"Back to that Congress in the Dark-it must have been working overtime. Sometimes a man seems to reverse himself so that you would say, "He can't do that. It's out of character." Maybe it's not. It could be just another angle, or it might be that the pressures above or below have changed his shape."

You're in this normal-seeming guy's head and it's not an entirely bad place to be and all, but you start wondering what you're seeing. Wondering if this guy has a few screws loose. Maybe he thinks he's a little smarter than he is. Steinbeck is so subtle in his writing of the MC that the character revelations almost feel affected, fake. Like, would this guy do that? The signs are there, though. King's "gun" — that should probably be Chekhov's gun — is shown in a scene. It's "fired" later. Made me wonder if King read this guy. But anyway, the writing is pretty top notch, and it's a really odd thing to never truly feel the main's discontent. He's almost more, in my mind, the wannabe protector of other's contentedness, if you ignore the other alluded-to issues,  and what happens at the end . This was way more messed up than I expected, even while already basically knowing what it was building to.

The quote below works quite well in reverse, as another asking himself the same about the character.

“I wonder how many people I've looked at all my life and never seen.”

Muhteşem bir eser daha. Çok akıcı, sağlam bir kurgu, felsefi yanı da var, hayatın içinden yanı da. Deneysel edebiyat, postmodern edebiyat, yeraltı edebiyatı, vd..... Hepsinin yeri farklı, her biri ayrı iddia ve tat sahibi. Adı ister gerçekçi edebiyat, ister klasik ister çağdaş edebiyat, isterse başka bir isimde edebiyat olsun, benim için J. Steinbeck, E. Hemingway, J. London ve Y. Kemal'in içinde olduğu edebiyat çok farklı bir yerde. Edebiyatın alfabesini bu yazarlarla öğrenmekte yarar var.

Stajnbeče, prijatelju, znaš da te volim ko brata i da si mi omiljen pisac... Ali ako tamo gore, ili dole, ili gde god da si imaju Goodreads pa vidiš sve ovo, oprosti što nije petica, al jednostavno ne mogu... Tresu mi se ruke, al ne mogu da ti je dam... Morao si malo bolje da poentiraš na kraju, a i da se ne lažemo, ima nekih delova đe si ugnjavio.

“Everybody steals. Everybody does it.”

The title of this novel, The Winter of Our Discontent, comes from the first two lines of William Shakespeare's Richard III: "Now is the winter of our discontent / Made glorious summer by this sun [or son] of York"; the book focuses on one dark period in the life of one (American) man and his family in a small Long Island town in the late fifties. The Winter of Our Discontent is a moral allegory colored by righteous rage about capitalism and what seems like what is the tendency in the love of money to corrupt those who fall in love with it.

John Steinbeck, who was once a member of the American Communist party before it became synonymous somehow with some kind of fascistic Evil, was always writing about social and economic inequities--in the Grapes of Wrath, in Cannery Row, Of Mice and Men, and many others-- sometimes sentimentalizing but always championing his down and out characters as victims of an economic system that favors the rich. Steinbeck died in 1968; Winter (1961), his last novel, the acclaim for which catapulted him to the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1962, casts its light on a Long Island family, particularly the father of the family, Ethan Allen Hawley.

Hawley is in his late thirties, married, with two teenaged kids, and who, in spite of his family’s former aristocratic background, and in spite of his having graduated from Harvard, is clerking for a Sicilian-American named Marullo in the grocery store his father lost. Ethan’s family is sick of their being poor. They don’t own a car, or a tv. Ethan faces some temptations as he turns his attention to various ways to remedy his situation, including criminal temptations involving money, and then some related sexual temptations (the cover of this edition posits the story as a steamy triangle, which is misleading, though there are elements of that here). But everyone wants to know in this little town: Why is the seemingly happy Ethan not “successful”?! (That’s at issue here, the American definition of success as having more money). How can he be happy and not rich? Shouldn't he be ashamed his is mere grocery clerk?

