{hundred things} passage 001: Cannery Row

May 01, 2012 12:07


Cannery Row in Monterey in California is a poem ( Read more... )

meme: hundred passages, fandom: a quality of light

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nahara May 8 2012, 12:03:37 UTC
I've been so wrapped up in my own stupid life that I didn't even see that you were doing the 100 Things challenge as well! I'm excited to see this. And since I love me some literature, I'm happy to have these "100 passages" on my flist. :D

And this, this is a WINNER. John Steinbeck. Man, I totally didn't appreciate him when I was forced to read Of Mice and Men and The Grapes of Wrath as a teenager (the latter was just so loooong and dense, I didn't give it much of a chance). I remember reading the beginning to Cannery Row, several places, and thinking it was just an honest to god marvel. He so perfectly encapsulates a place. I don't need to have been there to know the place, thanks to Steinbeck.

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ienablu May 19 2012, 21:54:33 UTC
I had a response planned out for this, but apparently I never posted it and/or I can't seem to find it. Whoops.

Anyways, WINNER sums it up perfectly. Because he sums up everything perfectly. Like you said, even though I actually want to go to Monterey Bay, to some degree, I feel almost like I've already been there, he's that good. (To some degree -- because in encapsulating the place, he also encapsulated the time. Which makes sense, given that Steinbeck was live during the time he was describing, but he wasn't describing just the time. He was never like "THIS TAKES PLACE DURING THE DEPRESSION. SEE HOW PEOPLE WERE" -- it was just small details about prices, the atmosphere of it, and how people lived, and how they acted that really captured the time.)

(And I hope you have a broad sense of literature like I do, since even though I'm starting with the best a legit novel, most of it will probably end up being fanfiction. Because anyone who says all fanfiction is amateur work can go fuck themselves.)

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nahara May 21 2012, 22:53:45 UTC
most of it will probably end up being fanfiction
Haha, that's cool. I think it'll be interesting to hear what fanfic you think is worthy to put on your 100 Thing list. There's some great stuff out there. I mean, I've never been that keen on any of my own fics, not entirely, but every now and again I write a single sentence which I'm sort of proud of. For that one line I might actually be a legit writer. :)

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