![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
juushikaTitle: East of Eden
Author: John Steinbeck
Published: Penguin Books, New York, 2002
Pages: 601
Total pages: 7546
Text number: 25
Read for: My own enjoyment
In brief: I have a couple problems with Steinbeck's characterization, but I still enjoyed this book. Well-written, with a interesting, woven storyline, dramatic characters, and a unique and important message, it's a readable, interesting, and important text. Not my favorite book but the best I've read by Steinbeck so far and I would recommend it to the serious reader looking for an epic novel.
My ever-occurring problem with Steinbeck, random chapters aside (luckily, there are no unexpected paragraphs on turtles in this text), is his characterization. Characters have definitive personalities explained when they first appear, often with a few entertaining anecdotes; every action following this introduction is compared to the character's known personality.Unusual, unexpected actions are canon out of character moments. Why does this bother me? Because my recent interest in Myers-Briggs typing has made it increasingly clear to me that I'm a different person in different situations and that some people can't be typed at all. I'm an INTJ/P (both Judging and Perceiving seem to fit, but all the rest are basically set in stone), but when I'm with Devon my Introverted nature becomes much more Extroverted, my iNtutive nature becomes Sensing, and, most obviously, my Thinking nature tends toward Feeling: I become increasingly active, personable, and expressive; I focus on the moment, details, and physical acts or changes; I become concentrated on experiences, preferences, touch, verbal communication, assurances, and desires. My father, on the other hand, has an infinitely changeable type: both professional and amateur tests have been unable to type him or, honestly, to even find trends or preferences. He's all over the board. The moral is that people change, either depending on the situations or company or just because they don't have a definite personality to be defined into. Steinbeck doesn't seem to realize that, and this characters are exactly who he says they are, act how those types cause them to act, and are expected to act in that predictable way. Acting outside of one's personality type is frowned upon and must be explained away. Maybe that's just me, but that method of characterization seems simplistic, unrealistic, and stunted.
Characterization aside, East of Eden is a good book. Steinbeck doesn't concentrate on plot so much as on a gradual intertwining of lifetimes and growing relationships, which is fine. The book is therefore unique and unpredictable, but never falls into unstructured or boring. It is a very lose reinterpretation of Adam and Eve and Cain and Abel that focuses on how those archetypes interact with contemporary society: California land, business deals, Model-Ts, farming, whorehouses, and non-traditional marriage. The Biblical study comes down to the oft-repeated concept of "thou mayest"—"thou mayest rule over sin." You know: choice, free will, what makes us human. Both in the Biblical context where it is introduced and in the lives of the characters, this is an important concept, and it made the book worth reading. Steinbeck manages to make the conclusion without breaking the mundane, human flow of the book, and he manages to make at important concept without too much repetition or preaching—although there is some. Alongside some interesting, devious characters and acts (deception, murder, a psychopathic wife) for such a normal text, the final product becomes interesting and well as normal and inspiration as well as unextraordinary. A good read for the serious reader with the time for the book's length and patience for a handful of faults and the straight-forward, even simplistic, material and style.
Author: John Steinbeck
Published: Penguin Books, New York, 2002
Pages: 601
Total pages: 7546
Text number: 25
Read for: My own enjoyment
In brief: I have a couple problems with Steinbeck's characterization, but I still enjoyed this book. Well-written, with a interesting, woven storyline, dramatic characters, and a unique and important message, it's a readable, interesting, and important text. Not my favorite book but the best I've read by Steinbeck so far and I would recommend it to the serious reader looking for an epic novel.
My ever-occurring problem with Steinbeck, random chapters aside (luckily, there are no unexpected paragraphs on turtles in this text), is his characterization. Characters have definitive personalities explained when they first appear, often with a few entertaining anecdotes; every action following this introduction is compared to the character's known personality.Unusual, unexpected actions are canon out of character moments. Why does this bother me? Because my recent interest in Myers-Briggs typing has made it increasingly clear to me that I'm a different person in different situations and that some people can't be typed at all. I'm an INTJ/P (both Judging and Perceiving seem to fit, but all the rest are basically set in stone), but when I'm with Devon my Introverted nature becomes much more Extroverted, my iNtutive nature becomes Sensing, and, most obviously, my Thinking nature tends toward Feeling: I become increasingly active, personable, and expressive; I focus on the moment, details, and physical acts or changes; I become concentrated on experiences, preferences, touch, verbal communication, assurances, and desires. My father, on the other hand, has an infinitely changeable type: both professional and amateur tests have been unable to type him or, honestly, to even find trends or preferences. He's all over the board. The moral is that people change, either depending on the situations or company or just because they don't have a definite personality to be defined into. Steinbeck doesn't seem to realize that, and this characters are exactly who he says they are, act how those types cause them to act, and are expected to act in that predictable way. Acting outside of one's personality type is frowned upon and must be explained away. Maybe that's just me, but that method of characterization seems simplistic, unrealistic, and stunted.
Characterization aside, East of Eden is a good book. Steinbeck doesn't concentrate on plot so much as on a gradual intertwining of lifetimes and growing relationships, which is fine. The book is therefore unique and unpredictable, but never falls into unstructured or boring. It is a very lose reinterpretation of Adam and Eve and Cain and Abel that focuses on how those archetypes interact with contemporary society: California land, business deals, Model-Ts, farming, whorehouses, and non-traditional marriage. The Biblical study comes down to the oft-repeated concept of "thou mayest"—"thou mayest rule over sin." You know: choice, free will, what makes us human. Both in the Biblical context where it is introduced and in the lives of the characters, this is an important concept, and it made the book worth reading. Steinbeck manages to make the conclusion without breaking the mundane, human flow of the book, and he manages to make at important concept without too much repetition or preaching—although there is some. Alongside some interesting, devious characters and acts (deception, murder, a psychopathic wife) for such a normal text, the final product becomes interesting and well as normal and inspiration as well as unextraordinary. A good read for the serious reader with the time for the book's length and patience for a handful of faults and the straight-forward, even simplistic, material and style.