“There is no such thing as just enough money. Only two measures: No Money and Not Enough Money.”

“To most of the world success is never bad. I remember how, when Hitler moved unchecked and triumphant, many honorable men sought and found virtues in him. And Mussolini made the trains run on time, and Vichy collaborated for the good of France, and whatever else Stalin was, he was strong. Strength and success—they are above morality, above criticism. It seems, then, that it is not what you do, but how you do it and what you call it. Is there a check in men, deep in them, that stops or punishes? There doesn’t seem to be. The only punishment is for failure. In effect no crime is committed unless a criminal is caught.”

“Ellen, only last night, asked, 'Daddy, when will we be rich?' But I did not say to her what I know: 'We will be rich soon, and you who handle poverty badly will handle riches equally badly.' And that is true. In poverty she is envious. In riches she may be a snob. Money does not change the sickness, only the symptoms.”

Ethan’s banker friend Joey Morphy says, “your only entrance is money.” He encourages him to find ways to make more money, get out of the clerk position and do better for his family.

Steinbeck stated that he wrote the novel to address the moral degeneration of American culture during the 1950s and 1960s, and this is fair, and relevant as well to today, though some of it is too morally on the nose for me: Ethan’s wife and two teens all suddenly complain within the same twenty-four hours to him about his lowly job. His friend, a bank clerk, soon after tells him casually how easy it would be to rob a bank, especially if you had no previous criminal record. Someone reminds him that Marullo, his boss, just might be undocumented. On top of that a local divorcee/femme fatale comes around to try to seduce him, urging him to accept bribes. Then his son enters a nationwide essay contest about Why I Love America, getting awarded honorable mention--and he gets to appear on television!!--though this gets complicated. So it’s a moral allegory, where everything piles up in kind of didactic ways to bring Ethan to. . . some questionable actions.

Ethan Allen--that name, a reference to a historical figure well known through American history books as a figure from the Revolutionary period, as an activist in that war--seems nothing like Ethan Allen Hawley, who is seen by his family and most friends as passive, not an activist, until he finally does take (problematic) action in a few ways; for instance, Ethan’s best friend from high school is Danny Taylor, the town drunk, who has the deed to some land that some go-getter businessmen in the town want to develop into an airport to increase commerce and tourism (and profits). Ethan wants to help Danny get into therapy for his alcoholism, so he gives him some money, though both he and Danny know it is a long shot that he will actually get healed with this money, and Danny in exchange gives him the deed to his land. Money. Power.

The book, as moral allegory, moves through a series of aphorisms:

“Intentions, good or bad, are not enough. There's luck or fate or something else that takes over. . . ”

Some of them are a little bitter from the now discontented Ethan:

“Only God sees the sparrow fall, but even God doesn't do anything about it.”

And Danny counters the notion that having a bit more money would be kinda “nice” to have:

“Money is not nice. Money got no friends but more money.”

I am not a particular fan of novels as moral allegories, but I have to admit this is a good one, and in the almost predictably dramatic events--as in Greek tragedy--I was nevertheless moved, particuarly the very end that involves a family talisman his daughter has slipped into his pocket. I like Steinbeck’s deft use of shifting points of view; I like his clever Ethan, I can relate to him, as I suspect many can, as Steinbeck intended. I didn’t love this book in the same way as I did Grapes of Wrath or Of Mice and Men or Cannery Row, but I’d still be willing to put it in the top group of his work, I think. It reminded me a bit of Ray Bradbury, who also wrote with myth and occasional sentimentality and American morality in mind. When Steinbeck died he left an unfinished manuscript I once read, The Acts of King Arthur and His Noble Knights, which I thought was part of what he had in mind in Winter with its social and moral criticism. What is goodness? What is true heroism?

Steinbeck's Nobel Prize speech:

https://www.goodreads.com/videos/5379...

