Source of book: I own this.
I had been working my way through Steinbeck’s shorter novels, mostly because I own an old hardback with six of them. I had read four of the six, but decided instead to read East of Eden, in part because a friend really loved it, and my 13 year old kid liked it as well. I had actually intended to read this last year, but ran out of time. Too many books to read.
East of Eden is Steinbeck’s longest novel, and is considered by some critics to be his last masterpiece. Since my kids liked Sweet Thursday, they might not agree with that assessment. In any case, East of Eden is certainly Steinbeck’s most ambitious work, with the narrative spanning multiple generations, and following the fortunes of two families, one of which is loosely based on Steinbeck’s mother’s family - and in particular his eccentric and good-hearted maternal grandfather.
The title itself foreshadows the extensive use of biblical themes in the novel. One might say that it is a retelling - at least two, actually: one in each generation - of the old Cain and Abel story. But there are plenty of other layers of reference, metaphor, and allusion. Steinbeck was not religious, but he was steeped in the stories of Christianity as a child, and they clearly continued to influence his thinking throughout his life.
Because the plot is so sprawling, I am disinclined to summarize it much. You have a pair of brothers in each generation: Charles and Adam Trask in the first, Caleb and Aron in the second. In each case, the father rejects the gift of the first, preferring the gift of the second, leading to hurt, anger, and violence. There is your multi-generation Cain and Abel story. But there is more.
The counterpart to the Trasks are the Hamiltons - based on Steinbeck’s family. Samuel Hamilton, the father, is brilliant, skilled, and yet incompetent at making money from his inventions. Samuel is married to Liza, who is obsessed with religion and purity, alienating her from her family and others. (She is also covering up her own trauma and dislike for domestic life. This, um, reminds me of people in my own family, for sure.) Just like the Trasks, the Hamiltons find the family disintegrating over time. It is easy to see why the Trasks fall apart - they are beyond dysfunctional already, and that is before Kathy enters the picture. The Hamiltons are more complicated. The eldest daughter probably commits suicide, unhappy that her husband has moved her to the middle of nowhere. Another daughter dies after her illness (maybe ulcers or cancer?) is aggravated by medicine given by her brother, who then feels responsible and kills himself. Others move away from the family, and after Samuel dies, there is nothing more to hold everyone together. There are a lot of suicides in this book, in multiple families, and in multiple generations. Proof, perhaps, that those who think of suicide as a modern problem are ignorant.
Oh, and then there is Kathy. She is one of the most unusual characters I have found in a novel. While Steinbeck doesn’t diagnose her, only describes her, she seems pretty clearly to be a sociopath. Not really a narcissist, but a genuine sociopath. She is able to kill in cold blood, sees everything in a transactional way - will it benefit her power and success? - and is unable to understand love and human connection. That Steinbeck is able to portray her with a certain amount of pity and humanity is a testament to his radical empathy. More about her later.
Perhaps the best character in the book is that of Lee, a Chinese immigrant who ends up working for Adam Trask - which means pretty much raising his kids, keeping him together emotionally and physically, and being the one healthy person in the situation. It is no surprise that he and Samuel Hamilton become friends, and Samuel the first person for which Lee feels safe dropping his facade of the “Chinaman.” This could easily have become a version of the “Magical Negro” trope, but Steinbeck avoids it by giving Lee his own growth arc, his own desires and dreams. In essence, Lee is a central character himself, not merely there to assist the white protagonist.
The story takes place, more or less, in the period between the Civil War and World War One, so there is a lot of historical stuff that fits in with the story. Since the setting is Steinbeck’s beloved Salinas Valley, this period covers the time before it was much settled, until Salinas became a significant smaller city in the area. I live not too far from there, so I could definitely see the places as he describes them.
I should also mention that, in addition to the themes of love and acceptance (and their opposites), the effects of parental rejection, the question of what constitutes an ethically acceptable way to make a profit (if any), and the problem of how to interact with a sociopath, the central theme of the book is this: are we destined to follow a particular course, or are we able to choose how we act?
