John Steinbeck é autor de um dos meus livros favoritos: "As Vinhas da Ira".

"Ratos e Homens" e "A Pérola" foram outros dois livros que li deste autor e que muito pouco distam de As Vinhas da Ira, no meu coração de leitora.

Todos estes livros eu vos aconselho e este livro maravilhoso não é excepção.

The brilliance of John Steinbeck intimidates me. I spend a great deal of my time while reading his books nodding my head in agreement and gasping in awe at how he tackles the profound and the everyday with the same amount of elan.

First off, I enjoyed this story. I cared about Ethan Allen Hawley, and not just his person but his soul. I wanted him to emerge unscathed even though I knew he could not, because no one can compromise his own morality and remain unsoiled. I cried for what I knew was his major loss and yet I ended still hoping he could find some way to live with what he had done without resorting to lying to himself, which would only deepen the corruption.

This is the world he lives in, and I dare say it is the world we live in as well:
The Town Manager sold equipment to the township, and the judges fixed traffic tickets as they had for so long that they did not remember it as illegal practice--at least the books said it was. Being normal men, they surely did not consider it immoral. All men are moral. Only their neighbors are not.

How much immorality is too much? Do the ends justify the means? Is your sin less egregious if you are sinning against a sinner? And, to quote Mark 8:36, "For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?"

There is a reason John Steinbeck is considered one of the great American authors. It has something to do with his ability to tell a fascinating tale and still pack so many unobtrusive, salient issues into its telling.

Just one more quote, because who wouldn't appreciate this kind of imagery: "The young boys, bleeding with sap, sit on the stools of Tanger's Drugstore ingesting future pimples through straws. They watch the girls with level goat-eyes and make disparaging remarks to one another while their insides whimper with longing." Digest that.

DNF--sorry! Maybe I'll give it another try sometime. Anyone else who wants to, go ahead, and I hope you enjoy it more.

Best wishes.

It’s weird that this book seems to be among people’s least favorite Steinbeck novels. What gives? In The Winter of our Discontent, Steinbeck once again proves himself a master at the craft of characterization, but whereas in prior novels his protagonists find themselves up against a litany of circumstances beyond their control (but which ultimately dictate their fate), his star character here is a little more sinister. Not to say that this isn’t a fatalistic novel, because it is, but certainly Ethan Allen Hawley takes matters into his own hands a bit more than his Steinbeckian counterparts. Though, maybe that’s the point—that the circumstances of Ethan’s existence are so stacked against him that taking matters into his own hands is Steinbeck’s version of ‘but he had no choice’.

I’m not going to write a lot here because it’s my first time reviewing in a while and my fingers hurt but I did just want to say that I thought this was a really beautiful novel, and I found myself (not surprisingly) drawn to these characters in a way that’s fairly typical of John Steinbeck novels. Ethan’s self-rationalizations after exploiting Danny and duping Marullo and the subsequent realizations of his own complicity in Allen’s moral upbringing were themes I found especially poignant.

Rating: 6* of five

The Publisher Says: Ethan Allen Hawley, the protagonist of Steinbeck’s last novel, works as a clerk in a grocery store that his family once owned. With Ethan no longer a member of Long Island’s aristocratic class, his wife is restless, and his teenage children are hungry for the tantalizing material comforts he cannot provide. Then one day, in a moment of moral crisis, Ethan decides to take a holiday from his own scrupulous standards.

Set in Steinbeck’s contemporary 1960 America, the novel explores the tenuous line between private and public honesty that today ranks it alongside his most acclaimed works of penetrating insight into the American condition. This edition features an introduction and notes by Steinbeck scholar Susan Shillinglaw.

My Review: This is a wonderful short novel by a master of his craft at the peak of his form. It is also his last novel.

