East of Eden: Something to Talk About
The first time I walked after doctors slit open my lower abdomen to drain and remove two menacing cysts, I nearly passed out, my ears full of the buzzing that comes just before unconsciousness as I attempted to lift my legs back into bed (also an impossible task with traumatized ab muscles). Recovery was eight weeks. Eight weeks, and for two of those walking was as painful as any activity I’d undertaken in my twenty years. So I didn’t walk much, only to the street corner and back, once a day for the first week, my mother wrapping her arms around me, supporting my hunched figure. I spent most of my time reading, turned sideways in an oversized chair to relieve the pressure from my sutured skin. It was during those eight weeks (which really only turned out to be six) that I read, for the first time, John Steinbeck’s East of Eden.
I cannot deny the fact that the conditions in which I read East of Eden shaped my experience of it. I was a twenty-year old college student comfortable in a life of instant gratification: I ran daily, felt the sweat poor down my back; I craved Cheez-Its, drove to the store and bought a box. Suddenly I was trapped in a house with my mother (whom I love dearly, but nonetheless), quite immobile. Novels, and I sifted through a number of them during my recovery, provided a means of mobility. For the hours my mind engaged in coursing the pages of Steinbeck’s masterpiece, I was not in the big blue chair in the family room of my parents’ house. Well, I was, really, but I was not focusing on this fact, and, as far as my mind knew, I was in the Salinas Valley. If my physical body could not move, then at very least my mind could. There is no more fitting way to exercise the mind than through narrative because it is familiar, comfortable. There is a beginning, middle, and end trapped between two covers. If only all of life was that tidy. I can’t squeeze my personal narrative, still in motion, between pieces of cardboard, so, in that way, a novel is a reminder of mortality. There is some satisfaction—gratification—in being able to close a novel and know that I’ve finished something (and not my own story). In the case of East of Eden, I finished a 601-page something. I needed to feel a sense of accomplishment during those weeks.
Now, nearly five years after that stationary summer, I would describe myself as a Steinbeck fan. But I only became a Steinbeck junkie because of a family vacation scheduled for six weeks after my surgery (which is why I cut my recovery short; I had Bryce Canyon to climb). My parents had always wanted to take my brother and me out west, and it just so happened we were going to be making a stop in Salinas, California. My mom did her research on the area and tempted me with the prospect of visiting the National Steinbeck Center on our way down California’s coast. I’d previously read The Grapes of Wrath and maybe Of Mice and Men, but that’s hardly enough familiarity with Steinbeck’s life work to justify subjecting my father and my seventeen year old brother to hours of Steinbeck paraphernalia, including, as I recall, Rocinante, the trailer Steinbeck traveled the country in while writing Travels with Charley. So I began reading Steinbeck, beginning with East of Eden. This is the most literal example of what a novel can do: prepare one for life experience.
If it was simply the circumstances of reading East of Eden that made it memorable, taught me about the possibilities of a novel, I could just as easily be writing about Cannery Row or Tortilla Flat right now, as I read those, too, during my six-week entrapment. But there’s something, several things, about East of Eden that cause me to name it, quickly, when asked about my favorite book. For one, there’s Cathy Ames, though I have to admit that I had to look up her name. Steinbeck begins the first chapter that traces her life like this: “I believe there are monsters born in the world to human parents” (71). That is the readers’ initial glimpse of Cathy Ames. She is monster-like, truly, burning her parents home down as a teenager, intentionally, and them with it. She committed such an act without any regret. She lies and manipulates, conjuring fake tears while explaining her fabricated story about her situation to the whoremaster who hires her (92). Now that’s a character. And that’s only the beginning of her character. It’s been one year since I reread East of Eden, and I can’t name most of the characters or highlight any plot points. But when I close my eyes, searching for some of the book’s details, all I find staring back at me are red, devil eyes, Cathy Ames eyes. In the book, she doesn’t have such eyes (to the best of my memory), though that’s how I picture her. I should want to forget her, those eyes, her evil acts, but I don’t. I want always to be able to retrieve her character. That’s the power of a novel, to create within readers a tension.
And second, there’s the plot. I already noted that the plot is, at best, hazy in my memory. I do recall, however, thinking this: Steinbeck so gracefully steals the Biblical narrative (parts of Genesis, that is). There is so much emphasis in academia, especially at the graduate level, to think originally, to write something new. As a poet, I feel an inordinate amount of pressure to develop a form or tackle taboo subject matter just so that I can apply that adjective ‘new’ to my work. New, fresh, original. East of Eden is all of these things despite the fact that it derives from an age-old story. That’s its brilliance. East of Eden reminds me that it’s acceptable, respectable even, to mooch. I can rejuvenate old stories, poems, and ideas to create something both familiar and foreign.
I’ve read East of Eden twice now, and each time I finish reading it, shutting the cover, reveling in that sense of accomplishment, I feel a desperate urge to open it up and begin it all over again, as if I would be satisfied to adopt Cathy Ames’s narrative, or Caleb Trask’s narrative, as my own. Of course, I resist that urge, though I suspect I will reread it many times more, until I can recite its story as fluently as I can my own. Instead, I brag about East of Eden to family and friends, sometimes even buying more copies to give away so that others might be able to enjoy it as much as I do. Perhaps that’s the most important accomplishment of a novel: creating human connection. If I were ever trapped in a room, sitting sideways in an oversized chair, with all the people, dead or alive, that have ever read East of Eden, at least we’d have something to talk about.
