this very horse.
3. The chapter ends in a nephew's epitaph to his worthy uncle, "He was a gallant gentleman."

East of Eden was published in September of 1952.  Salinger's "A Perfect Day for Bananafish" first appeared in the The New Yorker in the January 31, 1948 issue.  It is quite likely that these two stories were even in process of their composition at the same moment.  I know this is an overly idealistic fantasy, but I can't ignore a heavy cross-textual comparison between these two pieces, in the case of the former, regarding the moment of Tom's suicide, and whatever else about his character that led, I might say even inexorably, to his final moment. 

Salinger and Steinbeck, except that their names each start with S, have practically nothing in common (that said, for better or worse, without due dilignece paid to biographies--sue me), and there's very little chance that one author influenced the other more than superficially, though I can't imagine they were unaware of each other.

If you haven't recently read "A Perfect Day for Bananafish," do so.  There are numerous copies of it online that are easier to find, though in the case of Salinger, more so than any other author (of just words) I can think of, read him from the ink and page if you can manage it.  When you're done, respond to the following prompts, at least to yourself, though your thoughts and opinions would be much welcomed in the comments' space below:

1. Consider Seymour's tattoos and his paranoia of people staring at them, especially those on his feet.  Consider his familial relationships (it wouldn't hurt if you reread "Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters" as well, though it's quite a bit longer).  All the words we use--or Samuel used--to describe Tom might be used to describe Seymour Glass, and vice versa.  Using one, describe the other.  What were Tom's bananafish?  Who was his Sybil?  Who was his Muriel?
2. While so similar, they did not kill themselves for parallel reasons.  What was the difference?

East of Eden XXXIII -- chpt32: Purple Eggs and White Pigeons

A CHAPTER OF TOM AND DESSIE:

"Tom's cowardice was as huge as his courage, as it must be in great men.  His violence balanced his tenderness, and himself was a pitted battlefield of his own forces."

Tom and Dessie are so happy to be together because perhaps they're the two of the family who fit together most completely, especially now that she's broken, at least partially, like he is broken.  She knows her brother, and she knows herself, and she knows somehow things--living--might work out better if they're together back on the farm.  But she's no longer happy--truly happy--there, just like she was no longer happy in town.  Why can't Tom fill the void that's dragging her down?

On the contrary, Dessie seems to be all Tom needs to be his old self again.  He is energized and thrilled--on a perpetual high, fueled simply by her presence.  But just as the bravest are the most cowardly, perhaps so are the strongest the most fragile.  I think we can all read the writing on the walls.  Dessie isn't going to last much longer, and then what will that do to Tom, who doesn't do well with loss (crazy understatement) in the first place?

Then there's the memory--the first piece of a montage of family flashbacks or hallucinations--of Sam buying up the white pigeons.  It smacks of metaphor, but pinning it down is a little more difficult than assigning some direct correlation.  It seems there's more at work here than that, like this is just one of many pieces that fit into a well-balanced machine.  The pigeons are a sign of Samuel's refusal to give in to superstition, even if there are other supporting reasons for staying away, but the superstition is that of death, and did death not follow the pigeons into the family, even if not immediately?  Finally, Dessie notices and remembers the pigeons as she approaches her own end in the presence of the brother who reminds her most of her father.  Yet pigeons and any other flighted bird represent freedom, though these happen to be caged.  If white pigeons are harbingers of death by one label, may they not be the same animals and yet be harbingers of freedom--and freedom not only of release but of impurity?  Maybe Dessie and Tom are two white pigeons, brought to the farm by Samuel, now reunited, and soon to be freed.

I don't know.

Purple eggs, by the way, if not just a joke here, are fried eggs seasoned with sumac:

East of Eden XXXII -- chpt31: ADAM to CATHY to LIZA to WILL; next Dessie and Tom; and there was the parrot, Polly, too

Chapter 31 is more of a passing chapter, than full of crucial plot points.  There's not a great deal here more than some helpful exposition, besides the mild conflict between Adam and Cathy.  Cathy's fear, however, is significant.  Think of wild animals and how they respond to the emotion.

Reading Questions
Chapter 31

1. Lee says that Adam can be "dishonest in a lot of ways, but not in that way."  What does he mean?  When has Adam been dishonest?
2. What does Cathy think Adam is trying to do when he comes with the letter to her ... er ... establishment?
3. Why is Cathy afraid of Adam?  (an answer much like that of Cal's fear of Lee in the last chapter)
4. "...her body shook with something that felt like rage and also felt like sorrow."  Again, Adam does the Cathy what Aron did to Cal.  Contrast the instances.

East of Eden XXVI -- chpt25: RESURRECTION and GLORY via "TIMSHEL"

Reading Questions
Chapter 25.1

 

1. No questions here, but the "cliff-hanger" in the last line, I think, is pretty lame and obviously, deliberately manipulative.

