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Cannery Row (2002)

Cannery Row (2002)

Book Info

Series
Rating
3.99 of 5 Votes: 2
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ISBN
014200068X (ISBN13: 9780142000687)
Language
English
Publisher
penguin books

About book Cannery Row (2002)

This: Doc was collecting marine animals in the Great Tide Pool on the tip of the Peninsula. It is a fabulous place: when the tide is in, a wave-churned basin, creamy with foam, whipped by the combers that roll in from the whistling buoy on the reef. But when the tide goes out the little water world becomes quiet and lovely. The sea is very clear and the bottom becomes fantastic with hurrying, fighting, feeding, breeding animals.And as if Manifest Destiny has pushed the dreamers of America West, West as far as they can go, to the furthest seabord and then withdrawn like a tide, leaving them washed up in the stink, the tone, the dream that is Cannery Row, so we peer into this fabulous place and see the teeming life scurrying there. The combers roll over Cannery Row when the sardine fleet has made a catch and a wave of shining cars bring those who disappear into offices, and another wave of men and women come in trousers and rubber coats and oilcloth aprons, and clean and cut and pack the fish, but when the last fish has been cleaned and cut and packed and the boats are riding high in the water again, then this tide of workers retreats back up the hill to Monterey, and Cannery Row becomes itself again - quiet and magical. At dusk, always at dusk, the creatures of this pool creep out to fight and feed and breed. Just as in the Great Tide Pool, these men and women form an economy of their own, a system of interdependence, of borrowing and recycling and stealing, a delicately balanced cycle of taking and giving, one that judiciously sets the limits of giving without becoming a stoop, of taking without obvious exploitation. Warm, wise economics, where the entrepreneurs know when to forgive a loan in order to keep a customer, the chancers know when not to push their luck too far, and the Madam of the Whorehouse knows exactly how philanthropic she has to be to avoid being closed down. The men of the Palace Flophouse are, in the eyes of mainstream society no doubt slackers, no-hopers, scum. They literally live on the dregs of those who pay their way: Eddie is understudy bartender at La Ida. He keeps a gallon jar under the counter, that takes whatever is left in the glasses before he washes them. Sometimes, indeed, "if an argument or a song were going on at La Ida, or late at night when good fellowship had reached its logical conclusion, Eddie poured glasses half or two-thirds full into the funnel…..It was a source of satisfaction to him that nobody was out anything. He had observed that a man got just as drunk on half a glass as on a whole one, that is, if he was in the mood to get drunk at all.” Such wisdom. And this punch is a sensitively calibrated measure of the men’s development and refinement along the length of this short novel: it is delicately put to Eddie, just suppose, not complaining or anything, but just s’pose you had two or three jugs, put the whisky in one, the wine in another… By the end, Eddie has stopped putting beer in at all as all agree it gives a flat taste.The men from the Flophouse are beyond dreaming, their dignity rests in their having realised the fruitlessness of wanting. Not for them the ulcers and trussed up stricture of those who chase a false, materialist dream. Like most of the wonderful characters in the novel, they have accommodated themselves, have made their home in this place that offers them all they need: companionship, fun, and the contents of Eddie’s gallon jar. They provide the picaresque plot which consists of a crazy, hilarious Odyssey in search of frogs, a disastrous homecoming, and a second chance at a better staging of the party. Their Penelope at the centre, holding everything together, is Doc, the warm beating heart of Cannery Row, the man to whom everyone is grateful and to whom they long to demonstrate their appreciation and indebtedness. Interspersed between the lines of plot there is a wealth of other wonders: the hermit-crab like Malloys who have taken up residence in a disused boiler, Mary Talbot who puts on fantastic parties (view spoiler)[but the only guests are cats (hide spoiler)]

