John Steinbeck Appreciation Post

[Anonymous No.16588117]

I'm nearing the end of "The Wayward Bus" and it's hitting me what an incredible influence Steinbeck has had on my life.
I got back into literature several years ago after reading the Grapes of Wrath and it's been a lifechanging experience.
I can never walk away from anything written by Steinbeck, whereas other authors over the years have bored me, or I'll have to take a break so not to risk ruining my enjoyment of a book, this has never occurred with Steinbeck.
Grapes of Wrath, Cannery Row, The Pearl, Tortilla Flat, all these stories and more were stories I couldn't put down and would blow through in days, and then reread them.
I've become more in touch with religion and God and philosophy over the past several years, I've become a better man and a large part of that is thanks to Steinbeck for lighting my interest in all of this.

I've been especially fond of "The Wayward Bus" so far despite it being called one of his weaker novels. I think it's fantastic all the same, and I appreciate the depth and attention that each character is given, the story being told from so many points of view makes me ecstatic.
I especially loved this little passage I read today:

>My old man had two faiths. One was that honesty got rewarded some way or other. He thought that if a man was honest he somehow got along, and he thought if a man worked hard and saved he could pile up a little money and feel safe. Teapot Dome and a lot of other stuff like that fixed him on the first, and nineteen-thirty fixed him on the other. He found out that the most admired people weren't honest at all. And he died wondering, a kind of an awful wondering, because the two things he believed in didn't work out--honesty and thrift. It kind of struck me that nobody has anything in place of those two.

[Anonymous No.16588306]

>>16588117
Don't let my thread die you filthy animals

[Anonymous No.16588362]

>>16588117
What’s this accusation that Steinbeck plagiarized from a woman? Is this just retarded white female academics manufacturing controversy hoping it shows that they are not completely useless?

[Anonymous No.16588367]

>>16588117
based warfag

[Anonymous No.16588421]

>>16588362
It's complete hot air, the woman claims that Steinbeck stole ideas from her personal notes when they had lunch together. Yet her book was not published until 2004, so there is no evidence to prove that this true at all.

[Anonymous No.16588424]

>>16588362
The woman in question was Sanora Babb and people said he used the notes she gave her editor though there is legit no proof. She became butthurt after grapes of wrath blew up before she published her own book on the dust bowl and gave up novel writing for two decades and then said this in an interview fifty years later lol
>tfw you will never have a female be so angry at your success that five decades after your death she's still seething

[Anonymous No.16588450]

Was going to read steinbeck, but Bloom savaged him so completely, i wonder if its still worth it

[Anonymous No.16588466]

>>16588450
What did Bloom have to say about him exactly? Grapes of Wrath is in his canon isn't it?
I can affirm that Cannery Row is definitely worth it.

[Anonymous No.16588577]

Im reading grapes of wrath for the first time. I can’t think of a worse hell than being on the road to California with that many problems going on, it really unnerves me to think about it. Of Mice and Men changed my perspective on books in middle school, I don’t think I had a piece of literature hit me as hard as it did at the time.

[Anonymous No.16588584]

>>16588577
>>16588577
Also pls no spoilers

[Anonymous No.16588626]

>>16588577
Somewhat related, but when I went on a roadtrip across the American west, I saw those rockies and thought what it must've been to see those as a traveler in search of manifest destiny. I don't know what my reaction would be, but that complete wall of rock stretching across the plain must've been the most foreboding sight a man could ever see.

[Anonymous No.16588841]

>>16588117
Cannery Row is simply based. Absolute slice of life, love that book, need to read it again at some point.

East of Eden was my first time getting seriously immersed into the universe of a book, feeling the amoral passage of time through the generational families.

[Anonymous No.16588849]

>>16588466
Just picked up an old copy of Cannery Row, its my first Steinbeck novel and I cant wait

[Anonymous No.16589036]

>>16588466
>His best novels came early in his career: In Dubious Battle (1936); Of Mice and Men (1937); The Grapes of Wrath (1939). Nothing after that, including East of Eden (1952), bears rereading.
...
>If Steinbeck is not an original or even an adequate stylist, if he lacks skill in plot, and power in the mimesis of character, what then remains in his work, except its fairly constant popularity with an immense number of liberal middlebrows, both in his own country and abroad? Certainly, he aspired beyond his aesthetic means. If the literary Sublime, or contest for the highest place, involves persuading the reader to yield up easier pleas- ures for more difficult pleasures, and it does, then Steinbeck modestly should have avoided Emerson’s American Sublime, but he did not. Desiring it both ways, he fell into bathos in everything he wrote, even in Of Mice and Men and The Grapes of Wrath.

[Anonymous No.16589156]

I loved The Grapes of Wrath. Of course, I read it in 11th grade and am in my 30's now.

But when I read East of Eden about 5 or so years ago it was agonizing. I didn't enjoy it at all.

Other than that I've read Of Mice and Men (also while in high school, lol) and really liked that.

What would you recommend next?

[Anonymous No.16589599]

>>16589156
Travels with Charley is comfy

[Anonymous No.16590751]

>>16589156
>>16589599
If you liked Of Mice and Men I definitely suggest at least reading the Pearl.
Cannery Row is also essential in my opinion.

And if you end up liking Travels with Charley, make sure to check out The Log From the Sea of Cortez.

[Anonymous No.16591002]

>>16588450
Criticisms are supposed to supplement your readings, not substitute them.

[Anonymous No.16591573]

Hes alright.