 

Chapter 25.2

 

1. Death takes an effect stronger on the yet-living than the recently-deceased.  Duh.  But check out what it's doing to Adam.  Clearly this particular death is the only death--and perhaps the only event--that could bring Adam to confront Kate.
2. There is evidence in the line "He could feel the blood stinging his cheeks and running hotly in his arms, as though it were some foreign warm fluid taking over his body" that this is also the moment in which he begins to come back to life, but when his "garrulousness" comes on, is it the alcohol or his resurrection that spurs interest in pursuing the confrontation, and why does he do it?

 

Chapter 25.3

 

1. Notice how important it is to Steinbeck to make sure every inch of his antagonist is thoroughly examined and objectified.  He spends nearly a page-and-a-half performing a virtual autopsy on the living frame, like he's describing, square-by-square, a gridded photograph of the woman.  Why is this physicality so significant, at least to him, Adam, and perhaps us?
2. "Adam sat down in the straight chair beside the desk.  He wanted to shout with relief...."  How?  Why?
3. Why does he have to see her to forget her?  Why weren't Samuel's words enough for Adam to work this out mentally?  Better, why is it that this sort of thing must be worked out physically, in person, or it won't work out at all?
4. And why is he so smiley?  He's practically giddy sitting there looking at his once-love!
5. As I read Kate uncover herself and talk about her lust for control and enjoyment in manipulation, I want to know why.  But there is no why; Steinbeck makes a point of this.  The very criticism brought against her character, as drawn by the maker, is the very quality that makes her who she is: Steinbeck needed an ultimate evil.  The problem with evil explained is that we understand it, and it is no longer so foreign, for we can conceive of its beginning, we can look into its corners.  Kate's is evil without foundation or beginning.  Fear of her is like fear of the dark or fear of death--it is fear of the unknown, and an unknown that cannot be known.  She is the only character to play this role, save Satan himself.  Interesting the following contrast: just as we cannot see her beginning--her reason for who she is--because we're incapable of understanding it, so she cannot see what she doesn't understand, the good of humanity; instead, she fears and hates it as she feared and hated Samuel.  If there's a continuum and Kate is at bottommost end, who is her opposite?  I don't believe that it's Samuel.
6. And yet she's described physically as a child.  How is it that this physicality is exactly right for who she is, and not some scaly read beast with horns and a forked tongue?
7. When I first read this chapter, I dreaded the moment when Kate would pull the paternity card and reveal the truth to Adam about his brother's betrayal, as I knew it must come.  When I saw his reply, "It wouldn't matter--even if it was true," I cheered.  Adam is alive and well and whole!

East of Eden XXV -- chpt24: TIMSHEL

Which would you prefer?  A kind of static heaven, where it--heaven--is what it is and never changes (whatever that happens to be) no matter who you are or what you want; or a more subjective heaven, where its stake on "paradise" is subject to the person who achieves it?  If the latter, would it be possible for Samuel and Liza even to exist on the same plane in the Hereafter?

Reading Questions
Chapter 24.1

1. "I seem to get more Chinese as I get older," says Lee.  Funny, I become more and more like my dad as I get older.
2. Who do Cal and Aaron remind you of?  (And I'm not talking about Cain and Abel.)
3. The way Samuel describes his love of the land, it makes me think of the way he loves his wife, just without the shroud of his confessed fantasies, a page (more or less) earlier.  What does appearance and functionality play in the loving of something?

Chapter 24.2

1. A potential conflict: It is easier to believe or accept a religion whose tenets are close to your lifestyle or existing religious beliefs, yet it requires less of a leap of faith.  (Look for the deliberate, partial flaw in my reasoning, which relegates this argument's validity to those who may be SEEKING (intransitive of "seeking" also intentional).)  Isn't this leap of faith--those of you who have read it, think Life of Pi--necessary for receiving the "better story," or the greater truth or whatever you want to call it?
2. Here in 24.2 we get the definition, and Lee's backstory, for the "discovery" of timshel, the Hebrew word meaning "thou mayest," or to put it in common language (as we English speakers have virtually done away with the informal conjugations and pronouns), "you may."  While the ultimate importance is referenced here--the significance of this perhaps more accurate translation of the couple words in Genesis indicating that we are responsible--its true significance is masked, at least emotionally so and therefore yet generally ineffective, and we won't get it until the end of the chapter.
3. On my first read of East of Eden, and up to this point, the book was merely excellent; chapter 24 however elevated it from excellent to resonant, and even life-changing.  While I already tended to believe that I was the one in control of my "destiny," the added foundation this chapter gave was just, well, GREAT.  Consider the general rationale that this CHOICE or freedom to triumph over sin elevates us above the beast to godliness and makes our potential infinite.  AWESOME!
4. Considering the earlier question, is it easier to make a large leap of faith when that leap promises a greater measure of hope to the leaper?
5. When Lee says that "These old men believe a true story," what kind of TRUE is he talking about?