My dad has been a truck driver since I was born and he hates it. He has spent oh-so-many hours in his truck thinking about what he would do if he won the lottery and a shade few less telling us what he's come up with. He buys a couple a week with his numbers, which include our birthdays, of course. I have always been a lottery talk scoffer, and my dad says, "It's okay--if you won, the money would be gone in five minutes to a hand full of ragamuffins." I don't know about that, but I do know why he says that. I have always been drawn to the downbeat and dirty. There was the bad boy I used to dream was at my window in 5th grade, my high school boyfriend who was on food stamps and free lunch and hated his mom, my foster daughter who slept in the closet (NOT MY IDEA), had a mass mop of headlice and a little blanket that she shoved up her nose. And I won't describe any more boyfriends. Except for one make-believe boyfriend. There's a character in Motherless Brooklyn who is an orphaned criminal with Tourette's and I fell in love with him, sort of. In a different way than I normally fall in love with book characters. I don't know why I'm like this!! If it seems sentimental and cheesy, that's because it is. I love things that are in pain. Loooooove. Still, I don't like the cheesy collage of feel-good vignettes about bad guys and the downtrodden that come out at Christmas on TV. And making a hero of the humble just sorta makes me feel bad and patronizing and naive. Some people do it right, though, and it makes me feel okay to be the big, naive, exasperating, wounded-dog lover that I am! And I feel so grateful! Steinbeck opens up Cannery Row calling its inhabitants "whores, pimps, gamblers, and sons of bitches," but also, "saints and angels and martyrs and holy men," and said they all meant the same thing. And he totally meant it. He loved the world! This book is full of dispicable acts, and pain and suicide and abuse and crime, but there is absolutely nobody to hate. We even sorta feel bad for the kid chanting "Ching chong Chinaman!" at the fisherman. Because of what happened to him next. There are certain scenes that I use again and again from books to mentally rub my own life onto and I think that little Frankie under the excelsior, quivering in disappointment is going to be the one that I take with me from Cannery Row. Or maybe it'll be Mack from the Palace Flophouse, laying on his cot and remembering everybody he's ever let down. This last Summer, I was ecstactic to hear that my friend, Kirk Curnutt, would be presenting at the Steinbeck Festival in Salinas. I road-tripped it there with my best friend, Marie (aka Malbadeen) and my boyfriend, Josh. I read this book aloud to them on the way and the time just flew by. We finished as we pulled into Salinas city limits. Reading a novel aloud on a road trip is one of my favorite joys, so now I love this book even more than when I originally reviewed it.And look at how handsome Kirk looks presenting up on that stage (he was the best presenter by far):

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While the setting for this novel is somewhat bleak--an impoverished and ofttimes depressed coastal town in California--the characters are brought to life by everday exchanges and emotions the reader can relate to.I knew after the first paragraph that this novel would be enjoyable because it is so well crafted. One would expect nothing less from John Steinbeck! I remember Steinbeck and Hemingway as the staples of my high school literary fare, as required by those who had seen more of the literary landscape.Within a few more pages, however, I also knew this book would require a mind open to both the joys of human triumph and the pits of human sorrow. I am sometimes in the mood for lighter fare that is easy on the brain, but deep down I prefer novels that stretch my brain out of the comfort my body is residing in. Novels like Cannery Row, complete with mental illness, death, suicide, prison walls, mistakes and failed marriages, give me perspective on the small discomforts that annoy me.Cannery Row, despite the earthy sadness that surrounds it, is not a depressing book. It is written in a very matter-of-fact tone. Emotions are not dwelt on. Facts are. Some novels spend 200 pages building toward a catastrophic tragedy that just feels unfair to the reader. They make the reader question, "Why did I just read all that setup for it to turn out this way?" Some novels seem to pull on the reader's heartstrings just to get a memorable reaction. Cannery Row is not such a book.There is never the illusion that subjects will be whitewashed or ambiguous. Life is presented honestly and openly. For that, I consider it a breath of fresh air, tainted occasionally by the salty smell of the ocean wafting in over the pages of the novel.The characters who weave the tapestry of Cannery Row's streets are lovable, if fallible. They are the kind of people one would be tempted to cross the street to avoid. Yet in the pages of this novel, one learns to love them and thrill to read of their small triumphs. At the heart of these emotions is "Doc" who is beloved throughout the town for the acts of charity he bestows on anybody who takes time to ask. There is Henri, the painter whom we can't classify as necessarily talented or untalented, but is definitely troubled. Lee Chong's surly attitude masks a large heart and a keen business intellect. The boys at the Palace Flophouse are as imperfect as they come, but intensely lovable.First words: "Cannery Row in Monterey in California is a poem, a stink, a grating noise, a quality of light, a tone, a habit, a nostalgia, a dream."
—Juliana

