East of Eden - Part Four (with bonus content)
Chapters 34-55
Our fourth Wednesday of East of Eden musings, and our fourth and fifth sets of 11 chapters on the final Part Four.
Please follow the link below to the full post. Then come back here for some bonus content!
Now…bonus content!
This week, in order to save space on the main post, I did not include a few of the sections I have been in the habit of including. Therefore, they’re here as a way to not bog down Reading Revisited with too much East of Eden (is that possible? Yes, probably so :D).
Therefore, enjoy the bonus content below:
How East of Eden (published in 1952) is like other books; or, how this book is in conversation with other books:
“Was he loved or was he hated? Is his death felt as a loss or does a kind of joy come of it?” (Chapter 34, pg 414)
Reminds me of…
The part in The Great Divorce when someone asks how a family is doing after an over-bearing mother’s death, and the response is, “better.” (C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce, published 1945)“And as is usually true of a man of one idea, he became obsessed.” (Chapter 37, pg 432).
Reminds me of…
In Frankenstein, both Victor Frankenstein and the narrator (Robert Walton) express that what drives them is a fixed purpose, a single idea which is like a pole star which they pour their entire lives into. (Mary Shelley, Frankenstein, published 1818 & 1831)He followed [Kate] into a box of a room. It had no windows, no decorations of any kind…Kate pulled the light chain with her gloved hand” (Chapter 39, pg 462)
Reminds me of…
The character of Blanche, in A Streetcar Named Desire, and how she was habitually avoiding bright light. (Tennessee Williams, A Streetcar Named Desire, published 1947)
Almost finished, and now to list far too many and far too few poignant passages:
“I hope I’m not so small-souled as to take satisfaction in being missed.”
(Lee, Chapter 35, pg 417)
“There’s nothing sadder to me than associations held together by nothing but the glue of postage stamps.” (Lee, Chapter 35, pg 417)
But as is true of all humans, they were stunned for one day, admiring on the second, and on the third day could not remember very clearly having ever gone to any other school. (Chapter 36, 420)
Then, in order, he thought of her holding his head and his baby crying, crying with longing, wanting something and in a way feeling that he was getting it. Perhaps getting it was what had made him cry. (Chapter 36, 428)
“Perhaps the best conversationalist in the world is the man who helps others to talk.” (Lee, Chapter 37, 434)
A miracle once it is familiar is no longer a miracle; Cal had lost his wonder at the golden relationship with his father but the pleasure remained. The poison of loneliness and the gnawing envy of the unlonely had gone out of him, and his person was clean and sweet, and he knew it was. He dredged up an old hatred to test himself, and he found the hatred gone. He wanted to serve his father, to give him some great gift, to perform some huge task in honor of his father. (Chapter 39, pg 457)
“Laughter comes later, like wisdom teeth, and laughter at yourself comes last of all in a mad race with death, and sometimes it isn’t in time.” (Lee, Chapter 44, pg 497)
“I guess no matter how weak and negative a good man is, he has as many sins on him as he can bear. I have enough sins to trouble me. Maybe they aren’t very fine sins compared to some, but, the way I feel, they’re all I can take care of. Please forgive me.” (Lee, Chapter 44, pg 498)
“And they were silent, for it was too late to say hello and too early to begin other things.” (Chapter 49, pg 543)
“When you’re a child you’re the center of everything. Everything happens to you. Other people? They’re only ghosts furnished for you to talk to. But when you grow up you take your place and you’re your own size and shape. Things go out of you to others and come in from other people. It’s worse, but it’s much better too.” (Abra, Chapter 52, pg 578)
“Nobody has a right to remove any single experience from another. Life and death are promised. We have a right to pain.” (Lee, Chapter 54, pg 593)
A final, necessary, nod to Steinbeck’s excellent writing:
I feel that I cannot leave us, without highlighting a few exceedingly minor passages in order to touch on Steinbeck’s absolute mastery with the written word.