Chapter 24.3

1. I love Doxology.  How could I not, what with the fondness Samuel has for this lousy animal?  I think there's a notable similarity between Doxology, Samuel's pathetic track of land, and his little iron wife, Liza, for all of them demonstrate in Samuel a deep love despite, and maybe even explicitly FOR REASON OF, specific weaknesses and/or shortcomings.  Once Samuel (I think it was Samuel) said that it's easier to love the ugly child.  WHY?  HOW?
2. A brilliant little twist on the Garden of Eden:  Adam is served, by the benevolent serpent, Samuel, fruit from the Tree of Knowledge ... BACKWARDS!  Without the service of this fruit, according to Lee and Samuel, Adam would surely die; yet the simple partaking of the fruit in this case would, while with tremendous difficulty (as if indeed casting him from the Garden and into the weedy world), open up the possibilities of even timshel itself.
3. Here at the end of the chapter, it seems to me that the real significance of the new translation of timshel makes itself visible.  How is it that Heaven suddenly exists for Samuel where it apparently didn't before?  Why is the timing of the discovery particularly significant?
4. What does Lee mean when he says to Samuel, "You've gone beyond me?"
5. Notice, in the very last line of he chapter, Samuel's halo.

East of Eden XXIV -- chpt23: FLIES ON THE BRAIN

Reading Questions
Chapter 23.1

1. In Samuel's eyes, I believe there's no difference between the condition that brought about Una's death and the condition Adam is currently suffering.  Consider the line: "But Samuel thought and mourned in the thought that the accident was pain and despair" (emphasis added).
2. The parable of the fly cage:  "He worked all day with a sharp tine pocketknife on a small block of wood, and when we came home from school he had carved a little face.  The eyes and ears and lips were movable, and little perches connected them with the inside of the hollow head.  At the bottom of the neck there was a hole closed by a cork.  And this was very wonderful.  You caught a fly and eased him through the hole and set the cork.  And suddenly the head became alive.  The eyes moved and the lips talked and the ears wiggled as the frantic fly crawled over the little perches.  Even Mary forgave him a little, but she never really trusted him until after she was glad she was a girl, and then it was too late."  What is the face, what/who is the fly, who are the children amazed by it, and who is Tom?
3. Samuel is conflicted, whether he knows it or not, by the proof of his son, Tom.  If by nurture you can make a pig into a quarter-horse, why can Tom never escape the shadow of his father and experience the sun for himself?
4. Note for future reference: for Tom, there is no difference between physical death and the breaking of spirit, such as it was for Dessie.

Chapter 23.2

1. Samuel must not realize his contradiction with Tom, because the understanding of a similar contradiction--his falling under the spell of sadness when he claimed a real man wouldn't submit to such weakness--destroyed him, together with the event that revealed it.

East of Eden XXIII -- chpt22: BAPTISM, minus the water

Reading Questions
Chapter 22.1

1. I can't help but think of couples who lose a child, which loss destroys their relationship, overcoming the love they have for each other, such that they can't find it--if it even continues to exist (is such a thing terminable? I think so).  Is Adam experiencing something like this or, as its his spouse and his children remain, is it entirely different?
2. What does it mean that "Adam might be pleasuring himself with sadness"?
3. It is interesting, the magic Samuel works on those around him: Lee is the prime example.  Notice how Lee's walls and masks simply slack from him when no one else is around.  It is the same, to a degree, with his children.  People are more themselves around Samuel (of course, this seems only to be the case for those who have something to hide behind: Liza is entirely bald and naked with or without him).  Does this eventually--as it hasn't until this point--work on Adam?  Is the "shocking" he's setting out to perform a bit of his wife creeping into his person?

Chapter 22.2

1. Does Liza think it's important that the boys have names at this point?  It would seem to me that perhaps she doesn't, at least inasmuch as it isn't her or anybody else's business.  If this is the case however, why does she say, quite clearly, "If you do not get those boys names, there'll be no warm place in this house for you.  Don't you dare come whining back, saying he wouldn't do it or he wouldn't listen.  If you do I'll have to go myself"?  (And she smiles when she aggravates him to shouting!  WHY!?)
2. What a beautifully self-contradictory woman!  Does she bring out--or provoke--the best in Samuel as a spouse should?