In discussing this theme, Steinbeck looks at a particular word in the Cain and Abel story, generally translated as “you must” or “you shall.” In context, Cain is told that he must master the sin that wishes to devour him. As Lee, fascinated by the story just like Steinbeck, learns some Hebrew in order to examine the original source (or at least the closest to an original source we have…which is not very close), he decides that a mistake was made in transcription and translation. The true meaning, he posits, is “you may,” which changes the meaning from a command to an indication that the choice to give in to the sin of fraternal violence is a choice - and one may choose to do what is right.
As usual, I loved Steinbeck’s writing. He manages to be direct and straightforward and unadorned, while still painting beautiful pictures, and expressing the nuance of human nature with great perception. When I think of excellent modern writing, he always comes to mind, and this book is no exception. Because of this, I definitely have to quote some lines.
At the very beginning, the first chapter is a loving description of the Salinas Valley. I could quote all of it, but here is an excerpt:
From both sides of the valley little streams slipped out of the hill canyons and fell into the bed of the Salinas River. In the winter of wet years the streams ran full-freshet, and they swelled the river until sometimes it raged and boiled, bank full, and then it was a destroyer. The river tore the edges of the farm lands and washed whole acres down: it toppled barns and houses into itself, to go floating and bobbing away. It trapped cows and pigs and sheep and drowned them in its muddy brown water and carried them to the sea. Then when the late spring came, the river drew in from its edges and the sand banks appeared. And in the summer the river didn’t run at all above ground. Some pools would be left in the deep swirl places under a high bank. The tules and grasses grew back, and willows straightened up with the flood debris in their upper branches. The Salinas was only a part-time river. The summer sun drove it underground. It was not a fine river at all, but it was the only one we had and so we boasted about it - how dangerous it was in a wet winter and how dry it was in a dry summer. You can boast about anything if it’s all you have. Maybe the less you have, the more you are required to boast.
Steinbeck’s descriptions of people are interesting too. Usually, they occur over time, with a sentence or two at a time shedding some light on their character. This one is of Liza Hamilton.
She had a dour Presbyterian mind and a code of morals that pinned down and beat the brains out of nearly everything that was pleasant to do.
Later, Steinbeck observes that legalistic morality is inseparable from self-righteous bigotry.
It was well known that Liza Hamilton and the Lord God held similar convictions on nearly every subject.
Liza isn’t the only character with a problematic relationship to religion. Adam Trask’s mother, the first wife of Cyrus - the violent and unpleasant Civil War veteran - is also religious, although in a different way. Thinking Cyrus dead, she uses theosophy to “communicate” with him. When he turns up alive, this no longer works. Particularly when it turns out he brought some gonorrhea home from the war with him and infects her.
She used religion as a therapy for the ills of the world and of herself, and she changed the religion to fit the ill. When she found that the theosophy she had developed for communication with a dead husband was not necessary, she cast about for some new unhappiness. Her search was quickly rewarded by the infection Cyrus brought home from the war. And as soon as she was aware that a condition existed, she devised a new theology. Her god of communication became a god of vengeance - to her the most satisfactory deity she had devised so far - and as it turned out, the last.
She decides that the wet dreams she had while Cyrus was gone were in fact nocturnal sexual escapades - that’s how she got the clap - and further thinks that her god requires a sacrifice…of herself. Suicide number one in the book.
I want to note here the way Steinbeck describes religion as a therapy for one’s ills. This hit home. I firmly believe that my parents embraced authoritarian fundamentalism as self-medication for the lingering damage of their childhood trauma. And, like most illicit drugs that just mask symptoms, not cure disease, an increasing dose is required as the illness worsens and tolerance to the drug is developed.
Cyrus was a soldier - of a sort. As in, he lost a leg in his first battle, and never really got to fight. So he made his identity as Civil War Veteran™, and then decided to make Adam a soldier, even though he did not wish to be one. Cyrus’s advice to Adam is craziness, but also exactly the logical explanation for the veneration of war and soldiers.