Some people at the time it was published felt it was a wrong turning for Steinbeck (The Grapes of Wrath, Tortilla Flat) to abandon both the west coast that had made him famous and brought his considerable social conscience to the world's attention for an east coast grifter's POV. The Winter of Our Discontent is a story that has nothing but shades of gray. Everyone in it is shady somehow. That is, I think, what verschmeckled the reviewers and made the public angry. Up until then, there were clear-cut Good Guys and Bad Guys in every Steinbeck tale. Here...no, no one qualifies as all good or all bad.

The POV is of Ethan, a man who is the degenerate scion of a venerable family. He is married with teenaged kids, and he will do anything to support his family. Including, to their horror, work for an Italian grocer as his clerk. The nerve of the man, a son of the founder of his town, working for someone who *should* be his gardener, according to his friends and his kids.

Well, he thinks, how can I help it, we all gotta eat. So he hatches a plot that will restore the family "honor" by swindling a friend. He goes through with it. He gets what he wants. And, frankly, so does the "swindled" friend, an alcoholic prowling for his next few thousand drinks.

This isn't really Steinbecky stuff, it's too hard to pin down from a moral standpoint. On the other hand, it's superbly told, and it's amazingly well crafted, and it's undoubtedly the best thing Steinbeck wrote after 1950. Reviews were harsh, sales were poor, and Steinbeck lost heart for fiction after that. He published two travel books before his death in 1968, a mere 30 years after "The Grapes of Wrath" burst on the scene. Imagine the wonders he could have produced had he lived to an Updikey 80-plus.

What a wonderful read, and so overlooked...please don't overlook it any longer!

Ethan appare sulla scena di questo struggente romanzo in un “mattino biondo oro di aprile”; è a letto con la moglie che lo chiama “scemo” perchè “con i mignoli in bocca le faceva le smorfie". Venerdì santo, giornata impegnativa al lavoro, commesso nella bottega di alimentari del terrone Marullo, lui discendente degli Hawley, stirpe di Padri Pellegrini e di facoltosi balenieri caduti in disgrazia. Poche battute, al risveglio, e il personaggio è abilmente delineato: scanzonato, malinconico, acuto osservatore, relitto della società in fermento, estroso oratore ( comunica la sua visione della società alla banda di lattine che popola gli scaffali del negozio), ottimo commerciante, vivo spessore culturale, ottimo ascoltatore. Un tentativo di rialzarsi, andato male…

“Se avessi voglia di svaligiare una banca, lo farei prima di una festa lunga. La grana è tutta là dentro che aspetta.”

Indizi, buttati lì con una noncuranza che è magistrale perché permette di recuperarli, avendoli finalmente collocati nel giusto ruolo di dettagli da non trascurare, solo quando la storia è così ben avviata nel suo lento procedere che ci si rende conto che qualcosa è sfuggito. Una trama invisibile, tanti piccoli indizi. A chi ha la fortuna di leggere per la prima volta questo romanzo, mi sentirei di dire proprio questo : nulla è casuale, tutto è affidato alla parola, compito del lettore è quindi dipanare la trama. Compito non facile perché molto è affidato ai dialoghi con il piccolo universo del microcosmo che ruota intorno a Ethan: la moglie, Joey Morphy, cassiere alla banca First National, l’ amante di Joey, Margie Youg-Hunt, il signor Marullo, il signor Baker, presidente della banca, l’amico d’infanzia; Danny Taylor, perso nell’alcool, i due figli di Ethan. La narrazione inoltre, dopo i primi due capitoli, passa dalla terza persona alla prima persona e l’ottica per tutta la prima parte è quella di Ethan: funzionale a farci trascorrere i giorni fino alla Pasqua e oltre mentre vengono ripercorse le principali tappe della sua vita. In maniera speculare la seconda parte, che si sofferma maggiormente sulla realtà della cittadina di New Baytown, segue la stessa disposizione delle voci narranti, il tempo scorre fino alla festività nazionale del Quattro luglio, ma sono sicuramente i periodi precedenti le “feste lunghe” a essere i più interessanti quando tutto pare possibile e succede ciò che non si era previsto. Una seconda parte ricca di avvenimenti, di salite vertiginose e di cadute morali che sveleranno la vera essenza di ogni singolo personaggio in una sintesi mirabile di corruzione e corruttibilità che lascia aleggiare su tutto il vago e profondo senso del nostro scontento. Sempre attuale.