Chapter 22.3

1. Ah!  The words of a hero (I think I will have this written on my grave): "A man, his whole life, matches himself against pay.  And how, if it's my whole life's work to find my worth, can you, sad man, write me down instant in a ledger?"  (Oh, it makes my heart sing!)
2. Liza says it herself, that her husband's words are honey--poetry, true--Steinbeck's own, like some of the richest descriptive passages from Tortilla Flat (my pet favorite of the man's): "In a bitter night, a mustard night that was last night, a good thought came and the dark was sweetened when the day sat down.  And this thought went from evening star to the late dipper on the edge of the first light--that our betters spoke of.  So I invite myself."
3. And Samuel's righteous indignation like the mighty wrath of a prophet for his God!  "Tear away with your jelly fingers.  You have not bought these boys, nor stolen them, nor passed any bit for them.  You have them by some strange and lovely dispensation....  The stone orchard celebrates too little, not too much."
4. And Adam's defense (is it valid--really, is it!?): "What I do [or don't do] is my own business" speaking of his not having "laid a number" to his sons.
5. And imagine the force of the stubborn old farmer's fist on the heathen's jaw!  I met a farmer in Italy once.  I've always thought of this particular gentle giant when I've read this passage from the book.  The man towered over me, pushing seven feet, with bones too big for his skin.  I don't have small hands, but when he took mine in his for a handshake, my little paw DISAPPEARED TO ABOVE MY WRIST.  I picture a fist like this--literal or figurative with its godly power--crashing into Adam's listless face.
6. How are the boys naked without names?  They're still only babies.  With what exactly--more than one thing--will they be clothed once the names, with Adam's help and approval, are chosen and assigned?
7. Proof of Samuel's success?  "It's hard to imagine I'd thank a man for insults and for me out like a rug.  But I'm grateful.  It's a hurty thanks, but it's thanks."
8. Why do we need to sort out emotion--to label them as loss or hate or loneliness or whatever?  How will alleviating this confusion of labels help Adam ascend from his dearth?
9. A point regarding NATURE vs NURTURE: "And I will warn you now that not their blood but your suspicion might build evil in them.  They will be what you expect them to be.  ...  I don't very much believe in blood.  I think when a man finds good or bad in his children he is seeing only what he planted in them after they cleared the womb." //  From Adam: "You can't make a race horse of a pig." //  From Samuel: "No, but you can make a very fast pig."  Interesting, as this makes sense coming from Samuel, who's raised to adulthood a huge family, but not so much coming from Steinbeck, who, at the time, has only two young boys, and he's not even the one really raising them!  What do you think?  (Ad astra per alia porci.)
10. I repeat a question from before: Whose children are these boys?
11. "I'd think there are degree of greatness," Adam said.  //  "I don't think so," said Samuel.  "That would be like saying there is a little bigness."
12. Twice in this section, Samuel refers indirectly to Jesus Christ.  Once, regarding himself to be inherently too mediocre and cowardly to face crucifixion, and second, in Lee's position as a servant and a likely greater man than he or Adam will ever be.

Chapter 22.4

1. Wise Lee, regarding the negative connotation of the name, Cain, and that it's perhaps never been borne since: "Maybe that's why the name has never changed its emphasis."
2. How patient Steinbeck is as an author.  There's no rushing into the naming.  He's got something important in common with his Cathy Ames.  The moment comes as and when it will, and in the meantime he waits and takes advantage of the available moments for his further advantage.
3. "No story has power, nor will it last, unless we feel in ourselves that it is true and true of us."  What stories do you know and/or have read that, by this standard, are true?
4. Adam displays a personal moment of hope--of self-hope: "Well, every little boy thinks he invented sin.  Virtue we think we learn, because we are told about it.  But sin is our own designing."  Yet is is also tinged with hopelessness, and with it, MASSIVE foreshadowing for both event and theme: "Because we are descended from this.  This is our father.  Some of our guilt is absorbed in our ancestry.  What chance did we have?  We are the children of our father.  It means we aren't the first.  It's an excuse, and there aren't enough excused in the world."
5. Does Adam have any inclination--even akin to deja vous--that as he defends Cain he defends his brother?
6. Samuel: "I think this is the best-known story in the world because it is everybody' story."  (This, by the way, is the essence of the definition of Myth--not myth=fiction, but myth=foundational literature and history, true or not.)
7. "But [Aaron] didn't make it to the Promised Land."
8. Why does Samuel tear up in the final paragraph?

East of Eden XVII -- chapt16: The Golden Man with the Goat's Eyes

Chapter 16 opens with Samuel on the long road home after visiting the new Trask ranch.  Anyone willing, I think, will do his/her best thinking on a trip like this.  I do (though my greatest thinking certainly isn't anything to write a book about), and Samuel's thinking about is the goose (or rabbit, apparently--look it up) that walked over his grave.  Twice, and caused the "Welshrats."  (What an intriguing thing, the Welshrats--from the German weltschmerz, meaning world-pain--and how it's used here.  (If I knew German, I might be able to tell you why it's capitalized.  Anyone?))  He can't figure out what must have made it happen.  Not jealousy of the ranch.  Not some lost, painful memory.  Of course, he lands on it eventually, via a childhood memory of a criminal with eyes just like Cathy's, and the narrator recounts Samuel's experience seeing the Golden Man, whose eyes, like a goat's (my parents would probably argue this on behalf of their own goats), have no depth. 

Reading Questions
Chapter 16.1

1. Why doesn't Samuel trust the connection between the Golden Man and Cathy?  How does this act as evidence for Cathy's superiority as Evil?

Chapter 16.2

1. Good ol' Liza.  She hasn't even been to "the Sanchez place" and already she'll never smell anything but pigs.  Wondrous how a person of conviction, with the Lord eternally at her side (whether He likes it or not), is always right, even when she's wrong.
2. And I'm sure Liza would condemn gossip in all around her, but never be able to see it in herself, even if her distant judgments of Cathy aren't so far off the mark.
3. I expect that Liza enjoys being miserable and wouldn't have it any other way, even if contentedness is knocking at her door.
4. Yet despite his strange eccentricities, somehow she and Samuel make a beautiful--and beautifully balance--couple. 