“I’ll have you know that a soldier is the most holy of all humans because he is the most tested - most tested of all. I’ll try to tell you. Look now - in all of history men have been taught that killing of men is an evil thing not to be countenanced. Any man who kills must be destroyed because this is a great sin, maybe the worst sin we know. And then we take a soldier and put murder in his hands and we say to him, ‘Use it well, use it wisely.’ We put no checks on him. Go out and kill as many of a certain kind or classification of your brothers as you can. And we will reward you for it because it is a violation of your early training.”
After all this stage setting, we get to meet Cathy. I must admit, while she is a bit over-the-top, there is an essential truth in her. True, there are not that many sociopaths that rise (or sink) to her level. Most sociopaths will never murder anyone, let alone multiple people. Most sociopaths do not think that big. Some do, obviously, and they become the most horrifying humans when they rise to power. But just because Cathy is the worst does not mean she is unrealistic. I have known people like that - certain cult leaders come to mind, although in the case of preachers, most are also (or perhaps primarily) narcissistic, and the sociopathy is secondary to the need for constant attention. One might say that many (not all) narcissists show some sociopathic traits, but narcissism isn’t necessary for sociopathy. But either narcissism or sociopathy leads to suffering by other people, as a result of the destructive behaviors.
After Cathy has already murdered her parents, faked her death, gone into business as a mistress, gotten nearly beaten to death, and rescued by Adam and Charles, she agrees to marry Adam. Not that she loves him - she is incapable of love, after all. But she also knows she needs to be sure to have some sort of power over Adam. So, she sleeps with Charles.
Cathy was standing by his bed. “What do you want?”
“What do you think? Move over a little.”
“Where’s Adam?”
“He drank my sleeping medicine by mistake. Move over a little.”
He breathed harshly. “I already been with a whore.”
“You’re a pretty strong boy. Move over a little.”
There are a number of passages in which Steinbeck philosophizes, sometimes well, and other times, not so well. One of the more wince-inducing one is this, in which Steinbeck seems to believe the myth of the lone genius.
Our species is the only creative species, and it has only one creative instrument, the individual mind and spirit of a man. Nothing was ever created by two men. There are no good collaborations, whether in music, in art, in poetry, in mathematics, in philosophy. Once the miracle of creation has taken place, the group can build and extend it, but the group never invents anything. The preciousness lies in the lonely mind of a man.
This is horseshit, as even a cursory examination of art, music, math, and philosophy would indicate. Even in poetry, movements together are greater than the individual poems, and nobody writes in a vacuum. Not even Steinbeck. Has Steinbeck never heard of a band? Or even Gilbert and Sullivan? In science, this myth has been particularly pernicious. True, there have been revolutionary geniuses, but many other breakthroughs have been collaborative. And again, even a giant as Newton acknowledged that he merely stood on the shoulders of others. This is why humans are the creative species. We combine individuality with group collaboration.
Much better is Samuel’s musing about Adam’s past as a soldier “fighting” the Native Americans. (Louis is the Italian intending to sell his land to Adam.)
“It must be a hard thing to kill a man you don’t know and don’t hate.”
“Maybe that makes it easier.”
“You have a point, Louis. But some men are friends with the whole world in their hearts, and there are others that hate themselves and spread their hatred around like butter on hot bread.”
We might call the first group of people “Christ followers.” And the second group seems to dominate those who claim to be Christ followers, unfortunately. And one might include Cathy, although it takes her a long time to realize it. She is unhappy to find herself pregnant - she has no intention of tying herself down with a child. And she is even more unhappy to be dragged to California to play her part in Adam’s dream. When an abortion attempt fails, she resigns herself to the pregnancy, but makes her plans to get out as soon as she can.
If Adam rested like a sleek fed cat on his land, Cathy was catlike too. She had the inhuman attribute of abandoning what she could not get and of waiting for what she could get. These two gifts gave her great advantages.
This is where the power that narcissists and sociopaths have in the world. They do not function on the same operating system, while those who do insist on assuming they do. Because they assume good motives, mutuality, altruism, and the other traits found in most humans, they are blindsided when faced with someone who does not even understand those values. I have experience with this, and it is a hard revelation to accept when you eventually see it.
