Week #1 East of Eden by John Steinbeck

East of Eden by John Steinbeck

The book really caught my eye for the one purpose that it is huge. I mean huge by saying it is 601 pages long. Not only that but the print is small also, but I like a challenge, so challenge accepted.

When reading the first pages it starts out describing a valley, no dialogue what so ever, and I’m a person who likes dialogue. When reading it, though, it took me by surprise, I mean, I love dialogue and starting out with description isn’t really my thing. But the way Steinbeck uses his description, he literally paints the image into your head, the words he uses flows into your brain and sticks there to create a masterpiece. I especially love it when he describes the flowers in the valley, the Salinas Valley in northern California to be exact. He goes a little something like this…  “Then there were harebells, tiny lanterns, cream white and almost sinful looking, and these were so rare and magical that a child, finding one, felt singled out and special all day long.

The author then goes on to talk about 2 families that hate each other, though brief on telling us who the families are, he somehow doesn’t yet tell what the conflict that drove the families apart was.. which to me is actually kind of frustrating. I want to know what happened! You can just leave me hanging!! But I guess that’s how he keeps us reading and enjoying the book.      

Next, he goes into great detail about the Trask family and their misfortunes and happenings.  And by misfortunes, I mean a couple of big misfortunes. For example, the father of the family is sent to war, and in his first battle he gets shot in the leg and has to have most of his leg cut off, so then he had to carve a “new leg” from the stump of a tree. At this time, Cirus (the father) has a young son and a wacky wife who is seriously wacked in the head ( I was seriously weirded out by her). He returns home to his son and wife and everything is happy, until his wife thinks that God told her to commit suicide by drowning herself in the lake. When I saw that I was kinda glad that character was gone because I did not want to read any more of her wacked out theories about God and religion.

This whole book so far is pretty interesting, more characters and being introduced and yet I have yet to see how they are all intertwined I am actually really curious and willing to go on deeper into the book and find out if there are any more twists and turns lie ahead in the book.  Right now there are only really three main characters the author is focusing on, and I want to know how they intertwine it is driving me nuts!!! Hopefully I will find out very very soon… hopefully……