East of Eden XVI -- chpt15: Divination

Reading Questions
Chapter 15.1

1. The human heart, I think, naturally tends toward optimism.  Adam, while not the ideal example, experiences a pall falling over his memory of Connecticut, and the memory fades.  There have been parts of my life--shocks of memory--of which I think so irregularly, for reasons of avoidance of pain, that practically speaking I've essentially forgotten.  When skimming along the timeline of my experiences, I naturally and unwittingly skip those dark periods, as if they didn't exist; yet if those times are directly called upon, by someone else present at the time or some specific corollary, the images are yet clear.  What experiences have you had that are similar (not to dredge up the painful), or what is your opinion in this regard?
2. As we saw a couple chapters ago, we're getting the optimism for change here.  Consider this line: "Can you imagine?  Just think what this land would raise with plenty of water!  Why, it will be a frigging garden?"  Okay, the book is East of Eden, of course, whose third word references one of the two most famous gardens in Western culture.  Is Eden a dream, an ambition, as distant as this optimistically anticipated future, that in likelihood will never come to pass (because, come on, what large body of people are ever so satisfied that they don't look hopefully or enviously toward a better time or circumstance, future or past, left or right)?  If this is so, and Eden will never come, are they not constantly living in the cursed land just Eastward?
3. "There wasn't any limit, no boundary at all, to the future."  Didn't Walt Disney (Tomorrow Land, isn't it?) and Howard Stark (the old Stark Expo, right?) each have a similar impression of the future?
4. Ah, count on Samuel to articulate the issue: "There's a capacity for appetite that a whole heaven and earth of cake can't satisfy."
5. I find the paragraph describing Cathy's mental approach--the picture of passive-aggression--to coping with her baby, her husband, and her new house (for her, not a home); does it not sound like the line describing Olive as disbelieving anything contrary to her realm of possible acceptance?  Of course, there is the fundamental difference of calculation for Cathy and blind, God-fearing faith for Olive.
6. The introduction of Lee, the cook, is perhaps one of my favorite moments--not because it's a grand introduction, but because I now know who Lee is and what he does.  However, if there is one great thing about the method of his introduction it is that his presence makes Cathy feel uncomfortable.  Is there a surer sign of his potential for goodness than that he arouses fear (though she denies it) in the Devil?  And the last line of the section: "And what harm could he do her?" 

Chapter 15.2

1. Speaking of accents and shields, Lee, taking standard English rather than his affected pidgin, says, "It's more than a convenience.  It's even more than self-protection.  Mostly we have to use it to be understood at all."  What is he talking about?
2. When asked why he maintains the queue, Lee says, "Talkee Chinese talk.  Queue Chinese fashion--you savvy?"  Samuel [laughs] loudly.  "That does have the green touch of convenience," he [says].  "I wish I had a hidey-hole like that."  But don't we all have hidey-holes like that?  What's yours?
3. Lee is a changeling, and metamorphmagus, a two-face, and a  man without a country.  Is he short-changing himself?  Is it laziness--acceptance--settling?  Is it survival or refusal?  What other characters are there like him?  I can't help but thing of frontiersmen or outlaws.  People like Jesse James or Cassidy and Sundance....
4. "It's hard to split a man down the middle and always to reach for the same half."
5. "There are no ugly questions except those clothed in condescension."
6. Is literature no full of wise servants?  Look at Lee's description and list the names and sources of servants you've discovered that fit the bill.  The obvious one from contemporary culture (or newly renewed): Bruce Wayne's Alfred.  (I think I could be a servant....)

Chapter 15.3

1.  Anyone out there have experience with a divining wand--the forked stick Samuel uses to find water?
2. Like stones in a field: "The ways of sin are curious.  I guess if a man had to shuck off everything he had, inside and out, he'd manage to hide a few little sins somewhere for his own discomfort.  They're the last things we'll give up."
3. Of the forked stick: "I don't really believe in it save that it works.  Maybe it's this way.  Maybe I know where the water is, feel it in my skin.  Some people have a gift in this direction or that.  Suppose--well, call it humility, or a deep disbelief in myself, forced me to do a magic to bring up to the surface the thing I know anyway.  Does that make any sense to you?"  Isn't it this way for anyone who "discovers" religion for the first time?
4. Hmm.  Adam won't plant apples, because it's "looking for trouble."
5. Could there have been a different girl for Adam?  It's easy to say that Adam is in love with being in love and simply needed an object--it could have been anything or anyone.  But take the hard road: How might it be that Cathy is actually the IDEAL woman for Adam, at least if you consider the gods' oft-misjudged generosity and wisdom in providing all men with the ideal circumstances to return us to them?
6. Samuel to Adam regarding the latter's oblivion: "I should give you Othello's handkerchief."
7. On approaching the house together and spying Cathy from a distance: "Even at this distance she looks beautiful," Samuel said (emphasis added).

