52+2 Deck Draw #4: EAST OF EDEN by John Steinbeck ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

I had to go back and reread the last couple of pages multiple times, just because I wasn’t ready to be done. This book either took something from me or left me with it, I’m not sure which. But I needed to soak in the final words more. It had been a monumental book. I owed it my complete reverence.

Sometimes taking on a classic is a drag. They drum up the same reluctance or terror or boredom from old grade school reading lists. You find yourself staring at the stack and wondering how miserable this will be and how many months it will take to be over.

That spark of fear returned when I drew this card. I’m not really at an opportune time in life for giving my utmost attention, something often required for novels published seventy years ago. But that was the reason I made this card deck in the first place. To force-feed myself the daunting and the lengthy. Apparently, the universe believed I was ready for it. Apparently, it was right.

I will be rereading this throughout the rest of my life. I’m not sure a younger me would’ve been ready for it, but there’s no doubt it takes on new meaning with age. Steinbeck writes character better than anything I’ve encountered before, and even more so, the human condition. Brothers with complexities, little girls with spunk, families doomed to repeat themselves, and a man searching for the American dream, failing at first and somehow stumbling into it by mistake. Samuel Hamilton may be one of the most endearing characters in all of literature.

I’ve found myself describing other authors as putting things in a way that should’ve seemed obvious before. That clever reframing of the familiar. But Steinbeck goes to a deeper, more fundamental level than that. He describes living like someone who’s done it a thousand times, tenderly exposing those thoughts and emotions that have existed inside us for millennia. His writing is utterly timeless, and it’s a gift.

Yet, by some magic trick, it also happens to serve as a time capsule. He tells so affectionately and retrospectively of the early 1900s that I would consider his voice more reliable than any textbook on the matter, and more interesting besides. Makes me wonder who will be considered the voice of today seventy years from now. I hope someone good is taking notes.

I’ve heard it said that Steinbeck considered this his masterpiece, all his other works before only practice for this one. As far as I can tell, this is pretty much as close as one can get to the perfect novel. East of Eden feels extremely important. Far beyond any specific issue or talking point.

If you plan on doing any existing in the future, this story will be relevant. I promise.