Summer Reading: 'East of Eden' by Steinbeck

[Mr. Pedantic]

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.

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.

[Rores28]

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 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.

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.

[Rores28]

It was an interesting read, although "timshel" didn't have much effect on us. It seemed a bit like breaking through an open door to us, but that aside, there were many interesting points too.

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.