East of Eden

"Humans are caught - in their lives, in their thoughts, in their hungers and ambitions, in their avarice and cruelty, and in their kindness and generosity too - in a net of good and evil. I think this is the only story we have and that it occurs on all levels of feeling and intelligence. Virtue and vice warp and woof of our first consciousness, and they will be the fabric of our last, and this despite any changes we may impose on field and river and mountain, on economy and manners. There is no other story"East of Eden, John Steinbeck

I recently finished reading East of Eden by John Steinbeck. This novel is amazing and once again I find myself baffled by the fact that it has taken me so many years of reading to finally get to this work.

"There was a nail-hard strength in her, a lack of any compromise, a rightness in the face of all opposing wrongness, which made you hold her in a kind of awe but not in warmth." East of Eden, John Steinbeck

"He felt the warmth for his brother you can feel only for one who is not perfect and therefore no target for your hatred." East of Eden, John Steinbeck

Steinbeck is an incredible writer. His words are so lyrical. His writing just so literary and amazing. I could drink it up.

"He could hear the rich, lyric voice in his ears, the tones rising and falling in their foreignness, and the curious music of oddly chosen words tripping out so that you were never sure what the next word would be." East of Eden, John Steinbeck

I know I've said this before, after I read The Bean Trees, but I absolutely love when a novel starts out with mulitple seperate stories of lives that are seemingly unconnected and then they come together. It's not that the coming together is a surprise ( I mean, it's a novel - there has to be a connection somewhere), I feel like I understand the characters and their complexities so much better having "known" them before they are put into the situation together in which the novel will ultimately focus.

"He turned slowly. He smiled at her as a man might smile at a memory. Then he went out and closed the door gently behind him. Kate sat staring at the door. Her eyes were desolate" East of Eden, John Steinbeck

Steinbeck is also very philosophical in this novel. He makes a lot of comments about society and the human population and what motivates us and provokes us and the reasons for our existence.

"He though dawdling, protective thoughts, sitting under the lamp, but he knew that pretty soon his name would be called and he would have to go up before the bench with himself as judge and his own crimes as jurors" East of Eden, John Steinbeck

There were so many amazing passages from this novel and I had a really hard time picking out just a few to post here.

"We have only one story. All novels, all poetry, are built on the never-ending contest in ourselves of good and evil. And it occurs to me that evil must constantly respawn, while good, while virtue, is immortal. Vice has always a new fresh young face, while virtue is venerable as nothing else in the world is." East of Eden, John Steinbeck