به طرز عجیبی هیچ ریویو فارسی ای از این کتاب در گودریدز نیست! با اینکه ریت خوبی داره و در بین خوانندگان خارجی زبان کلی ام ازش استقبال شده اما نه تا به حال جایی ازش چیزی خوندم و نه تونستم نقد و نظری پیدا کنم.
در ادامه روند خوندنم از جان اشتاین بک به این کتاب برخوردم که بعد از خوشه های خشم و شرق بهشت حجیم ترین کتابیه که در ایران ترجمه شده.
اسم اصلی کتاب «زمستان نارضایتی ما» که اشاره به جمله ای از نمایشنامه شکسپیر داره. فضای کتاب رو دوس داشتم. شهری که داستان درش اتفاق میفتاد، مردم شهر، روابطشون و حتی تلاششون برای زیرپا گذاشتن قانون...
داستان روند پر ابهامی داره که تا صفحات انتهایی هم ادامه پیدا میکنه اما در صفحات آخر تمامی سوالاتی که ذهن خواننده رو درگیر کرده پاسخ داده میشن. (البته من هنوز هم یک سری بخش‌ها برام حل نشده است اما خب اونقدر نقش مهمی رو در داستان ایفا نمیکنن) بنظرم ترجمه یک مقدار سخت و نامفهوم بود. تو خیلی از گفتگوها دیالوگ‌ها بدون مشخص شدن گوینده تغییر میکرد و باعث گیج شدن خواننده میشد.
جان اشتاین بک‌ این کتاب با مابقی کتاب‌هاش متفاوته؛ منتهی در نوع روایت، نه فضای قصه گویی.

Just might be my favorite Steinbeck novel so far.

I adore Steinbeck's writing. Simple lines which all readers can relate to. Philosophical content, but never laid on thick. It is difficult to convey the feeling Steinbeck creates with his words, so I give you a few lines instead:

It sounds uncomfortable and silly sitting cross-legged in a niche like a blinking Buddha, but someway the stone fits me or I fit. Maybe I have been going there so long my behind as conformed to the stones. As for its being silly, I don't mind that. Sometimes it is great fun to be silly, like children playing statues and dying of laughter. And sometimes being silly breaks the even pace and lets you get a new start. When I am troubled I play a game of silly so that my dear will not catch trouble from me. She hasn't found me out yet, or if she has I will never know it. So many things I don't know about my Mary and among them how much she knows about me. I don't think she knows about the place. How could she? I have never told anyone. It has no name in my mind except 'the place'. No ritual or formula or anything. It is a spot in which to wonder about things. No man really knows about other human beings. The best he can do is to suppose they are like himself. Now, sitting in the place out of the wind, seeing under the guardian lights the tide creep in black from the dark sky, I wonder if all men have a place or need a place or want one and have none. (chapter 3)

Immediately you conjure your own special 'place'. Past memories flood your brain. Just as the author does, you ask yourself why you need that place, if everyone needs such a place and what makes those places so special. The language is down to earth, words that all of us relate to. This is Ethan Allan Hawley's place - in a cave by the sea. His place where he sits and thinks.

So who is this guy Ethan? A grocery store clerk living in a small fictional whaling town in Wessex County, New York State. The year is 1960. He is married and has two pubescent kids, a girl and a boy. An ordinary family. His family had held prominence in past generations, but not anymore. So how does one cope with such a past? What are money and importance and power worth? What are you willing to do to get it? Honesty - public and private. Friendship, what is that worth? How many are willing to lay out large sums to help another, a friend? Even back in the 1960s there was a dislike of foreigners. That is here too. These are the issues of the book.

Yet, I was not drawn in for two reasons. I know where I stand related to the moral, philosophical issues raised; I am not a kid anymore. I wanted more to think about, something more difficult to resolve. I prefer longer, more complicated novels. Secondly, the book, although it starts our contemplative morphs into a crime story, a mystery. In this process it becomes too simplified. A cozy mystery is not my favorite genre.