4.5 nu fiindcă nu e bun romanul,ci pentru că îl urăsc pe Ethan Hawley pentru faptul că s-a lasat corupt de cei din jur și de societatea în care traia cuzând cu bună știință un rău ireparabil unor oameni care îi credeau bun și cinstit. Scopul scuză mijloacele e perfect valabil și în ziua de azi, dar oare merită să calci pe cadavrele prietenilor?

It's a little difficult to put into words how this book made me feel. It's a short book so I thought I'd fly through it in a day or two. Instead, it took a couple of weeks to finish. It was not because I was overly busy or because my mind was drifting or that I was distracted by...ooh! shiny! It was mainly because Steinbeck put so many layers upon layers of depth and feeling into each of his superbly crafted sentences that I could have made baklava with them.

I found this story extremely timely considering today's economy and the fall of the financial industry (Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, etc.). Perhaps in financial downturns, the world always seems the same. Other than the fact Ethan Allen Hawley didn't own a car or a tv, I would be hard pressed to not place him in a more contemporary setting. But this is not about the economy or people down-on-their-luck like you had in The Grapes of Wrath. This story was much more ordinary, every day, common. And the people populating this story were oh-so-ordinary, every day, common. They could be your aunt or cousin or next-door neighbor. They could be you or at least your parents. And I think that is where Steinbeck excels so excellently. He makes fictional characters so real you swear you know this story already because you know these people.

Temptation. Honor. Survival. Luck. Family. Progress. Faith. This story has it all.

I cannot recommend it enough.

I feel like it's cliche to say that The Winter of Our Discontent is well-written. If you've taken ninth grade high-school English, I'm confident you've encountered John Steinbeck at least once. There's no doubt he's a fantastic writer. Of Mice of Men or East of Eden, anyone?

However, The Winter of Our Discontent was not as fluid as Of Mice and Men nor did it possess the sheer strength in characterization or plot as East of Eden. It may be my underdeveloped adolescent mind at work here, but I found the book a bit banal.

It's about a middle-aged grocery clerk living in New England during the 1960's who struggles to appease his wife's wish for higher social standing as well as his children's constant desire for material goods. The plot itself did not present anything mind-blowing - the underlying theme of morality made me think though. In fact, the entire book seemed fixated on that one premise: Ethan Hawley's deteriorating ethical standards and the result of his descent into dishonor.

Also, there are a lot of spectacular quotes in this book. For example:

"I wonder how many people I've looked at all my life and never seen."

"When a condition or a problem becomes too great, humans have the protection of not thinking about it. But it goes inward and minces up with a lot of other things already there and what comes out is discontent and uneasiness, guilt and a compulsion to get something -anything - before it is all gone."

Overall, I give this book a 3.5.

*cross-posted from my blog, the quiet voice.

Início dos anos 60. Ethan Hawley vive numa pacata cidade costeira da East Coast. É um cidadão despreocupado, bem humorado, que troca impressões com os cães e gatos de rua e expõe os seus pensamentos aos picles e conservas da mercearia onde trabalha. Continuaria a ser um cidadão honesto e despreocupado, não fossem o descontentamento e ambição da mulher, a insatisfação permanente dos filhos , a convivência com o banqueiro da cidade e empregado deste . É a pressão da sociedade a exigir o sucesso e a riqueza.
"This is the winter of our discontent" ... ou seja , "os tempos de insatisfação acabaram-se", diz Richard no solilóquio inicial ( na peça Richard III de Shakespeare) . É com estas palavras que Ethan brinda ao recente sucesso do filho, que irá aparecer sob os holofotes da televisão. Pai e filho, são o Ricardo III desta história, na medida em que a ambição irá deformalá-los e abrir uma violenta brecha na sua integridade.
O leitor simpatiza inicialmente com o encanto de Ethan mas fecha o livro nauseado com a sua transformação. Mais um que vendeu a alma ao diabo. Mas há esperança...Steinbeck deixa numa personagem uma luz a brilhar .
Neste seu último livro, Steinbeck faz uma crítica à América que se deixa corromper pelo dinheiro e pela fama.

