Wow, ten people liked it very much, and would strongly recommend it. :D
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Wow, ten people liked it very much, and would strongly recommend it. :D
Oh, I read the last page, I know how it ends. I just don't want to see it happen.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jay
Read with your eyes closed then? :p
I know, not funny, bite me :D
Still, even knowing the immediate ending... I'd like to know what exactly happened. I'm nosy like that ;)
Scher - I think that Cathy had a choice. She had the impression that she was lacking in something several times, but at every turn, she did not explore that avenue, but twisted the question around and chose to believe the rest of the world lacked something instead. The emphasis on her lack that was created by Steinbeck is, I believe, a rhetorical device. Without his protests that Cathy was not a monster, I'm sure everyone would throw the book down in disgust or despair.
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Originally Posted by Hyacinth Girl
hmmmm... I think I did that.
Ok, see!!! I started reading again and what happens???? Both Tom and Dessie????
It's ok, Papaya, it's not your fault ;)
Quote:
Originally Posted by Jay
If I would have stopped reading it never would have happened!!!!:D
I finished the book. How do the Hamiltons fit into the whole Cane and Abel scenario?
And does anybody else think that while Cathy seemed to be missing something, Cal seemed to be a regular human with certain flaws? (not exactly how I wanted to word it but it will have to do for now)
I agree with you, Papaya, which is why I find the ending a little harsh. I really wish the Father could forgive him.Quote:
Originally Posted by papayahed
Yes, me too.Quote:
Originally Posted by Scheherazade
But I think that already maybe Father was very much deceived by Cathy that he couldn't get himself to forgive his son/Cathy's son.
I may be an optomist but I took it as the father did forgive Cal. It seemed like when he said "Timshel" it meant the past is behind you, don't worry about it but going forward it's your choice to live the way you want.
Those Rose colored glasses work wonders.
You mean he didn't? The way I understood it, the father did forgive him. I'll have a look at the ending tomorrow again (already returned the book).Quote:
Originally Posted by Scheherazade
Oh, didn't notice Papaya's post, just the one above, lol. I'll post why I think he forgave Cal tomorrow.
I am really confused now. I thought that "Timshel" meant that Cal might over-come his past mistakes, but I don't think so that it meant Adam had forgiven his son? I don't know, maybe my interpretion was wrong...Quote:
Originally Posted by papayahed
My interpretation of the ending: When Adam said 'Timshel' to Cal, he meant that Cal had a choice/chance but he used it badly; he told his brother about their mother, which led to Aaron's enlisting and subsequent death at the end.
Mine will have to wait a few more days as somebody else has borrowed the only copy of the book. They are supposed to return the book shortly though (I hope).
er, can I still read the books after my exam next week? yes I know, "Exactly which part of summer reading is it you didn't understand"?
It's summer in Australia now! :)
(I'm on chapter 22, yep I know it's not exactly summer...)Quote:
Originally Posted by Hyacinth Girl
I think this passage shows that there is an element of choice. but I'm not sure if Kate wants to change and become more human or whether she just panics because her cover gets blown?Quote:
Kate's chemistry screamed against the wine. She remembered, and she was afraid....
.... The transition came to Kate almost immediately after the second glass. Her fear evaporated, her fear of anything disappeared. This was what she had been afraid of, and now it was too late. The wine had forced a passage through all the carefully built barriers and defenses and deceptions, and she didn't care. The thing she had learned to cover and control was lost. Her voice became chill and her mouth was thin. Her wide-set eyes slitted and grew watchful and sardonic
Maybe she's only willing to suppress her evil nature in order to reach her aims (whatever they are) and once she's reached them she'll be as evil as she likes???
***about Steinbeck's language:
sometimes his language/characterisations seem a bit rough-hewn (in my humble opinion). It's like he only scratches the surface and you have to think about the characters a lot??? Sometimes their dialogues seem a bit awkward too (Hamilton - Adam, Hamilton - Lee; although I love Lee). It's like they talk about meaningful things all the time and expect each other to know what they are on about. There's not much small talk or 'getting to know each other' is there???
I suppose, he wrote it that way on purpose, but I'm not sure what to make of it. Somehow the whole atmosphere of the book and the character's relationships strike me as a bit surreal, despite the detailed descriptions of the settings....
I am still in the initial chapters of this book and I am surprised to see that Adam who has been places, been with different kinds of people, in other words has more worldly experience than Charles could not understand what Cathy was upto. I am still reading the part when they get married and how Charles warns Adams, maybe when I read further it will become clear.
I think the kind of experience Adam had had little to do with the type 'necessary' to understand Cathy. Charles, on the other hand, being on a more equal moral ground to Cathy's, naturally feels and understands her nature. I think Adam is too naive to realise all Cathy represents and is capable of.
i finished the book over Christmas.
what do you think of Aaron? In my opinion, he's got a lot in common with Cathy, even if he's supposed to be good and she's evil. It's like he's missing something, too, i.e. the ability to be evil at all and the ability to make a choice. He's just 'good' right from the start and in his own way he is just as one-sided as Cathy.