Beautifully written, but very much a cozy mystery, a comfort read. I would highly recommend it to those who love such. I enjoyed it being set in a New England whaling town. It isn’t Nantucket, but is drawn as such. This is the author’s last novel. The author understands people, young and old, and this shows in his ability to draw true to life characters.

The audiobook narration by David Aaron Baker was perfectly fine. No complaints there.

Ethan es un empleado de clase media descendiente de una importante familia venida a menos. Siente que carece del respeto de su comunidad y su familia, surge la culpa y, como de casualidad, va tramando un plan.
Es una novela sencilla, escrita con mucha delicadeza. La historia se va desgranando muy de a poquito, sin que nos demos cuenta, casi sin que se dé cuenta Ethan.
Me gusta mucho la descripción que hace de la vida cotidiana de un hombre común y la turbación de este cuando percibe la distancia entre la imagen que tiene de sí mismo y la que tienen los demás. Me gusta cómo el autor muestra sin dramatismos el costo de tomar una decisión para el cambio.

Review soon.

مرگ مولف :

همینگوی سخن درخشانی دارد :« وقتی چیزی می‌دانید بنویسید. نه قبل و نه خیلی بعد از آن».
بنظرم اگر بخواهم نظر منصفانه‌ای داده باشم، اشتاین بک خیلی بعد‌تر از آن زمانی که لازم بود، این کتاب را نوشت. زمانی که کیلومترها از فقر فاصله گرفته بود.
با این همه، اگر طرفدار اشتاین بک هستید، همانطور که یکی از نویسندگان محبوب خودم است، با این جمله ناامید نشوید. عده‌ی زیادی فکر می‌کنند که این کتاب یکی از آثار درخشان اشتاین بک است. شاید هم به عنوان اثری مستقل کار خوبی باشد که البته من در این رابطه هم تردید دارم، ولی بعنوان اثری که خالق شرق بهشت، موش‌ها و آدم‌ها و خوشه‌های خشم آن را نوشته، توی ذوقم خورد.
این اثر آخرین رمان اوست و البته رگه‌های قلم جذاب او هر چند صفحه یک‌بار دیده می‌شوند. از جمله دیالوگ‌های دوست داشتنی او ( به نظر من اشتاین بک، بالاتر از همینگوی و هرکس دیگر، واقعی‌ترین دیالوگ‌های تاریخ ادبیات را نوشته است )، یا توصیفات خوبش.
با این همه، رمان زیادی کش پیدا می‌کند. اشتاین بک که استاد بلامنازع خلق محیط بود، در اینجا بسیار ناتوان است، به گونه‌ای که تمام این مدت حس می‌کردم فقط یک نفر است که ایستاده و با افراد گوناگون صحبت می‌کند و از جایش جنب نمی‌خورد. حدود هشتاد درصد اولیه کتاب بسیار کند و بی‌ثمر پیش رفت و بیست درصد نهایی هم ارزش تحمل آن هشتاد درصد را نداشت.
یک نکته دیگر که می‌توان به آن اشاره کرد، نام کتاب است. نام اصلی کتاب، زمستان نارضایی ما است که بخشی از دیالوگ ریچارد سوم اثر شکسپیر است. بنظرم آنچه بیشتر به محتوای کتاب مرتبط بود، کلمه نارضایی است نه زمستان.
در نهایت اگر صادقانه بگویم، بعنوان کسی که ادبیات را به شکل جدی با اشتاین‌بک شروع کرد و همواره از ادبیات تا سینما و حتی روزنامه‌نگاری، جزو محبوب‌های من بوده است، از این کتاب لذت چندانی نبردم.
هرچند همانطور که گفتم، امتیاز بالای این اثر با توجه به اینکه تعداد خوانندگانش هم کم نبوده، گویای این است که همه با من موافق نیستند.

امتیاز نهایی : ۲.۵