Chapter 15.4

1. It seems that good men--well, not exclusively, because there's Charles as well (but is he a BAD man?)--naturally mistrust Cathy.  Adam is not a bad man.  What's his freaking problem?
2. What's the goose that keeps treading over Samuel's grave?
3. (I picture Doxology as one of those sorry looking Disney horses from the old shorts....)

Chapter 15.5

1. Once again, Adam is an idiot.

East of Eden XV -- Olive, the Olympian

Chapter 14

"I must tell you that there are certain things in the existence of which my mother did not believe, against any possible evidence to the contrary.  One was a bad Hamilton and another was the airplane.  The fact that she had seen them didn't make her believe in them one bit more.
"In the light of what she did I have tried to imagine how she felt.  Her soul must have crawled with horror, for how can you fly in something that does not exist?"

No questions.

This has always been one of my favorite chapters.  While I don't know what Steinbeck's real mother was like or what he thought of her, this chapter speaks loudly of the adoring love a son can develop for his mother long after childhood has passed.  This chapter doesn't have a lot to do with the conflict of the story, and I like to think while reading it why Steinbeck feels the push to include it.  Maybe that can be the source of solicited responses.  That, and, if you want a bit of a writing challenge, change the face of the situation and write Olive in her first Olympic competition (preferably not naked like the Greeks, but not contemporary either; what event, where did her talent come from and how did it develop).  Or just talk a minute about your mom.

Love this chapter....

(you can read all but two pages of this on Google Books: here)

East of Eden XIV -- The Glory Boys

In the podcast, I mentioned that there's potential for this to be an optimistic story, based simply upon the introduction of chapter 13.  While certainly not over-stated, the podcast rested dominantly upon the consequences of Adam's decision to propose to and marry Cathy Ames, which thing Charles recognizes as a huge mistake and even demonstrates as such, when, after Adam has mistakenly taken Cathy's sleeping draught, she sleeps with Charles, who simply mutters, while admitting the Beast within his sheets, "poor bastard."  *!*  So here's the first question, then, for chapter 13: for the story to be predominantly optimistic, do all conflicts need to result in happiness? Is happiness even the key to optimism in the first place, or do we require misery (to some degree) in order to have optimism, which is hope? So, putting it together, if things end up well--in some form or another--for the Hamiltons (an easy thing to assume), and things end up badly for the Trasks (similarly easy), does that exclude the possibility of overwhelming optimism for the story? Can things be somehow optimistic yet still troublesome, even evil, for Adam?  (By the way, things are never "easy" in a Steinbeck novel.)

It should be obvious already--simply by their mutual presence in the story--that the Hamiltons and the Trasks are going to cross paths. Also, it should be clear that the Trask end will be largely dominated by Adam's story. This alone should be evidence for hope, at least for Adam.

Reading Questions
Chapter 13.1

1. Putting together the whole of part 1, what is it's ultimate purpose in the chapter (you may need to finish reading the chapter before answering this)?  Can you pinpoint what Steinbeck means by "a glory?"  It seems to be insinuating imagination and creativity, and that of the individual over the group.  Put this in context of the two sides of change I talked about in the podcast.  What do you think?

Chapter 13.2

1. Read the first sentence of part 2.  READ IT AGAIN!  Holy crap!  How in the world is it possible that, at least for now, Adam is experiencing one of those GLORIES mentioned by the author in part 1?  How is it that she is not inhibiting this?
2. "And who in his mind has not probed the black water? //  Maybe we all have in us a secret pond where evil and ugly things germinate and grow strong.  But this culture is fenced, and the swimming brood climbs up only to fall back.  Might it not be that in the dark pools of some men the evil grows strong enough to wriggle over the fence and swim free?  Would not such a man be our monster ,and we not related to him in our hidden water?  It would be absurd if we did not understand both angels and devils, since we invented them" (emphasis added). 
3. I've never thought of Adam this way:  Consider that he does not see Cathy for what she really is, because he is blinded, so to speak, by his own glory.  "The glory lights up the world and changes it the way a star shell changes a battleground."  Clearly, the star shell is Adam; the battleground is Cathy and is Adam's past.  Both are made either beautiful, or blankly white (over-exposure--the shutter left open) by the light of the glorious shell.  And I hate to use another Harry Potter analogy, but I can't really help it--it's fits perfectly.  Remember the Veela?  Fleur, via the magic of her spectacular beauty, seems to erase the very scars from her fiance's face, seems to make everything else more beautiful that comes near her on the day of her wedding?    And do our own eyes not do the very same when we are blissfully joyful?
4. Remember: Cathy and Adam's-Cathy are two different people, if not in practice, so in his mind.
5. And poor Charles.  Who is this man, mourning the loss of the brother he hates, and whom he loves?  And whom can any of us hate more than those we love the most?
6. (Another rhetorical question--not one intended for no answer, but one intended to really make you think: tell me what you think:) Who hates a killer or, at least a destroyer, more than a sincere doctor, and why?

