The Winter of Our Discontent

Steinbeck has a recognisable style, often brutal in its reality as it relates to society and families. This novel is no exception and focuses heavily on the moral decline of the American culture in the mid-1900s, as Steinbeck addressed in letters to friends after publication. In this novel Steinbeck also examines the battles between integrity and greed.

I was challenged by the shifts in narratives - for example, from first to third person – but I worked through this with buddy reader Marge Moen.

Steinbeck’s use of intimate dialogue and the interactions between the protagonist and his family were excellent and often touching:

‘She was laughing her lovely trill, something that raises goose lumps of pleasure on my soul.’

‘The Winter of our Discontent’ did not reach the 5-star high I got from ‘East of Eden’, but a powerful read nonetheless.

4/5

“Can a man think out his life, or must he just tag along?” (pg. 36). This is the question at the centre of John Steinbeck’s final 1961 novel. (So this book is 64 years old at the time of this little review, it's so easy to forget how old books are sometimes).

The plot follows Ethan Allen Hawley, a man who has lost his generational wealth and now works as a clerk in the grocery store his family once owned. Over an Easter weekend he begins to confront the notion of whether he stays content with his place in the world or whether he thinks out a new path for himself. There is a nice bit of classic Steinbeck symbolism here with a metaphorical death and new life aligning with Good Friday and Easter Sunday.

The opening pages I found a bit dull and I couldn’t work out what kind of a read I was in for. Steinbeck spent a few chapters setting up the context and history of New Baytown and Ethan’s family. In the end though this helped immerse me in the events of the book once everything got going. Once it did get going I found this a very inward-looking novel. Steinbeck explored all the moral compromises a person needs to make in order to get ahead and he gently poses the question of whether some compromises are worse than others. Does trying to get rich mean giving up on a moral life? I think that Ethan sees himself as a good guy who has to make moral concessions in order to get ahead but always plans on living in a virtuous way once he gets there. Yet a few of his compromises will not be easy to live with, particularly the lending of money to the town alcoholic who has made it very clear how he intends to spend it…

What I find interesting here is also the tension of characters feeling like they deserve wealth and status because of their heritage. I'm not sure if that is how Ethan sees it, or if it is more a sense of shame that he can not provide his family with the resources that were given to him and his ancestors. I think Steinbeck is subtly hinting that having a wealth divide will always morally corrupt those that attempt to be, or already are, on the wealthy end of the divide.

This book also had some moments of eeriness involving dreams and sleepwalking that were 10/10 pieces of writing.

There was also some chopping and changing between first- and third-person narration. If anyone has a take on that I would love to hear it.

The one thing that I disliked was the main character's decision in the last few pages. I thought this was an overreaction and totally out of character with the Ethan that I had come to know. Ideally, the point that that scene is making could have been made in a different way.

A great last novel by John Steinbeck. The story of someone who has lost nearly everything and how he regains his wealth and status. However, to do it he must hatch a plot where he goes against his beliefs. His wife Mary has a nest egg and Bay Hampton is given inside information about some land. He can buy it and if successful will be wealthy again. But the question will they be happy.

This opportunity and combined with the disappointment of his children. It resonates within him this is his last chance and it may be already to late. A novel about betrayal, revenge and disappointment.

The ending leaves it to the reader to decide what happens as it is left hanging. Give up or go against your ethics.

‘Money is not nice. Money got no friends but more money.’

Every year in late winter, when profoundly discontent with the snow that keeps falling, I find myself thinking of this book, the final novel of the great American novelist John Steinbeck. The Winter of our Discontent, the title from Shakespeare’s Richard III, is a moral allegory with Steinbeck questioning if personal ethics are valued on the grand scale of society, and if the American dream with its offer of prosperity and property becomes a gateway drug for abandoning your ethics in the name of ever more revenue and riches. This is the story of Ethan Allen Hawley, an everyman with a family name known to the locals, as well as a Revolutionary War namesake, Ethan Allen, to connect readers minds to ideas of American legacy. His father’s fortune gone, Ethan is mostly content providing for his family working for the local grocer, something that locals remind him he should feel ashamed of. Winter of our Disconent faces everyman Ethan with a series of temptations to rise to wealth and power and Steinbeck shows how moral good is increasingly shucked off for success.