I had to smile at this next description. I am a Southern California guy, so I am used to our weather and seasons, but transplants from elsewhere tend to feel like Adam.
Adam, always looking out over his dry dust-obscured land, felt the panic the Eastern man always does at first in California. In a Connecticut summer, two weeks without rain is a dry spell and four a drought. If the countryside is not green, it is dying. But in California it does not ordinarily rain at all between the end of May and the first of November. The Eastern man, though he has been told, feels the earth is sick in the rainless months.
I had mentioned Lee earlier. At first, I groaned at the character, because he speaks in Pidgin, and is first described as a faithful servant. But, as the book unfolds, it becomes apparent that Steinbeck is flipping the script here big time. Samuel is the one who calls bullshit on it.
“Lee,” he said at last, “I mean you no disrespect, but I’ve never been able to figure why you people still talk pidgin when an illiterate baboon from the black bogs of Ireland, with a head full of Gaelic and a tongue like a potato, learns to talk a poor grade of English in ten years.”
Lee grinned. “Me talkee Chinese talk.”
“Well, I guess you have your reasons. And it’s not my affair. I hope you’ll forgive me if I don’t believe it, Lee.”
Lee looked at him and the brown eyes under their rounded upper lids seemed to open and deepen until they weren’t foreign any more, but man’s eyes, warm with understanding. Lee chuckled. “It’s more than a convenience,” he said. “It’s even more than self-protection. Mostly we have to use it to be understood at all.”
Damn. Steinbeck is right. All minority groups develop self-protective mechanisms, including various kinds of “pidgin” talk. One can bring to mind the various overexaggerated dialects used by African Americans over the years to keep white people comfortable with them. Or the “stoic Indian” persona adopted to mask a dry sense of humor. As Lee explains, if you don’t sound “right” to white people, often they don’t hear you at all. It is a sign of the deepening relationship between Lee and Adam when Lee drops the pidgin. But of course Samuel forms that connection right away, because he sees everyone as equal. Even after a few awkward questions, Lee doesn’t resent Samuel.
“Do you resent the question?”
“Not from you. There are no ugly questions except those clothed in condescension.”
Prostitution plays a major role in this story - I’m sure this made Fundies clutch their pearls as much as the thoroughly un-sexy bare breast scene in The Grapes of Wrath - and Steinbeck refuses to treat it with contempt. One of my favorite passages in the book is this one:
The church and the whorehouse arrived in the Far West simultaneously. And each would have been horrified to think it was a different facet of the same thing. But surely they were both intended to accomplish the same thing: the singing, the devotion, the poetry of the churches took a man out of his bleakness for a time, and so did the brothels.
A corresponding passage occurs much later in the book, and describes the periodic moral panics that sweep society. Gambling is a frequent target - because, unlike sex, it can be discussed in public - and Steinbeck hilariously describes the progression from Women’s Club meetings through the inevitable xenophobic element straight through to the press getting involved and the police using it to ask for bigger budgets.
When it got to the editorial stage everyone knew the cards were down. What followed was as carefully produced as a ballet. The police got ready, the gambling houses got ready, and the papers set up congratulatory editorials in advance. Then came the raid, deliberate and sure. Twenty or more Chinese, imported from Pajaro, a few bums, six or eight drummers, who, being strangers were not warned, fell into the police net, were booked, jailed, and in the morning fined and released. The town relaxed in its new spotlessness and the houses lost only one night of business plus the fines. It is one of the triumphs of the human that he can know a thing and still not believe it.
Another favorite is the discussion between Samuel, Adam, and Lee over the meaning of the Cain and Abel story. I wish I could quote the whole thing, but it really needs the context of the whole story. Two things did really stand out, though. How about this gem from Lee?
“[P]eople are only interested in themselves. If a story is not about the hearer, he will not listen. And I here make a rule - a great and lasting story is about everyone or it will not last. The strange and foreign is not interesting - only the deeply personal and familiar.”
The point is not that fantasy is not “real,” - quite the opposite. Rather, it is that a story abides when it resonates with everyone. We recognize ourselves in the characters. Which is why I can see myself in so many different stories - and in the character of Lee. Lee expands on this with another profound truth.