Chapter 13.3

1. "There's people that when they see Samuel Hamilton the first time might get the idea he's full of bull.  He don't talk like other people.  He's an Irishman.  And he's all full of plans--a hundred plans a day.  And he's all full of hope.  ...he'd have to be to live on this land!  But you remember this--he's a fine worker, a good blacksmith, and some of his plans work out.  And I've heard him talk about things that were going to happen and they did" (emphasis added).  Adam's going to see a prophet?
2. I sense a parable her in Samuel's words.  What are its parallels?  "I said it was a strange valley. ...  I've dug into it plenty.  Something went on under it--maybe still is going on.  There's an ocean bed underneath, and below that another world.  But that needn't bother a farming man.  Now, on top is good soil, particularly on the flats.  In the upper valley it is light and sandy, but mixed in with that, the top sweetness of the hills that washed down on it in the winters.  As you go north the valley widens out, and the soil gets blacker and heavier and perhaps richer.  It's my belief that marshes were there once...," (didn't we just read about marshes? I quoted something above on the matter), "...and the roots of centuries rotted into the soil and made it black and fertilized it.  And when you turn it up, a little greasy clay mixes and holds it together.  That's from about Gonzales north to the river mouth.  Off to the sides, around Salinas and Blanco and Castroville and Moss Landing, the marshes are still there.  and when one day those marshes are drained off, that will be the richest of all land in this red world."
3. Louis Lippo: "He's always thinking about how to change things.  He's never satisfied with the way they are."
4. Often, Samuel seems like the great patriarch of the Israelites.  Any Old Testament scholars out there want to look into this?
5. Was there something about Samuel's talk that drove Adam to make the purchase?  It almost seems spontaneous, despite his meticulous study.

Go back to the beginning of the chapter.  What's going on with that opening section of glories?  What is Samuel's glory, which, unlike Adam's, is not specified?

The Hamiltons: pop quiz

Here, bumper-sticker style, is the Hamilton family.  Can you identify them, left to right?

East of Eden VII: Meanwhile Back on the Ranch

This is perfect (and very sad): I think of a connection to Reading Rainbow while reading East of Eden, I search for the clip, and find this (which clip happens to have as one of its three host, Adam Savage, host of the best show on TV: Mythbusters, of course).  So here's the introductory string:

 (skip to the book, just a few minutes in, unless you're really into the entire episode)

Meanwhile Back at the Ranch from WVPT on Vimeo.

This is a simple, beautiful chapter.  What I love about the Hamiltons (and that's who we're talking about here) is that they always provide a respite from the ridiculous, totally over-the-top drama of the Trasks.  Returning to the Trasks is a little like the book right here.

So, into the text:

(No questions this time.)

Chapter 5

The Hamiltons:

The Boys:

1. George: "George was a sinless boy and grew to be a sinless man. ...  It is possible that his virtue lived on a lack of energy."
2. Will: The safety of conformity and thereby passive aggression against his father: "Just as his father could not make money, Will could not help making it."
3. Tom: "And he was capable of giant joy, so did he harbor huge sorrow, so that when his dog died the world ended."

In an earlier discussion comment, I talked about how Samuel and Liza together are really one complete person.  That person, according to Steinbeck's description, is the stereotypical Irishman.  That person is also Tom, though more specifically than an Irishman, he is exactly the combination of his parents.  I'll quote the entire paragraph, because it's perfect:

"When Tom was nine years he worried because his pretty little sister Mollie had an impediment in her speech.  He asked her to open her mouth wide and saw that a membrane under her tongue cause the trouble.  'I can fix that,' he said.  He led her to a secret place far from the house, whetted his pocketknife on a stone, and cut the offending halter of speech.  And then he ran away and was sick."

The Girls:

1. Una: "thoughtfully, studious, dark;"
2. Lizzie: exemplifying an extreme of her mother's distaste for "Irish frivolity" and also happens to share her name;
3. Dessie: fun, fun, fun;
4. Olive: the narrator's mother (and, at this point, that's all we get);
5. Mollie: a beauty--blond with "violet" eyes.

In summary:
"His daughter Una had become a brooding student, tense and dark.  He was proud of her wild, exploring mind.  Olive was preparing to take county examinations after a stretch in the secondary school in Salinas.  Olive was going to be a teacher, an honor like having a priest in the family in Ireland.  Joe was to be sent to college because he was no damn good an anything else.  Will was well along the way to accidental fortune.  Tom bruised himself on the world and licked his cuts.  Dessie was studying dressmaking, and Mollie, pretty Mollie, would obviously marry some well-to-do man."

 A couple points of interest, if not questions:

I think Liza knew that her husband drank and hid it.  I reference again, the string of comments from EoE IV.  Check out the Twinkie story.

As for Liza herself taking up the drink:  So she's got this "iron will."  Any such iron will against a vice, I think, represents a fear of that vice--not a fear for others, but for self--extant of the fear that once started, you'll never stop!  Liza is, if not proof, then example-- "a more relaxed and happy woman" with a few tablespoons of port in her.

'Til Monday, toodle-oo.

