My Review:Even when researching Steinbeck’s writings, the most renowned books that I came across were East of Eden, Grapes of Wrath, Of Mice and Men, which got me thinking that Steinbeck’s writings are deeper to a level where humour can’t reach but man oh man… Cannery Row!
Cannery Row in Monterey in California is a poem, a stink, a grating noise, a quality of light, a tone, a habit, a nostalgia, a dream. Cannery Row is the gathered and scattered, tin and iron and rust and splintered wood, chipped pavement and weedy lots and junk heaps, sardine canneries of corrugated iron, honky tonks, restaurants and whore houses, and little crowded groceries, and laboratories and flophouses. Its inhabitant are, as the man once said, “whores, pimps, gambler and sons of bitches,” by which he meant Everybody. Had the man looked through another peephole he might have said, “Saints and angels and martyrs and holy men” and he would have meant the same thing.
The picture you get in mind after reading this paragraph is exactly what Cannery Row is!
While not having one strong plot, this book contains short interconnected narratives of the quirky yet utterly memorable people of Cannery Row in Monterey where the business seemed to bloom while Canneries packed cans of sardines and tuna. It’s less of a plot line and more of an characterisation of the people in the story. While being completely unaware of the context of canneries, this book will simply get you to travel back in time to the early 1900’s and see the tough and innocent lives of people living there.
The book revolves around Doc’, the marine biologist and own a laboratory, who’s the nicest to the people living there whom he’s helped in some way or another. Mack, the layabout misfit and the leader of his troupe of good natured boys. Dora, who runs a brothel. Lee Chong a short Chinese grocer and many many more. The people and the way they’re explained is just amazing. All the characters, in their own way want to do something good for the Doc but the trouble is, it just goes the other way! And the fact that the simplest of things are so intensely defined is amazing! Every single chapter is intensely character driven. These folks are so disarmingly innocent that humor bubbles up from every awkward exchange and half-baked idea. Get to know them, and they’ll pull you right into their world, making you wonder how it would feel to swap your daily routine for their salty, sun-bleached days.
While every chapter not being more than 3 pages, you’ll genuinely feel like you’re reading a sitcom. This, being my second book going through Steinbeck’s, I just can’t wait to read more.
Here are a few quotes that just stick.
“Where men hungering for love, destroy everything lovable about them.”
“It has always seemed strange to me...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.”
“It’s all fine to say, “Time will heal everything, this too shall pass away. People will forget”—and things like that when you are not involved, but when you are there is no passage of time, people do not forget and you are in the middle of something that does not change.”
“For there are two possible reactions to social ostracism - either a man emerges determined to be better, purer, and kindlier or he goes bad, challenges the world and does even worse things. The last is by far the commonest reaction to stigma.”
And a few funny ones :) Trust me, there are so many.
“Her great-great-great-great-great grandmother had been burned as a witch.”
“Someone should write an erudite essay on the moral, physical, and esthetic effect of the Model T Ford on the American nation. Two generations of Americans knew more about the Ford coil than the clitoris”
“Henri the painter was not French and his name was not Henri. Also he was not really a painter. Henri has so steeped himself in stories of the Left Bank in Paris that he lived there although he had never been there.”
“Maybe his wealth was entirely in unpaid bills.”
“He’s got a can up there,’ Richard said.”
(My favourite. Trust me, when you’ll read the chapter you’ll know)
“What’s celebrate?” Eddie asked.
“That’s when you can’t get no dame,” said Mack.
“I thought it was a kind of a party,” said Jones.
A silence fell on the room.”
“If a man ordered a beer milkshake he’d better do it in a town where he wasn’t known.”
“Men all do about the same thing when they wake up.”
Good thing it’s got a sequel! Sweet Thursday #2 Cannery Row
Seeye!