“I think this is the best-known story in the world because it is everybody’s story. I think it is the symbol story of the human soul. I’m feeling my way now - don’t jump on me if I’m not clear. The greatest terror a child can have is that he is not loved, and rejection is the hell he fears. I think everyone in the world to a large or small extent has felt rejection. And with rejection comes anger, and with anger some kind of crime in revenge for the rejection, and with the crime guilt - and there is the story of mankind.”
When Samuel dies, it leaves a huge void in the lives of Lee and Adam. Steinbeck masterfully describes a key unique trait that Samuel brought to the world.
He [Adam] 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. In the speech of most men you are absolutely sure what the next word will be.
Remember, this is Steinbeck’s grandfather - I suspect this is a particularly personal memory. If it is, the portrait of Samuel Hamilton is one of the most affectionate in his writing.
Before Samuel dies, he decides to tell Adam that Cathy hasn’t disappeared - rather, she is running a brothel in Salinas. Adam has a confrontation with her, in which he realizes that she is beyond redemption, at least by him, which allows him to let her go, and get on with his life. She, on the other hand, is devastated to realize that she has lost her hold on him. She even plays the “your children probably aren’t even yours” card, and Adam tells her it doesn’t matter to him if they are his or not.
“Adam, I hate you. I hate you now for the first time. I hate you! Adam, are you listening? I hate you!”
“Do you know, I loved you better than anything in the world? I did. It was so strong that it took quite a killing.”
It is only in the last few years that I have truly come to understand what Adam means here. Experience is a brutal teacher. Steinbeck muses on the change in Adam, and I think he is on to something.
I believe there are techniques of the human mind whereby, in its dark deep, problems are examined, rejected or accepted. Such activities sometimes concern facets a man does not know he has. How often one goes to sleep troubled and full of pain, not knowing what causes the travail, and in the morning a whole new direction and a clearness is there, maybe the result of the black reasoning. And again there are mornings when ecstasy bubbles in the blood, and the stomach and chest are tight and electric with joy, and nothing in the thoughts to justify or cause it.
Adam comes home to Lee, who has of course known about Cathy for many years, and expresses his disbelief that such a creature exists. I love Lee’s response.
“The trouble with you Occidentals is that you don’t have devils to explain things with.”
I think there is a weakness in the Western rationalist worldview, in that it doesn’t easily account for the existence of evil. I am not pretending to understand any of it, but I feel that there are some things - and some people - who can only be adequately explained by the term “evil.” Obviously, the Hitlers and Stalins of the world come to mind. But also the Trumps and the McConnells of the world, those who see nothing but power as worth seeking. Whether you believe in a personal Satan or (I’m closer to this) a kind of metaphorical representation of all that is dark and horrible in human nature, “evil” is the only word that does it justice. It is harming of others for the sake of harming them. I suppose we could use “sociopathy,” but isn’t that kind of the same thing as “evil”?
More social commentary comes later, when we meet the girl who will be tied up with the destiny of Caleb and Abel: Abra Bacon. While I found her to be a bit of a weaker character - women in general are not as well drawn in Steinbeck in my opinion - the scene with her family reveals a lot about the personalities of Caleb and Abel, as well as some pointed social commentary.
After Cathy leaves him, Adam lets his rich farm go to waste. And he can do so, because he inherited wealth. Check out this badass passage:
Both Mr. and Mrs. Bacon were looking at Adam now, and he knew he had to make some explanation for letting his good land run free. He said, “I guess I’m a lazy man. And my father didn’t help me when he left me enough to get along without working.” He dropped his eyes but he could feel the relief on the part of the Bacons. It was not laziness if he was a rich man. Only the poor were lazy. Just as only the poor were ignorant. A rich man who didn’t know anything was spoiled or independent.
That first confrontation between Adam and Cathy is just the first. The second occurs later, after Charles dies, and leaves his estate split between Adam and Cathy. Adam has an ethical dilemma. After all, nobody knows Cathy is alive, and she has disguised her identity. However, he is honorable, and goes to give her the information to collect her money. She cannot understand it, and is sure he is using it as leverage with her. Again, he has an epiphany about who she is. Some of this is brought on by the fact that she tells him she has blackmail photos of dozens of important and wealthy men throughout the area.
