When a discerning friend recommends a book as “one their favorites,” I’m likely to want to read it. For whatever reason, I’d never read John Steinbeck’s East of Eden and it’s also become one of my favorites. So much so that I hated to come to the end of the 600 pages.
To quote reviewer Pierce Taylor Hibbs, “It’s a story about two families—the Trasks and the Hamiltons. In characters that range from the pensive and passionate to the perverse and pretentious, Steinbeck’s creatures unfold their identity, search for prospects of love, and combat the harrowing evil both inside themselves and in the world around them leading up to WWI.” My favorite character in the novel is Lee, the Chinese servant, who had a way of looking beneath the surface for harder truths. Lee feigned a Chinese accent even though he was more culturally assimilated than he let on. Lee knew that’s what most people expected of him.
Steinbeck won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1962 “for his realistic and imaginative writings, combining sympathetic humor and keen social perception.” The author delivered his acceptance speech that included his take on “the nature and direction of literature” and offering his signature view of humanity’s needs and threats. He died in 1968.
Troubling, Trending Thoughts
#1. Reading novels for pleasure is at an all-time low. According to the National Endowment for the Arts, in 2022 just 37.6% of Americans read a novel or short story. Historical fiction is also down to a low of 45.2%. And worst of all, a separate 2023 study found that only 16% of Americans over age 15 read for leisure every day, a 40% decline over the previous 20 years. This category is broader than just novels, encompassing magazines, e-books, and audiobooks. This in the time of Covid when a book was a way to be in the larger world.
#2. Here are some of the objections to Eden: Sexual content, especially Cathy’s whore house, child molestation, and profanity. The book was labeled as “ungodly” and “obscene” in some instances, leading to challenges and removal from school libraries. Teachers found Steinbeck’s use of the N word and “the chink” used by the local community to describe Lee as deeply offensive. It was offensive but only because people didn’t see Lee as a wise, compassionate citizen of the Salinas Valley.
No matter the Nobel Prize, Eden was banned in public libraries and schools for many years. I was shocked by this and read more about Steinbeck and Eden with our current approach to literature in mind.
#3. There is no doubt in my mind that even Steinbeck might receive some publisher pushback if he were writing this novel today. It wouldn’t matter that he was describing the past. Today, “sensitivity readers” are paid consultants who review manuscripts to ensure the respectful portrayal of marginalized cultures, identities, and experiences.
The Introduction to the 75th anniversary edition of Orwell’s 1984 was written by Dolen Perkins-Valdez, author of Take My Hand, winner of the 2023 NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work—Fiction. She was light on the praise and complained that the book was among other faults misogynistic and didn’t speak to her “lived experience as a woman.” I wondered if she’d noticed that the word “Orwellian” is now frequently used to describe the time that we (and she) are living in.
When I wrote The Red Kitchen, it was viewed through a required sensitivity lens by the publisher. I was told mentioning that my father’s Mississippi family was nonchalant about a “hanging tree” on their street could limit sales. I took it out and regretted it the moment I did. As a child, I didn’t know the word “racist” but I did know “shameful.”
#4. Due to the intense backlash against his portrayal of social issues, Steinbeck received physical and political threats and was the subject of an FBI file maintained by J. Edgar Hoover’s bureau. In 2013, the Swedish Academy revisited the controversy surrounding Steinbeck’s 1962 Nobel Prize, though the reasons for this re-examination are incomplete. Some say it was brought about by a memoir written by Steinbeck’s second wife that was found after her death. In it she described him as “a sadistic man and a serial womanizer.”
The National Steinbeck Center (Museum) – One Main Street, Salinas, CA
For me, none of the above changes the pleasure of reading East of Eden. I’m finding the classics far more satisfying than the current crop of books. I’m sure there are future classics in there, but I predict that most of them won’t be remembered or re-read in ten years. And why I recommend East of Eden as a good choice. The writing is rich with history, the California landscape, and as a way to understand who we are now and where we came from.
Steinbeck understood our struggle with good and evil and our ability to fight genetics, our past mistakes, and the impossible idea of perfection. East of Eden ends with one word – “Timshel!” reminding Caleb and also readers that one always has the ability to choose good over evil.
If you’d like to see Steinbeck’s Nobel Prize acceptance speech you can find it here on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7SKEODtaQUU.
I would love for you to share your favorite(s) in the comments section. There is nothing like adding a new book to a list of favorites. Thanks, as always.