East of Eden

 I know I had a picture of this the other day when I was mentioning the last ten books I have read but here it is again. I felt like blogging about this book because it was an experience to read it.

 My friend Julie is in love with Steinbeck- well, I think she called it a 'brain crush'. She has talked so much about him that I became interested in his books. Of course, then I remembered that I had read Of Mice and Men and Grapes of Wrath in high school and liked them. But, the book she talked about the most was East of Eden which I hadn't read and didn't know anything about.
I have been intrigued for a while but a little afraid to read it because I didn't want to hate her favorite book.
I finally got it at the library the other day and have spent the last week and a half submerged in Steinbecks vast world of real characters and honest feelings.
I mentioned that I was writing down and making note of passages that meant something to me.
Without giving too many spoilers (I hope) here are some of my favorite passages:


" I think 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 anymore, and when that happens there is nothing left except perhaps to find some strong, sure man, even though he may be wrong, and to dangle from his coattails."

That passage spoke to me because I feel like this is happening all around us today. So many people don't seem to know what they believe in or who they are and they latch onto the first good looking, smooth talking person they see and adopt their opinions and ideals.

"Sometimes a kind of glory lights up the mind of a man. It happens to nearly everyone. You can feel it growing or preparing like a fuse burning toward dynamite. It is a feeling in the stomach, a delight of the nerves, of the forearms. The skin tastes the air, and every deep drawn breath is sweet. Its beginning has the pleasure of a great stretching yawn; it flashes in the brain and the whole world glows outside your eyes. A man may have lived all of his life in the gray , and the land and the trees of him dark and somber. The events, even the important ones, may have trooped by faceless and pale. And then- the glory- so that a cricket song sweetens his ears, the smell of the earth rises chanting to his nose, and dappling light under a tree blesses his eyes. Then a man pours outward, a torrent of him and yet he is not diminished. And I guess a man's importance in the world can be measured by the quality and number of his glories. It is a lonely thing but it relates us to the world. It is the mother of all creativeness, and it sets each man separate from all other men......
...What do I believe in? What must I fight for and what must I fight against?
Our species is the only creative species, and it has only one creative instrument, the individual mind and spirit of a man.....
...And now the forces marshaled around the concept of the group have declared  a war of extermination on that preciousness, the mind of man. By disparagement, by starvation, by repressions, forced direction, and the stunning hammer blows of conditioning, the free roving mind is being pursued, roped, blunted, drugged. It is a sad,suicidal course our species seems to have taken.
And this I believe: that the free, exploring mind of the individual human is the most valuable thing in the world. And this I would fight for; the freedom of the mind to take any direction it wishes, undirected. And this I must fight against: any idea, religion, or government which limits or destroys the individual. This is what I am and what I am about. I can understand why a system built on a pattern must try to destroy the free mind, for that is one thing which can by inspection, destroy such a system. Surely I can understand this, and I hated it and I will fight against it to preserve the one thing that separates from the uncreative beasts. If the glory can be killed, we are lost."

I just loved that entire passage. I left out some of it because it was so long and I already wanted to include so much of it... but it was just beautifully written. It spoke to me because I worry sometimes about losing myself and what I want if I conform too much to those around me. I think we can all believe in the same things and be similar while still retaining our own mind and opinions.

"In uncertainty I am certain that underneath their topmost layers of frailty men want to be good and want to be loved. Indeed, most of their vices are attempted short cuts to love. When a man comes to die, no matter what his talents and influence and genius, if he dies unloved his life must be a failure to him and his dying a cold horror. It seems to me that if you or I must choose between two course of thought or action, we should remember our dying and try so to live that our death brings no pleasure to the world.
We have only one story. All novels, all poetry, are built on the never ending contest in ourselves of good and evil. And it occurs to me that evil must constantly re spawn, while good, while virtue, is immortal. Vice has always a new fresh young face, while virtue is venerable as nothing else in  the world is."

 I think that is arguably one of the most beautiful things I've ever read. In another chapter, when speaking of the schoolhouse, he described it this way....

"and the doors did not smile."

I can see that school. Can't you?

I hesitate to recommend the book even though I loved it so much because I know Julie has said that she has had people be offended by it. I'm not sure why honestly. There wasn't much swearing, there was evil and horrible things in the story but I really didn't think they were described in enough detail to be offending... but I wouldn't want anyone to read it and then be mad at me.
This I will say.. besides having beautiful writing, characters that felt real and close to me (my favorites being Lee the wise Chinese man, Sam Hamilton the kind and good neighbor, and Cal the boy who struggles with his nature and cries as a boy in prayer that he will not be mean) and a storyline that was both interesting and thought provoking, this book had one of the best ending lines/ moments of any I have ever read.

Thanks again Julie.