Why does Steinbeck's narrative voice entice me so, I've been asking myself over the past few days. In my second reading of this novella, which has become a favorite of mine, I realized that it's his unshakeable belief in mankind. Steinbeck reinvents the concept of family and expands its boundaries with his blatant love for humanity. Nobody is homeless in Cannery Row, not even imps or prostitutes, destitute painters or big-hearted biologists, mentally impaired kids or immigrant shopkeepers. Even mongrels and frogs are treated with decorum in this picturesque portrait of comradeship in Monterrey, California.Interweaving a wide array of anecdotes with symbolic connotations, Steinbeck paints decent lives for the dispossessed that endure the sentence of social marginalization. Unexpected dignity comes in the form of reciprocal support, selfless loyalty and the humbling acceptance of the foibles of human condition and, as if by some sort of magic, the unappealing milieu of rattling caravans, crumbling shacks and noisy honky-tonks constitute an enchanting place where people live for themselves and need very little to reach serenity of mind.The spell of Steinbeck’s soothing prose settles in and Mack and the boys, troublesome rascals, become the Beauties, the Graces and the Virtues of this vibrant community. Doc, whose faith in the goodness of mankind is as fervent as his devotion to the mysteries of marine biology, is the converging point that brings out the best in his fellowmen, modeled after his creator. His compassion is genuine and carries not a hint of condescendence, and so when he listens to his friends’ predicaments or to one of his albums of Gregorian music at the hour of the pearl, he is equally overcome by the joy of extending unconditional friendship or by his not unwelcome loneliness.But watch out. Don’t allow yourself to be misled. Steinbeck, like Doc, doesn’t offer a glorified, syrupy version of the hardships of life while sermonizing on the benefits of collective insurgency; his clear-cut vision synthesizes the healing compassion that human beings are capable of and inspires us to find poetry in the most prosaic, even the most repulsive of things.There is an irresistible modesty in Steinbeck’s minimalistic yet deeply charged prose. The half-deprecating, half-dramatic tone in which he paints these stories gives a tragicomic intensity to the clumsy, reprovable characters and tinges their daily tribulations with an authentic tenderness that pierces right through the thickest skins.Cannery Road is a toast to ordinariness, an unabashed portrayal of men at his worst shinning with the best of human condition, an ode to the invisible treasures of life.I dare you who read to look at the world through Steinbeck’s eyes.And you will see a cocktail prepared with drink leftovers and cheap whisky become a delicatessen, if shared in good company.A disastrous birthday party; the much-desired present that restores lost innocence.The high tides and waves splashing on the rocks under the piers; the perfect moonlight sonata at the time after the light has come and before the sun has risen.And Black Marigolds that wither with the evanescence of life; an eternal blessing.Even now. Even here. Even for us.
—Dolors

This book was very different from what I thought it would be. I envisioned mostly reading about the work in the canneries (it's mentioned but not a focus) and I thought it would be depressing (until I read Jeniffer's review). Instead, it's a deceptively simple story (in terms of language) that evokes a range of emotions, humor and sadness all mixed up together, but it's never depressing.At first I was reminded of Winesburg, Ohio in that its focus is on one community and the stories are more like vignettes (though they do end up connecting in many ways), but it's quite different from the Anderson. Anderson can be philosophical from what I remember, while Steinbeck, for the most part, lets his story speak for itself, which may seem surprising coming from the man who wrote The Grapes of Wrath. Anderson's characters can't, or won't, communicate with each other; the denizens of Cannery Row don't have that problem. They certainly don't always communicate in words -- they read each others' faces, vocal tones and mannerisms; they remember past history, but they know each other -- and ultimately themselves -- very well. Most of them would never say the actual words, but they love each other too. The character of the young boy, Frankie, and the story of a gopher simply broke my heart. This slim book reinforces the idea that beauty and truth can be found in the unlikeliest of places, one of my favorite themes.
—Teresa

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