‘Where money is concerned, the ordinary rules of conduct take a holiday.’

As someone that spent much of my 20s told working retail was something to be ashamed of, the opening of this book connects pretty well. There is also the racism element going on here as his boss, Marullo, is Italian and Steinbeck toys with the disconcerting notion of how immigrants are seen as lesser than and to be an “american” working for one is somehow shameful. Steinbeck brings criticism after criticism of the idea of polite melting pot society. Faced with multiple avenues towards financial stability, such as a bank robbing plot and investment scheme, we see Ethan having a moral meltdown inside and Steinbeck does well to emphasize his Puritan heritage to comment upon the maelstrom of morality he is grappling with. To take action would be to reclaim the honor of his family name, to provide for his kids who are nearing college age, and to have the life he was promised basically for being a white male american with a family name.

Ethan muses on the questions of power and morality saying ‘in business and in politics, a man must carve and maul his way through men to get to be King of the Mountain. Once there, he can be great and kind—but he must get there first.’ However, to get there first has a person sacrificed too much? His quest for power begins on Easter Sunday, a clever death and rebirth symbolism added in, and as the novel progresses we watch Ethan fall from his moral pedestal as he swindles, steals and scams his way up. Most notably is the betrayal of his best friend, Danny, the town drunk. He gives Danny money to clean up his life in exchange for his property deeds. He knows full well Danny won’t get clean and in the aftermath Ethan is faced with what he has done, what he has become, and what he has sacrificed morally to get there. No King of the Mountain but a man responsible for death.

‘I guess I'm trying to say, Grab anything that goes by. It may not come around again.’

Ending on the 4th of July is a curious choice, one meant to represent a sort of rebirth.With a near-suicide avoided through his daughter, Ethan hopefully has a new commitment to morality, though we see his son representing the idea that this American amorality is passing onto another generation. While not my favorite Steinbeck, this is one I think about more than others as the years have gone by. It is a dark little allegory and shows Steinbeck’s dissatisfaction with American society, one with much less charm than his younger novels. There is a distinct disillusionment at play, though Steinbeck leaves the ending a bit open in order for possible hope. However, it is certain that in the end we learn that ‘intention, good or bad, is not enough,’ and an affirmation that personal ethics should, and do, matter.

3.75/5

Raketos greičiu šauna į mano mėgstamiausių knygų topą. Nu kokia superinė, taip gerai susiskaitė. Apie peles ir žmones irgi labai patiko, tai dabar sėdžiu ir galvoju, kuri iš jų yra geresnė. Niekaip negaliu apsispręst, man jos abi vienodai superinės.

There is a certain emotion in Steinbeck I have not found in other authors. Faulkner comes close, Hemingway a bit further off, perhaps Woolf is on a parallel path. Steinbeck shows us something into ourselves, he states in the book that we all have our own light, we are not a bonfire. We only understand others to the point that we assume they are akin to ourselves. Steinbeck, like Woolf in the Waves, shows us that we are all connected, and that we can find a path in this world through this novel.

This novel has been criticized by others for being lacking in the character development and depth of his other novels like East of Eden and Grapes of Wrath. I agree. It's not a long novel. It only develops one character(narrator) to the full extent and shows us the world around him. But that's the point. He states that we can only know ourselves, and we might not even know that. People look to this book to find a copy of what he has already done, but he changes in this book. He puts us finally inside the head of one of the characters instead of Steinbeck telling us the story. He is giving us, in a sense, a parting gift. The reason people do not like this book is because they want another East of Eden, but this is just as good, if not better.