John Steinbeck's The Winter of our Discontent is a study of morality in the individual and in the community. Set in a New England town where everyone knows everyone else's business and history, Ethan Hawley narrates his experience with the various moral temptations one season offers him.

Under pressure from associates and his own family, Ethan becomes increasingly dissatisfied with his diminished station in life and begins to consider a brief transformation, a temporary suspension of his identity as a humble, upright citizen. Opportunities for bribery, infidelity, robbery, and exploitation knock on his door. Inside, he begins a process of justification, while outside, he carries on as his simple, even silly self. As a result of their corruption, plenty of characters, including a member of Ethan's own family, experience shameful downfalls, while others are able to escape judgment and seamlessly carry on, their lives apparently enhanced by their questionable activities.

By providing a narrator who is so obviously a "good guy," but is also human and vulnerable, Steinbeck forces readers to ponder the complex nature of temptation, the role of the conscience, and the power of needs and desires, our own and others'.

"A los lectores que pretendan identificar las personas y lugares de ficción que aquí se describen, más les valdría inspeccionar sus propias comunidades y registrar a fondo sus propios corazones, porque este libro trata sobre una gran parte de Norteamérica tal como es a día de hoy."

Pues me ha decepcionado bastante esta novela, que fue además la última novela de Steinbeck; incluso El autobús perdido, que está considerada una de sus obras menores, es mucho más Steinbeck que esta novela que le debe su título a Shakespeare y su Ricardo III "Ya el invierno de mi desazón se ha vuelto radiante verano gracias a este sol de York". Una cita que por otra parte refleja perfectamente el estado mental de Ethan el protagonista.

En momentos encontré esta novela dispersa y algo difusa en su planteamiento, más bien porque la voz del narrador (en los momentos en los que Ethan era el narrador) no conseguía captar del todo mi interés, así que salvo por algunos momentos brillantes, apenas he podido conectar con ella ni con su protagonista. Casí que más que su última novela, parece que fuese una novela que Steinbeck hubiese tenido durante mucho tiempo en el cajón, aunque es cierto, como he dicho antes, tiene momentos brillantes, como cuando en la parte final se nos muestra una desesperanza que no tiene arreglo: Ethan, el protagonista, observa a su hijo como una generación del futuro que por encima de todo se asentará en el materialismo y el éxito a través de las apariencias; en este aspecto en 1961, Steinbeck ya habia sentado las bases de la sociedad en la que vivimos ahora. Me encanta Steinbeck, pero admito que esta novela la he disfrutado solo a ratos.

"En el mundo de los negocios y en la política, el hombre debe abrirse paso entre sus semejantes a mandoble partido, soltando hachazos a diestro y siniestro, si ha de ser el Rey de la Montaña. Una vez en lo más alto puede mostrarse magnánimo, bondadoso, pero antes ha de llegar allí."

https://kansasbooks.blogspot.com/2022...

تحذير: قد تكون تلك المراجعة كاشفة لجزء كبير من أحداث الرواية

أنهيت الرواية منذ حوالي ٢٠ دقيقة، وترددت في أن أُعلن هذا على الجودريدز لتدخل الرواية ضمن كتبي المقروءة ... ترددت بسبب حيرتي في كيفية كتابة مراجعة تليق بهذه الرواية الإستثنائية

هي رواية من كلاسيكيات الأدب الأمريكي ... ومن أكثر ما قرأت تأثيرا في نفسي

تتناول الرواية حياة سليل إحدى الأسر ذات المال والجاه والتي علا إسمها نتيجة قيامها ببعض أعمال "القرصنة المشروعة!" لصالح الولايات المتحدة الأمريكية في أثناء الحرب العالمية الثانية بجانب قيام سفنها بصيد الحيتان لإمداد البلاد بالزيوت اللازمة كوقود. ثم تبدأ أحوال العائلة في التدهور بسبب العثور على مصادر أخرى للوقود، ثم قيام العائلة بإستثمارات فاشلة بخلاف ما صاحب هذه الفترة من الكساد الكبير ... وبشكل ما يتحول بطل الرواية من مالك لعامل بالأجرة بعد أن تبدد مال العائلة وضاع في فك رهنيات طالت منزله أيضا

