Wednesday reading

[sholio]

I never do that Wednesday reading meme that goes around ... except this Wednesday I actually thought of it in time, and I'm reading something fairly interesting, so!

I'm reading John Steinbeck's Journal of a Novel: The East of Eden Letters and, concurrently, East of Eden. I didn't actually set out to read East of Eden; I'd gotten Journal of a

Comments

[leesa_perrie]

hey are SERIOUS LITERARY CHARACTERS, BY GOLLY, while the Hamiltons are just regular folks kind of hanging out in this novel. Consequently the Hamiltons are a lot more interesting.

Gotta have SERIOUS LITERARY CHARACTERS to be a serious literary book!! :D :D Interesting how he contrasts them to normal folk - maybe a commentary on literary fiction itself?

[sholio]

I truly don't think he's doing it on purpose .... although if he is, I'm clearly not giving him enough credit. :D He definitely is contrasting the two families, but I don't think it's Real People vs. Literary People; it's more healthy family vs. terribly messed-up family. But maybe I'm wrong, who knows! I don't know how the book ends yet (although "not well for the Trasks" would be my guess).

[frith_in_thorns]

Everyone dies miserably?

[sholio]

Well, since he's a character in his own book, I know one character who's going to make it out. XD

ETA: Unless he kills himself off for shock value and it turns out the whole book has been written by Zombie Steinbeck.

[frith_in_thorns]

I think that's actually the only Steinbeck novel I haven't read; I should get on that sometime.

(I can never do the "what are you reading" posts because I only ever seem to read books in one sitting -- I forget to stop and talk about being in the middle of them XD)

[sholio]

I used to; I don't know when I started reading in bits and pieces here and there. I've been reading both of these for the last two weeks, although there have been other books in the meantime. Actually I think I'm technically reading at least five books right now, judging by the number of books that have bookmarks in them. I should probably do something about that. XD

I think the only other Steinbeck I've read was The Moon is Down a long time ago, so I wasn't quite sure what to expect, aside from being vaguely familiar with most of his books (Grapes of Wrath, etc) through cultural osmosis. His prose is just lovely -- so elegantly simple that it seems easy, but of course it can't be or everyone would be doing it! I keep hitting turns of phrase that impress me with how he basically conveys a whole paragraph of information in one sentence.

[fitzwiggity]

I haven't read John Steinback in forever...I attempted to muck my way through "Grapes of Wrath", but found it too depressing at the time to really get into it. Did you read Grapes of Wrath? It's considered a major classic (there's a movie based off it too), and it was set during the Dust Bowl, I think, if I remember it correctly.

I think I read EoE, but I honestly don't remember much of it, though from what you say of it, now I really want to read it again, damn it. :)

On a sidenote: I finally got a copy of War and Peace, so I can actually sit down and read it. Ever since I saw Sheppard on Stargate Atlantis reading it, and saw how huge it was, I was eager to get my hands on it. I'm hoping it'll be good. Though sine it took Sheppard as long as it did to even get a quarter of the way through it, I'm doubtful. Have you read War and Peace?

[sholio]

The only other Steinbeck I've read is The Moon is Down, which is about the Norwegian resistance in WWII. I know of his books (Grapes of Wrath, Of Mice & Men, etc) but hadn't really explored his work before.

I haven't read War and Peace. A friend of mine actually recommended it to me awhile back; she said it's actually a really good book (better than you'd expect, really, considering that it's sort of synonymous with "long depressing novel" for a lot of people). I hope you enjoy it!