First, character development. No character of Steinbeck’s is flat. Therefore, when he gives me new perspective into a character, that character does not merely go from 2D to 3D (which is an excellent achievement in any author), but from 3D to 4D. And what is this fourth dimension, which Steinbeck imparts? The spiritual dimension. Before Part Four, I felt I already knew Will Hamilton, and not in a flat, two dimensional way, but as a real person with real strengths and limitations. In this Part, I came to know him as a Man, a living being with a dimension that lifted him outside of space and time into a realm of spiritual needs and desires. Out of the material, and into the immaterial.
Nearly everyone has his box of secret pain, shared with no one. Will had concealed his well, laughed loud, exploited perverse virtues, and never let his jealously go wandering. He thought of himself as slow, doltish, conservative, uninspired. No great dream lifted him high and no despair forced self-destruction. He was always on the edge, trying to hold on to the rim of the family with what gifts he had - care, and reason, application. He kept the books, hired the attorneys, called the undertaker, and eventually paid the bills. The others didn’t even know they needed him. He had the ability to get money and keep it. He thought the Hamiltons despised him for his one ability. He had loved them doggedly, had always been at hand with his money to pull them out of their errors. He thought they were ashamed of him, and he fought bitterly for their recognition. All of this was in the frozen wind that blew through him. (Chapter 41, pg 480)
And just like that, I love Will Hamilton. That, I think, is the sign of a great author: making a reader love someone. For, what are books if they do not help us become better Men? And what is a Man if he has no love for others? So, I tip my hat to the great authors who make me not only see others, and into others, but love others.
Now, as a different example of Steinbeck’s excellent craft, let’s take this seemingly mundane passage, seemingly meant to merely convey a few facts:
The women rolled bandages and wore Red Cross uniforms and thought of themselves as Angels of Mercy. And everybody knitted something for someone. There were wristlets, short tubes of wool to keep the wind from whistling up soldiers’ sleeves, and there were knitted helmets with only a hole in front to look out of. These were designed to keep the new tin helmets from freezing to the head. (Chapter 46, pg 517)
What stuns me about these lines, is they didn’t have to be stunning. He didn’t need to do anything but tell us what the women were doing. But by beginning rather humorously, with this image of busy women doing busy things just trying to keep busy so they can feel helpful, he sets me up perfectly for the drop at the end. We go from a scene of tittering gossip to tin helmets freezing to boy’s heads. It’s so well done, and it didn’t have to be.
And lastly, as just one more example of excellent writing, let me place before us these three sentences:
Cal wanted to throw his arms about his father, to hug him and to be hugged by him. He wanted some wild demonstration of sympathy and love. He picked up the wooden napkin ring and thrust his forefinger through it. (Chapter 39, pg 454)
Who can write like that?
Steinbeck succinctly describes a moment that we’ve all (hopefully) had the honor of experiencing: a moment when the enormous jubilation is forced to contain itself within an everyday moment with an everyday action, which does not come close to matching the feeling. Thrusting his finger through the napkin ring is a mundane, even absent minded action. And this is how life is forced to function on this earth. The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak. The spirit soars to great heights, but the flesh cannot fly with it. Sometimes a moment is so great, you can’t do anything.
But Steinbeck took his writing to higher levels of mastery by the choice of what mundane action he had Cal perform. Cal could have absentmindedly rolled the napkin into a tube, he could have picked at lint on his sleeve, he could have smiled out the window. But what does he do? Puts a ring on. This seemingly absentminded physical action has become enriched by time and tradition into a spiritual action, and thus becomes fitting. For putting on a ring is a wild demonstration of sympathy and love.
Alright y’all, that’s all I’ll write. Every sentence of East of Eden deserves to be written about. The book is its own best reflection. Tomorrow will be our final post on East of Eden, in which we will look back on the structure of the work, talk about money, and provide some discussion questions. Until tomorrow!
[P.S. Florence Pugh (who played “Amy” in the 2019 Little Women) is set to play Cathy in an upcoming Netflix film, which is not set to air until late 2025 at the earliest. I can’t help but have such high hopes for this adaptation. Timothée Chalamet (“Teddy/Laurie” in the 2019 Little Women) calls Pugh one of the greatest actresses of their generation. Could be good.]
A new East of Eden adaptation?! Ah I am excited!!