Perhaps a close re-read will reveal why he chose to include her at all. Of course it doesn’t erase the lamentable choice of having a character called “the nigger'. That was remarkable when the book was published 70 years ago, I imagine. Major props to Steinbeck for creating Lee as a central and fully formed character of Asian ancestry in the American West at the turn of the 19th century. I didn't think they resolved anything in the discussion, but I enjoyed reading it. I did enjoy the discussion on why God chose not to accept Cain’s offering, because I’ve never understood why God rejected it. The first read is merely a cursory one to determine whether a book is worth the time. I will East of Eden again, if time allows it. Steinbeck wrote a journal as he created the novel and I need to read it to glean what I missed. Yet, even she did not live up to the expectations created for her, I felt.

She’s the center of this tale modeled on the biblical story Cain and Abel. When that girl showed up in chapter 8, I was all in. Tragedy and love, struggle and joy, characters and.there is no one else in literature like Cathy Ames. I felt like for all the setup, people’s lives were just.lives. This set up an expectation that was never met. I can’t see any great question posed or answered other than that, and it bothers me because the book starts out with a grand scope, focusing on families of the Salinas Valley near Monterey Bay in the early 1900s. Seems to me Steinbeck answers a question, “what is life?” His response: It goes on. I read all 601 pages but the narrator remains a mystery to me. Someone said to me, “wait until you see who the narrator is.” I guess I missed it because I still don’t know. East of Eden is the second book written by the Nobel and Pulitzer winner John Steinbeck that I read, after previously reading the short story The Pearl.Considered by Steinbeck his magnum opus, East of Eden is a book about family and brotherhood, about good and evil, about jealousy and pride, and about the way history repeats itself.

East of eden book review