East of Eden - Earthy and compelling

Required reading in some class I took, probably back in high school, Steinbeck's lengthy East of Eden is the only book (besides the Bible) that I have ever re-read in my life. I don't recall particularly enjoying it the first time around, but I certainly did the second time! Maybe this will make me a believer in the old axiom, "You get so much more out of a book on the second read".

A big story in every sense of the word. Glorious descriptions, good development of each important character and interesting family events are woven into the 650+ pages of a multi-generational epic novel.

The Trasks and the Hamiltons are the two core families and the main storyline concerns Adam Trask, his evil wife Cathy/Kate, their twin sons Aaron and Caleb and Lee, Adam's dedicated Chinese houseboy. Some say it is a retelling of the Biblical book of Genesis. I think that parallel is drawn only due to the title and Biblical names of the main characters. If it had been called Salinas Valley and inhabited by Donald, Harold and Marvin it would be still be what it is: a story about people ... the good, the bad and the ugly.

Adam was raised in an unloving, cold home dominated by his gruff father and tormented by his only sibling, Charles. His father forces Adam into the military where he serves honorably though hating every minute of it. After his Army release, Adam joins his bachelor brother to live a strained life together. Along comes bad-to-the-bone Cathy Ames who long ago got away with murdering her parents and torching the family homestead. She appears on the Trask brothers' doorstep after having barely survived a vicious beating by her latest lover. Bleeding and battered Cathy arouses an all consuming dedication to her by trustingly naive Adam. They marry and head for a new life in the Salinas Valley of California. Cathy tries to abort herself when she is pregnant...possibly by husband, Adam or possibly by a one-night-stand with brother, Charles. The plot thickens.

Cathy leaves Adam after birthing twin boys who remain unnamed for several months by the desolate, deserted Adam who is recovering from the bullet wound inflicted by evil Cathy before her departure. Mercy!! Changing her name to Kate, Cathy becomes a who-e, eventually murders the madam of the house and takes over as the matriarch of that establishment. Aaron is the good son - Caleb is the bad one. The twins grow up exhibiting those individual tendencies and several major events keep the family in a state of perpetual chaos. Sanity is maintained via the calming good advice of gentle, decent neighbor Samuel Hamilton and later by the Trask's wise and dedicated Chinese housekeeper, Lee.

The twins are raised believing that their mother was a good person who tragically died. Caleb learns the truth about his mother and is sure that he has inherited his 'bad' streak from her. Lee tries to assure him by telling him, "You've got the other (meaning good)in you, too. Listen to me! You wouldn't even be wondering if you didn't have it. Don't you dare take the lazy way. It's too easy to excuse yourself because of your ancestry. Don't let me catch you doing it! Now - look close at me so you will remember. Whatever you do, it will be you who do it - not your mother."

Throughout the novel we are given lessons: "Hate cannot live alone. It must have love as a trigger, a goad or a stimulant". ... "The greatest terror a child can have is that he is not loved, and rejection is the hell he fears". ... "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". ... etc., etc and etc. You could almost feel Steinbeck's brain gears working to put in another of his meaty views.

We get involved with the characters, live through the good times and the bad times with all of them and are actually exhausted when we finally reach THE END. Steinbeck's talent for descriptive writing is legendary and deservedly so as evidenced by some from East of Eden: tension in a house being "silent shrieking", a near death illness when "wing tips of angels brushed my eyes", suicide is the "cheapest kind of self indulgence" , cooking eggs that "jumped and fluttered their edges to brown lace and made clucking sounds" and being as ecstatic as a "colt in a happy pasture". Word pictures that are just delicious!

East of Eden is a great book. As you read it, you'll become like Tom of whom Steinbeck said: "Tom got into a book, crawled and groveled between the covers, tunneled like a mole among the thoughts, and came up with the book all over his face and hands."

What's not to love in this griping saga with its multi-generational presentation of the good, the evil and the gullible. Even though East of Eden is definitely in the 'very long' category - it's still a great and worthwhile read. I will always remember, as Lee would tell us: Anything you want to do you can ("timsel") - but you are responsible for whatever you do.

Dive in and enjoy!