It feel like ages ago that I read Ken Folett’s Pillars of the Earth and John Steinbeck’s East of Eden. It was the end of the summer, and all the back-to-school trappings meant no-more-getting-sucked-into-story-land for this mummy. And since it’s been a while, some of the details of these stories have since faded, but I loved them both very much.
Pillars starts off in the year 1135. T’is the Middle Ages. Castles and kings, urchins and thieves, treachery and deceit, raping, pillaging, and fresh horses for the men! God, those were some bad old days. People wore tunics and hairshirts, bathed a few times a year, and toothpaste wouldn’t be invented for centuries. Yikes! Nast.
But this was an super-well-written story starting with one man’s beginning of a new life as he finds employment building a cathedral. That doesn’t sound necessarily appealing, but the twists and turns of this tale are most engaging. I realised while reading this story how little I know about architecture. This isn’t so strange really, since I never studied the subject, but there’s a ton of detail about constructing a cathedral. It was very interesting to me, and somewhat amazing given the crude times. Building was only a (small) part of the story though. The writing is descriptive, and the narration is excellent for the times. Villages burn. People are raped and murdered. Sometimes this story is downright brutal… but the sex scenes rocked well enough. I wish Twilight had more of that kind of writing in it. (Yes, I’m still dreaming of vampires… leave me alone. They’re seeeeesssssy!!) Anyway, I truly recommend this read. Do it.
I was a bit apprehensive about East of Eden. Because I have a thing about John Steinbeck. Or had. Lemme esplain…
I loved, Loved, LOVED of Mice and Men. Of all his works, this one is my absolute favorite. I love it because it’s such an intense and compact story – and oh, what a story. (I also loved the Malkovitch/Sinise film of the same title – wonderful stuff. “Tell about dem rabbits, George…”) I read The Grapes of Wrath in school, I think. I don’t remember enough of the story because I was completely distracted by the long-haired boys in my class what I felt to be overly-described landscapes of the times. It was set during the Great Depression (in case you don’t know) and what I remember was what felt like pages and pages and pages of words like this: “It was hot. Lord, it was hot. And dry. And dusty. It was ever so dusty and dry. I said, “Lord, Ma, but ain’t it hot and dusty.” And Ma said, “I reckon it’ll be hot and dusty for some time, son. Ain’t no rain a-comin’…”
This is not a quote. This is just what I remember of it. Pages and pages of it. I felt like, “Okay, it was HOT and DUSTY! No crops growing! I get it!! Let’s GO! Can we please move on now?!”
I think if I were to reread The Grapes of Wrath I would be much more… empathetic. Age can do that to a person. My entire perspective on the world has changed with the passing years, and with the coming of children. Everything looks different when one has a child – it just happens like that. I would feel much more anguish reading scenes of standing in a bread line, worried about feeding my children, now that I actually have some. Oh, what terrible times.
So that being said, I started East of Eden with my eyes narrowed. I know it’s a classic. Come on and show me why then… and man, did it ever. It’s the story of a family (Steinbeck’s family) starting when our hero, Adam Trask was born in 1862. The story is full of sibling rivalry, crazy wives, brutal fathers, whores with secrets, love, agony, death, and a sage Chinese house-helper/manny named Lee. I felt it spoke much about the meaning of life, if that’s not being to vague. When I wasn’t reading it, I was thinking about it. Heavily. It spoke volumes about why it is that people are as they are. I like that. People make me very curious. It spoke to all my sensibilities on the matter.
A random point of interest to me: All the people who knew Adam Trask scoffed and laughed at his idea about packing a train full of ice to ship lettuce from California to northern states who couldn’t grow such luxuries at certain times of the year. It was 1915. Everyone thought refrigeration was a stupid idea. Imagine that, really. Fast forward a few decades, and ta-da!, as most people start having iceboxes in their own homes, shipping fresh produce from sunny climbs to northern, chilly ones turned out to be no thang at all. Poor man lost nearly all his money over that idea at the time. Crazy how times have changed.
John Steinbeck’s words are decadent, and to be savoured. The language is wonderful. Sometimes, the English word is just so freaking delightful.
I’ve been all about juicy, delicious magazines for the last few months, but I feel it’s time to get back to proper reading. My bookshelves beckon and mock me at the same time. Le sigh. I’ve had Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy sitting here for a few years now, and one of my foxes wants to lend me The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold, which is supposed to be a bit of a brutal on the brain. (She was also one of the first to recommend that fucking Twilight series, so I’m not certain that I trust her entirely.) We’ll see. I could use something wordy to escape to.
If you have suggestions, let ‘em rip!! Failing which, I might have to re-read New Moon, since the movie opens later this week, and being all twelve years old in my pants head, I might enjoy the refresher before the flick. Heh.
NOTE: The reason I do not have a copy of The Grapes of Wrath to refer to is because of a fox called Peaches who years ago jibed and taunted me into feeling like an epic, anal super-loser for keeping track of my books-on-loan in a very attractive little notebook I kept strictly for this purpose… so in an act of trying to appear all cool again, I gave up the notebook, and subsequently lost track of about 25% of the books I used to own. Fuck you very much, Peaches! It’s a good thing I like love you so much, you bitch.
G.G.
