East of Eden
115. John Steinbeck, East of Eden
Caveat: I found it really difficult to write a summary of this book because there’s just so much going on! I don’t think I’ve spoiled the book, but I had to mention some of the main plot points.
Set in turn-of-the-century California, this novel follows two families, the Trasks and the Hamiltons, through several generations. In the beginning, central character Adam Trask is a child; he and his brother Charles grow up competing for the love of their father Cyrus. Eventually the tension between the two brothers becomes unbearable, and Adam ends up moving west. When he goes back to visit Charles several years later, he meets a beautiful woman named Cathy, marries her, and takes her to California. Cathy turns out to be evil and manipulative, and eventually she leaves Adam with twin sons Cal and Aron. The cycle of sibling rivalry begins again as the twins grow up, but are they doomed to repeat the mistakes of the past, or can they ultimately determine their own fate?
I thought this book was fantastic. Despite its length, I remained enthralled with the story. As the title indicates, there are many allusions to the Book of Genesis, particularly the story of Cain and Abel, and I thought it was really interesting to take a foundational story of the Western heritage and transpose it to another time and place. The many characters and plotlines can be hard to keep straight, but that almost seems necessary, considering the scope of the novel. I haven’t enjoyed Steinbeck much in the past, because his books all seem so depressing: but while there is a lot of pain and death and suffering in this book, there is also hope. I would highly recommend this book to anyone.
This is one of my favorite passages of the novel (p. 411 of my edition):
I believe that there is one story in the world, and only one, that has frightened and inspired us. . . . Humans are caught - in their lives, in their thoughts, in their hungers and ambitions, in their avarice and cruelty, and in their kindness and generosity too - in a net of good and evil. I think this is the only story we have and that it occurs on all levels of feeling and intelligence. Virtue and vice were warp and woof of our first consciousness, and they will be the fabric of our last, and this despite any changes we may impose on field and river and mountain, on economy and manners. There is no other story. A man, after he has brushed off the dust and chips of his life, will have left only the hard, clean questions: Was it good or was it evil? Have I done well - or ill?