I do not often read novels that allow me to think about my own self this much. I don't think this would be my first recommendation for a Steinbeck novel, I think one needs to understand his changes from Grapes, Eden, etc. to appreciate this more, but even still, this is my new favorite of his.

n  n    "Now is the winter of our discontent;
Made glorious summer by this sun of York"n  n

Se considerar O Inverno do Nosso Descontentamento avulso, atribuir-lhe-ia um 5. À luz de outros trabalhos de Steinbeck, seria um 4 - falta-lhe a pujança e a pertinência de um As Vinhas da Ira, ou a espiritualidade de um A Um Deus Desconhecido, ou mesmo a nota de desconcerto final que nos deixa um Ratos e homens.

Na minha percepção, este é um romance mais contido, mais reflexivo e até mais pessoal. A sociedade está presente, as suas injustiças, hierarquias, vícios e manias. E, uma vez mais, estamos perante a narrativa de um homem honesto, de bom fundo, perante as vilezas que o rodeiam. Não é uma história de sobrevivência, como outras do autor, mas sim de ganância, de status social, e também de idoneidade. Declínio e ascensão na sociedade é o que molda e o que move Ethan Allen Hawley e a sua pequena família, no seio de uma cidade fictícia que o autor inventou para urdir o seu enredo.

Acompanhamos, ao longo das cerca de 300 páginas, a decadência moral que tem lugar por detrás das fachadas de New Baytown, que mina a política e a autoridade local. E Steinbeck presenteia-nos com uma personagem principal complexa, multidimensional, cujas ações nos surpreendem e nos chocam, sem que nunca deixem de nos importar.

Mais um romance de excelência daquele que se tem consagrado como o meu autor favorito, a par com o grandioso Somerset Maugham.

n  

“We can shoot rockets into space but we can't cure anger or discontent. ”

n

Ambiguity and allusiveness are the two perfect words to describe this novel.
This novel is, indeed, a novel of displeasure, the cultural discontent that many Americans felt in the second half of the 20th century. There is a clear change in the air, the social class gap is becoming more prominent as capitalism takes over, the cold war is behind, tradition is displaced in favor of materialism and prestige.

n  

“No man really knows about other human beings. The best he can do is to suppose that they are like himself.”

n

The new wave of immorality spares no one, from lonely drunks, store clerks, to bankers, going to the top of the social pyramid.
Steinbeck found consolation in one of his favorite books, Sir Thomas Mallory’s Le Morte d'Arthur: King Arthur and the Legends of the Round Table, more precisely, in n  the gallantry of medieval timesn that he felt was present in his fellow Americans.

The central question that Ethan faces is: whether Darwinistic survival is actually a new form of gallantry? Is that the next step for not only America but humanity?

n   "I remember thinking how wise a man was H. C. Andersen. The king told his secrets down a well, and his secrets were safe. A man who tells secrets or stories must think of who is hearing or reading, for a story has as many versions as it has readers. Everyone takes what he wants or can from it and thus changes it to his measure. Some pick out parts and reject the rest, some strain the story through their mesh of prejudice, some paint it with their own delight. A story must have some points of contact with the reader to make him feel at home in it. Only then can he accept wonders. The tale I may tell to Allen must be differently built from the same tale told to my Mary, and that in turn shaped to fit Marullo if Marullo is to join it. But perhaps the Well of Hosay Andersen is best. It only receives, and the echo it gives back is quiet and soon over." n

Ethan’s adaptability is not devoid of hypocrisy, he is reluctant to accept the thinking of his contemporaries but for the sake of his future, he reshapes himself to fit into the mold, in a way, Ethan is a presentation of the time’s ordinary man.
He often makes comparisons between himself and other important historical, biblical, mythological figures suggesting the complexity behind his decisions and presenting a new type of character in literature.

On a wider picture, this is a portrayal of the collective discontent of one nation, a political winner but a moral failure, everyone individually isolated in their own dissatisfaction.