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Sherry's Reviews > East of Eden
East of Eden
by
by
Sherry's review
bookshelves: modern-classics, 1001-book-list, read-in-08, owned, read-in-2020, books-i-love-love-love, physical-copy, read-in-2023
Feb 27, 2008
bookshelves: modern-classics, 1001-book-list, read-in-08, owned, read-in-2020, books-i-love-love-love, physical-copy, read-in-2023
Read 4 times. Last read February 22, 2023 to March 1, 2023.
You know that question as readers we are often asked...what’s your favourite book? For many of us it’s a difficult question as we can’t confine ourselves to just one so we make a list of at least 5 or maybe ten. I can now say definitively that for me this is THE book. My most favourite. It’s been twelve years since I read this for the second time and I wondered how it would hold up to the first two times I read it. Sometimes I read something I loved when i was younger and am unable to find that magic that enchanted me the first time around but not so with East of Eden. It is still as extraordinary and fresh as the first and second time I read it. Reading the last third of the book I was again struck with Steinbeck’s power as a writer, and I believe as he did, that East of Eden is his masterpiece. This time around I also read Steinbeck’s biography and the journal of his letters to his publisher while writing the book hoping to deepen my understanding and pleasure and they certainly did. So glad I read this again.
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Quotes Sherry Liked
“But the Hebrew word, the word timshel—‘Thou mayest’â€� that gives a choice. It might be the most important word in the world. That says the way is open. That throws it right back on a man. For if ‘Thou mayest’—it is also true that ‘Thou mayest not.”
― East of Eden
― East of Eden
Reading Progress
Finished Reading
February 27, 2008
– Shelved
March 19, 2008
– Shelved as:
modern-classics
October 30, 2008
– Shelved as:
1001-book-list
November 13, 2008
–
69.88%
"It's getting hard to put this down now.My other reads are sad and neglected."
page
420
Started Reading
November 16, 2008
–
Finished Reading
November 17, 2008
– Shelved as:
read-in-08
September 17, 2013
– Shelved as:
owned
October 13, 2019
–
Started Reading
January 5, 2020
– Shelved as:
read-in-2020
January 5, 2020
–
Finished Reading
February 6, 2023
– Shelved as:
books-i-love-love-love
February 22, 2023
–
Started Reading
February 25, 2023
–
55.0%
February 27, 2023
–
69.0%
March 1, 2023
– Shelved as:
read-in-2023
March 1, 2023
– Shelved as:
physical-copy
March 1, 2023
–
Finished Reading
Comments Showing 1-7 of 7 (7 new)
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message 1:
by
Julie
(new)
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rated it 5 stars
May 29, 2021 08:29AM
It is a true epic, isn't it? A true journey you take with him. You're not the same person on the last page as you are on the first.
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It is. It was meant for his sons to understand their family history but it somehow always helps me to understand mine, and therefore myself better. I had 2 parents like Cathy and have sought to understand better my own self in the context of their presence in my life and in my genes. I always think while I’m reading him ...papa.
Sherry: that's a pretty heavy cross to bear. Having one parent like Cathy is nightmarish enough.It's beautiful, to find these surrogate parents in literature. I feel the same way about E.B. White. At some point, he became my adopted father.
Have you read Steinbeck's Travels with Charley? If not, I can't recommend it enough.
� Maybe we all have in us a secret pond where evil and ugly things germinate and grow strong. But this culture is fenced and the swimming swimming brood climbs up only to fall back. Might it not be that in the dark pools of some men the evil grows strong enough to wriggle over the fence and swim free?� I think Steinbeck had a pretty good understanding of people. I think this quote also speaks to his main character in Grapes Of Wrath because the quote goes on: � Would not such a man be our monster, and are we not related to him in our own hidden water? It would be absurd if we did not understand both our angels and devils, since we invented them.� Powerful piece of writing and each time I read it my understanding goes a little deeper.
What a genius he was. I've often wished I could time travel and just sit in a quiet room with him, watching him type another story.
Or sit for a spiked tea in his camper and hear his stories. He’d have some good ones to tell that never made it to a book. I’d love to ask about Russia. Have to get to his Russian journals soon.
Yes. I'd like to have time traveled to any time he was alive!