For the ending of the story I had the same thought as Papaya.
I didn't care for East of Eden at all. It's been a couple of years since I read it, so the details are very fuzzy, I think I must have tried to wipe it out of my mind. :)
But I couldn't see any real depth to the characters, I shouldn't say depth, that's not quite fair, but most were nothing but cardboard for me. I didn't feel the motivations of the characters was really put across all that well, and found it difficult to sympathise or empathize with any of them.
But do agree with you in that the father did forgive Cal.
Lee was about the only character I felt was interesting.
It seems clear to me that Steinbeck had three actual men in mind, and that he thought his audience should know who he meant - that it was fairly obvious, at least at that time. Someone on another site suggested JD Rockefeller for the first, William Randloph Hurst for the second, and FDR for the third. I'm no historian, but from what little I know, they fit Steinbeck's description perfectly, and I can't think of any others that do.Quote:
Originally Posted by ShoutGrace
Is it just me, or did East of Eden kind of make the idea of working in a brothel seem not that terrible (so long as it's a nice one)? Especially considering the times, when a woman could be a wife or a maid, maybe a schoolmistress. I wouldn't mind being an old-timey madam, I'd run a nice brothel.
...Just me?
Perhaps, Steinbeck does take jabs at the hypocrisy of society needing to to shame certain things. The Mahjong games are the perfect scapegoat because its only played by the Chinese so nobody's family will be shamed.Quote:
Originally Posted by JuniperWoolf
However, Steinbeck does portray the brothels as exploitive in the case of the pimp, Mr. Edwards., who runs his prostitutes out as soon as they get too old or infirmed. He also beats them savagely. And Kathy is a vampire to her girls as well. The whores themselves are also displayed as victims of society with sordid pasts or just plain stupid in the case of Ethel. I think running an old timey brothel would be rather depressing.
On the other hand, it does fulfilled a need like the butcher, the baker and the clerk.
I also got the impression of surrealism and I have to think that this was purposeful. Partly because Of Mice and Men is to me the complete opposite. Everything seems so realistic to me in that book and I connect with the characters almost immediately. In this book I always felt like I was just out of reach of the characters, like something dreamlike and mysterious was pervading the whole book.Quote:
Originally Posted by SleepyWitch
Because of that I'll give Steinbeck the benefit of the doubt and say this was a conscious decision to give the book a certain ambiance rather than merely underdeveloped or not well developed characters.
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Originally Posted by Taliesin
My knee-jerk reaction was to agree with this. The fact that you have a choice doesn't seem that revolutionary to me. But perhaps its one of those things that people need to constantly be reminded, because while if you discussed it with anyone nearly everyone would say "sure of course you have a choice to do good or bad, our entire legal system is predicated on that presumption etc..."
But in practice, as demonstrated in the book, people after committing some "bad/evil" action will often throw in the towel and act as if
"well I'll just never be able to do that, or I'm just a jerk and that's the way it is... etc... etc..." Think about someone trying to follow a strict diet. One day they eat a doughnut and then say "Well I already ruined my diet I might as well eat 10 of them."
I think it is the fact that our abstract concept or schema about our ability to choose is divorced from its actual practice that Timshel is not some totally banal theme.
**SPOILERS**
The actual practice of retreating into black and white categories and wholly giving yourself up to good (Aron) or evil (Cathy) is the problem. Aron in a sense is just as guilty or flawed as Cathy. Neither deal with the "real" world and fight the inevitable struggle. In a sense they have done the most cowardly and easiest thing of all by wholly receding from that struggle. The worst punishment will always come from our own conscience, and neither of them seem to me to possess the self-reflective ability to painfully evaluate themselves in any sort of negative light, at least one in which they are responsible.
The point isn't, in my mind, that Timshel is categorically good, as in "yay we have the freedom to choose," but instead that you have the freedom to choose and that is unavoidable, so choose and deal with it and quit pretending like you don't have it. But at the same time that sense of control is something very beautiful and human.
Because of this I think the ending is meant to be ambiguous. I've noticed posters have interpreted it in different ways and when I finished the book I myself was left scratching my head, basically for the reasons put forth by previous posters.
Sparknotes agrees with the "Adam forgiving angle" and in fact does not even acknowledge ambiguity, so I would like to add weight to the counterpoint.
Before Adam closes with Timshel, Lee asks for him to say his son's name to indicate that he forgives him. He obviously does not. So why not. Also there is a good deal of explaining up to this point on Lee's part, why Adam's looks or actions may not be able to be wholly trusted due to his medical condition. I think those are two important things are important in considering.