East of Eden III: Introducing the Hamiltons and Our Gods (not exactly the same people)

It is said (and if someone can find the reference, I would appreciate it (Freud?? --or is that just pathetic ignorance and stereotyping?)) that our fathers are our models for God.  East of Eden provides us with several fathers, two of whom are introduced (the second only in name) in chapter 2: Sam Hamilton and Adam Trask, respectively.  As this book is such a spiritual endeavor--whether religious or not--for John Steinbeck, I think it's very pertinent to maintain our views in this general direction.

Something most deists don't permit themselves for their gods, however, which the book explicates at great length, is the "better half" of these clannish demigods, Sam and Adam (not the beer--though that could lead to an interesting alternative reading).  While I, personally, don't find a great deal of benefit, and would prefer not to discuss it here, in speculating on the nature or existence of "God the Father's" wife, the women married to these two men, as well as those of successive generations, offer continual and dramatic counterpoint to their mates. 

***

Reading Questions 2
chapter 2.1

1. Be the Judge, If You Please: Did Samuel, or did he not, love his wife, and to what degree?  The narrator goes to some length talking about this and what in the world could possibly bring such a man as Sam Hamilton to the Salinas Valley, and he mentions the two possible types of love, offering no third alternate reason for the uprooting.  At this point in the book, we don't know the identity of the narrator.  However, any narrator who is not omniscient (and we know this from the the very first line of this chapter that he is not all-knowing) is not entirely reliable and depends, wittingly or no, on his interpretation of events.  He can only see any issue or event through the subjectivity of his own limited eyes.  Consider the seeming--or so it seems to me--conflict between the character of the man, Samuel Hamilton, he's is detailing against the supposition of his marital fidelity.  Whom does Samuel love and to what degree?
2. Be an Aanthropologist: Consider the Hamiltons' copy of Dr. Gunn's Family Medicine.  What do we leave behind by which one may know our history?  What might they learn from what is missing (consider the un-opened pages of the book and the narrator's judgment on the Hamiltons' morality or luck), as well as what is there.  Now, more than just by artifact, what trace to we leave on, or record into, the land--such as the Salinas Valley for the Trasks and Hamiltons--by our existence upon it?  (You may want to take a look at the first two comments posted on EoE: Part II.) 
3. "...and while he had no brogue there was a rise and a lilt and a cadence to his talk that made it sound sweet in the ears of the taciturn farmers...."  There was an invitation just in the accent and voice and cadence of Samuel Hamilton.  Please take a moment and read this entry from the following blog (which I follow faithfully and highly recommend): "Sentence First"  While this isn't exactly a question, consider the power not just of words, but how these words are spoken.  When have you judged someone by their accent and been surprised that you were wrong?

chapter 2.2

beware: long quotation ahead --

1. "But I think that because they trusted themselves and respected themselves as individuals, because they knew beyond doubt that they were valuable and potentially moral units--because of this they could give God their own courage and dignity and then receive it back.  Such things have disappeared perhaps because men do not trust themselves any more, and when that happens there is nothing left except perhaps to find some strong sure man, even though he may be wrong, and to d angle from his coattails" (emphasis added).  This sentence is MAJOR foreshadowing.  STOW IT AWAY FOR FUTURE REFERENCE!  Now, as the final sentence of this chapter reads, "Such a man was Adam Trask," if we were to add a parallel sentence to the end of the "coattails" quotation, it would be, "Such a man was Samuel Hamilton," but he is not the only one.  As we continue reading, who else (and maybe even Adam Trask) fits this description of a strong man, even though he may be wrong?
2. Note on Style: Chapter 1 ended with what I call a "springboard" into the next chapter--that is a word or phrase which narratively propels you, sometimes against your will (its rhetorical manipulation, dang it!), into the next chapter.  The last line of chapter 2 is also a successful springboard, because, after all this beautiful description and dwelling on the Hamiltons, we don't see Sam's name in the last line like we might expect, but someone whose name we haven't seen yet!  How in the world does this dude fit with it all, and who is he?  Now think about this, because it has a lot to do with first (though less importantly) Steinbeck's genius, and second (more importantly) the immediacy and intimacy--the stuff that makes this book and its characters actually feel like family and your own personal family history--of the story.  If you don't know what "stream of consciousness" is, as a literary term, look it up.  What's amazing here, is that this massive book (and it is MASSIVE) is written as if the entire story is present in the narrator's mind at once and he has only to get it out onto paper.  There is no sense of time/space wasted, though, as is often the case with true stream of consciousness, while he finds his voice or necessary details.  These details--all of them pertinent, even crucial--are ready, existent, and waiting to be plucked from the proverbial tree and laid to paper in whatever order it happens to occur to him.  Steinbeck FAKES stream of consciousness, directly, rhetorically affecting you emotionally and sucking you in, while clearly it is calculated.  Or is it calculated?  Steinbeck didn't write a draft and then a second draft and so on.  He wrote the book.  It was edited.  He made minor adjustments.  The freaking thing was published.  Period.  That's it.  We don't have record of how much of this story was envisioned before he put pencil to paper.  Thoughts?