البطل إنسان قنوع ومسالم في عصر طغت عليه الماديات والطبقية ... يرسم شتاينبك صورة هذا المجتمع وأفراده ببراعة ... فهناك الفساد وتزاوج المال بالسلطة ... السُعار على جمع المال بأي وسيلة ... البطل هنا ممن يطلق عليه الأمريكيون "رجل عائلة" وهو عملة نادرة، فهو زوج محب وأب متفانٍ، ونتيجة لعيشه في هذا المجتمع المادي يفاجأ بأن المال والمركز الإجتماعي قد صارا من منغصات هذه الحياة فالزوجة والأبناء يطالبون بالمال... يريدونه ويلحون عليه حتى مع الحب الذي يسود أفراد العائلة وفي سبيل إسعادهم يتحول البطل تدريجيا

يرصد شتاينبك مظاهر التحول ويصفها ببراعة فالتحول تدريجي يأكل نفس البطل ويبدله تماما ... والغريب هنا أن التحول للأسوأ قد صار مُبَررا بشكل ما، بل إنك تكاد تجد أن كثير من الشخصيات الفاسدة في الرواية هي من المتحولين وكل منهم يحمل الطيب والخبيث في نفسه ويحمل مبرراته وحججه الجاهزة لتبرير أي إثم يُقدِم عليه ... والمرعب حقا كان طموح إبنه المراهق الذكي والذي يتجلى طموحه وذكائه في ميل لانحرافات مُبكرة بحجة أن الكل يفعل ذلك

الرواية ليست عن "بايتاون" المدينة الأمريكية بل هي رواية عن المحليات الفاسدة وأعضاء البرلمان الفاسدين، هي رواية عن هؤلاء الذين يصطادون الفرص بطرق غير مشروعة ويستطيعون "اللعب في دماغ" من قد يساعدهم ... الرواية عن ظروف صناعة المجرمين والفاسدين

رواية تحكي تاريخ تكوين الثروات وصناعة الأسماء الكبيرة الرنانة في المجتمع

لم أقرأ لـ"جون شتاينبك" من قبل، وقرأت تلك الرواية بعد ترشيح من الصديق الذي أشعر بأنني مدينة له للأبد بسبب ترشيحاته الرائعة، وأما وأنني قد قرأت لـ "شتاينبك" هذه الرواية فيمكن أن أقول أنني سأعطي لرواياته الأولوية في قراءاتي القادمة ... ولا شك أن النسخة التي قرأتها كانت ترجمتها ممتازة

رواية تستحق خمس نجمات وأكثر

ملحوظة: "حين فقدنا الرضا" هي نفسها هذه الرواية ... هي ترجمة أخرى لرواية شتاينبك هذه
The Winter of Our Discontent

4.5 ⭐

„Зимата на нашето недоволство“ е много добър роман, който съдържа силни послания... Не успя да ми въздейства колкото други велики книги на Джон Стайнбек, обаче със сигурност си заслужава вниманието. Писателят очевидно се е вдъхновил за създаването на историята от „Ричард Трети“, тъй като заглавието е препратка към Шекспировата творба. Сюжетът увлекателно проследява моралния упадък на Итън, който е обикновен и честен продавач в малко американско градче от средата на 20-ти век, но впоследствие решава да натрупа богатство и власт...




„В градчета като нашето митовете с лопата да ги ринеш.“

„Питам се колко ли хора съм гледал през живота си, без изобщо да ги виждам.“

„Нямаше да се притесняваш от това, какво мислят хората за теб, ако знаеше колко рядко го правят.“