“You don’t believe I brought you the letter because I don’t want your money. You don’t believe I loved you. And the men who come to you here with their ugliness, the men in the pictures - you don’t believe those men could have goodness and beauty in them. You only see one side, and you think - more than that, you’re sure - that’s all there is.”
Later, Cal learns of her, and meets with her. He likewise finds that she has no hold on him, despite her claim that he is just like her. He actually feared that, then realized that he is not that way. He may have less kind traits, but he actually does feel love. He talks with Lee, of course, afterward, and Lee explains his own thoughts.
“Cal, I’ve thought about it for a great many hours and I still don’t know. She is a mystery. It seems to me that she is not like other people. There is something she lacks. Kindness maybe, or conscience. You can only understand people if you feel them in yourself. And I can’t feel her. The moment I think about her my feeling goes into darkness. I don’t know what she wanted or what she was after. She was full of hatred, but why or toward what I don’t know. It’s a mystery. And her hatred wasn’t healthy. It wasn’t angry. It was heartless.”
I’ve already noted that Cathy is an exaggeration, bigger than life, while most narcissists and sociopaths are petty and lack the ambition to commit the great crimes. But man, those two passages above (and others) really resonated with my experience with a family member. Everything is transactional. There seems to be a lack of ordinary mutuality, empathy, fellow feeling. The sort that makes one want to connect and understand, rather than be continually seeking advantages. And there is also that unexplained hatred, directed toward rather innocent people who - like Adam - intended the best and acted in good faith. Cathy is, for that reason, a dangerous person, and leaves nothing behind her but destruction. The story of Cathy is achingly sad. No one will mourn her death, she has made no human connections, and the wealth and power she has accumulated ultimately mean nothing amid her failing health, fading beauty, and circling enemies.
Cathy does get one perceptive line in, though, and it is easy to understand how she instinctively knows it to be true.
“A man can do a lot of damage in the church. When someone comes here, he’s got his guard up. But in church, a man’s wide open.”
It is pretty well known that sociopaths and narcissists are far more common among church leaders than in the general population. (Politicians too, of course. And lawyers, sadly.) Cathy is absolutely right that such people can do tremendous damage to others in that situation, because their victims are trusting. I know that religious charlatans did immeasurable damage in my own family over the years, and that they were not identified and avoided because of that letting down of the guard, as if consent to certain theological precepts automatically makes a person good.
I think the last thing to mention is the chapter on World War One. Honestly, although most wars are a “bloody stupid waste,” World War One has to be one of the most stupid, most bloody, and most senseless war of all time. And all it did was set us up for an even more horrifying war combined with genocide a generation later. One thing I did not expect to find, though, was a bit about the Pershing expedition into Mexico.
A war always comes to someone else. In Salinas we were aware that the United States was the greatest and most powerful nation in the world. Every American was a rifleman by birth, and one American was worth ten or twenty foreigners in a fight. Pershing’s expedition into Mexico after Villa had exploded one of our myths for a little while. We had truly believed that Mexicans can’t shoot straight and besides were lazy and stupid.
I can’t help but think of Putin and Russia right now. (I wrote a bit about it too…) But of course, I also had to think about my own country. The US has not won a war in any meaningful sense after World War Two. (And, perhaps the only reason it could be considered a “victory” is that Hitler was one of the most fucking evil people possible, and ridding the world of him literally made it better for most of humanity. But perhaps credit the Marshall Plan for doing the actual rebuilding of the First World after the war. That part is always a lot harder.) It’s easy to break stuff, but you get broken too. And NO war is as easy as you think. The myths continue to explode.
Well, that’s what I have to say about East of Eden. I love Steinbeck, and have grown to appreciate him even more over time. This was a good book, if a bit rambling.
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The rest of my Steinbeck posts:
I have also read The Grapes of Wrath, but that was before I started blogging.
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