The first time I walked after doctors slit open my lower abdomen to drain and remove two menacing cysts, I nearly passed out, my ears full of the buzzing that comes just before unconsciousness as I attempted to lift my legs back into bed (also an impossible task with traumatized ab muscles). Recovery was eight weeks. Eight weeks, and for two of those walking was as painful as any activity I’d undertaken in my twenty years. So I didn’t walk much, only to the street corner and back, once a day for the first week, my mother wrapping her arms around me, supporting my hunched figure. I spent most of my time reading, turned sideways in an oversized chair to relieve the pressure from my sutured skin. It was during those eight weeks (which really only turned out to be six) that I read, for the first time, John Steinbeck’s East of Eden.
I cannot deny the fact that the conditions in which I read East of Eden shaped my experience of it. I was a twenty-year old college student comfortable in a life of instant gratification: I ran daily, felt the sweat poor down my back; I craved Cheez-Its, drove to the store and bought a box. Suddenly I was trapped in a house with my mother (whom I love dearly, but nonetheless), quite immobile. Novels, and I sifted through a number of them during my recovery, provided a means of mobility. For the hours my mind engaged in coursing the pages of Steinbeck’s masterpiece, I was not in the big blue chair in the family room of my parents’ house. Well, I was, really, but I was not focusing on this fact, and, as far as my mind knew, I was in the Salinas Valley. If my physical body could not move, then at very least my mind could. There is no more fitting way to exercise the mind than through narrative because it is familiar, comfortable. There is a beginning, middle, and end trapped between two covers. If only all of life was that tidy. I can’t squeeze my personal narrative, still in motion, between pieces of cardboard, so, in that way, a novel is a reminder of mortality. There is some satisfaction—gratification—in being able to close a novel and know that I’ve finished something (and not my own story). In the case of East of Eden, I finished a 601-page something. I needed to feel a sense of accomplishment during those weeks.
Now, nearly five years after that stationary summer, I would describe myself as a Steinbeck fan. But I only became a Steinbeck junkie because of a family vacation scheduled for six weeks after my surgery (which is why I cut my recovery short; I had Bryce Canyon to climb). My parents had always wanted to take my brother and me out west, and it just so happened we were going to be making a stop in Salinas, California. My mom did her research on the area and tempted me with the prospect of visiting the National Steinbeck Center on our way down California’s coast. I’d previously read The Grapes of Wrath and maybe Of Mice and Men, but that’s hardly enough familiarity with Steinbeck’s life work to justify subjecting my father and my seventeen year old brother to hours of Steinbeck paraphernalia, including, as I recall, Rocinante, the trailer Steinbeck traveled the country in while writing Travels with Charley. So I began reading Steinbeck, beginning with East of Eden. This is the most literal example of what a novel can do: prepare one for life experience.
If it was simply the circumstances of reading East of Eden that made it memorable, taught me about the possibilities of a novel, I could just as easily be writing about Cannery Row or Tortilla Flat right now, as I read those, too, during my six-week entrapment. But there’s something, several things, about East of Eden that cause me to name it, quickly, when asked about my favorite book. For one, there’s Cathy Ames, though I have to admit that I had to look up her name. Steinbeck begins the first chapter that traces her life like this: “I believe there are monsters born in the world to human parents” (71). That is the readers’ initial glimpse of Cathy Ames. She is monster-like, truly, burning her parents home down as a teenager, intentionally, and them with it. She committed such an act without any regret. She lies and manipulates, conjuring fake tears while explaining her fabricated story about her situation to the whoremaster who hires her (92). Now that’s a character. And that’s only the beginning of her character. It’s been one year since I reread East of Eden, and I can’t name most of the characters or highlight any plot points. But when I close my eyes, searching for some of the book’s details, all I find staring back at me are red, devil eyes, Cathy Ames eyes. In the book, she doesn’t have such eyes (to the best of my memory), though that’s how I picture her. I should want to forget her, those eyes, her evil acts, but I don’t. I want always to be able to retrieve her character. That’s the power of a novel, to create within readers a tension.
And second, there’s the plot. I already noted that the plot is, at best, hazy in my memory. I do recall, however, thinking this: Steinbeck so gracefully steals the Biblical narrative (parts of Genesis, that is). There is so much emphasis in academia, especially at the graduate level, to think originally, to write something new. As a poet, I feel an inordinate amount of pressure to develop a form or tackle taboo subject matter just so that I can apply that adjective ‘new’ to my work. New, fresh, original. East of Eden is all of these things despite the fact that it derives from an age-old story. That’s its brilliance. East of Eden reminds me that it’s acceptable, respectable even, to mooch. I can rejuvenate old stories, poems, and ideas to create something both familiar and foreign.
I’ve read East of Eden twice now, and each time I finish reading it, shutting the cover, reveling in that sense of accomplishment, I feel a desperate urge to open it up and begin it all over again, as if I would be satisfied to adopt Cathy Ames’s narrative, or Caleb Trask’s narrative, as my own. Of course, I resist that urge, though I suspect I will reread it many times more, until I can recite its story as fluently as I can my own. Instead, I brag about East of Eden to family and friends, sometimes even buying more copies to give away so that others might be able to enjoy it as much as I do. Perhaps that’s the most important accomplishment of a novel: creating human connection. If I were ever trapped in a room, sitting sideways in an oversized chair, with all the people, dead or alive, that have ever read East of Eden, at least we’d have something to talk about.
Cited: Steinbeck, John. East of Eden. New York: Penguin, 2002.
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