This book was very different from what I thought it would be. I envisioned mostly reading about the work in the canneries (it's mentioned but not a focus) and I thought it would be depressing (until I read a friend's review, which is, sadly, no longer on this site). Instead, it's a deceptively simple story (in terms of language) that evokes a range of emotions, humor and sadness all mixed up together, but it's never depressing.

At first I was reminded of Winesburg, Ohio in that its focus is on one community and the stories are more like vignettes (though they do end up connecting in many ways); but it's quite different from the Anderson. Anderson can be philosophical from what I remember, while Steinbeck, for the most part, lets his story speak for itself, which may seem surprising coming from the man who wrote The Grapes of Wrath. Anderson's characters can't, or won't, communicate with each other; the denizens of Cannery Row don't have that problem. They certainly don't always communicate in words -- they read each others' faces, vocal tones and mannerisms; they remember past history, but they know each other -- and ultimately themselves -- very well. Most of them would never say the actual words, but they love each other too.

The character of the young boy, Frankie, and the story of a gopher simply broke my heart. This slim book reinforces the idea that beauty and truth can be found in the unlikeliest of places, one of my favorite themes.

5★
“It is a time of great peace, a deserted time, a little era of rest. Cats drip over the fences and slither like syrup over the ground to look for fish heads. Silent early morning dogs parade majestically picking and choosing judiciously whereon to pee.”

Cannery Row, where the smelly, noisy business of canning fish takes place and where people settle in ramshackle, makeshift structures to live their lives amongst their fellows. The men and women, Mack and the boys, Dora and the girls, Doc, Lee Chong, simply stumble from one day to the next, often enjoying a glass of ” Old Tennessee, a blended whiskey guaranteed four months old, very cheap and known in the neighborhood as Old Tennis Shoes.”

Doc is the brains of the bunch, rents his own place, and is a collector and seller of specimens, such as frogs and snakes. Occasionally Mack and the boys collect for him to earn a little drinking money. They’ve made themselves at home in an abandoned building, while a married couple have taken up residence in a huge pipe, in which the wife is desperate to hang curtains, to make it a real home.

Except for Lee Chong, the wily Chinese shopkeeper, nobody has a great deal of thought for the future, other than the immediate one, but they take great pride in making plans. The action, such as it is, revolves around Doc, who isn’t a doctor but does seem to patch people up and be some sort of source of advice.

“Doc tips his hat to dogs as he drives by and the dogs look up and smile at him. He can kill anything for need but he could not even hurt a feeling for pleasure.
. . .
Everyone who knew him was indebted to him. And everyone who thought of him thought next, ‘I really must do something nice for Doc.’ ”

These are people who could live anywhere at anytime. They are the fringe dwellers, the overlooked, the best and the worst of us, and they live in Cannery Row.

“Its inhabitants are, as the man once said, ‘whores, pimps, gamblers, and sons of bitches,’ by which he meant Everybody. Had the man looked through another peephole he might have said, ‘Saints and angels and martyrs and holy men,’ and he would have meant the same thing.”

It is funny and poignant and true. These are people you’d like to help, but they can’t help themselves. They are like the children who are sent to the shop to buy a packet of biscuits for visitors but who snack on them all the way home until there’s almost nothing left. They aren’t evil – their intentions were good. These are those kids who never quite grew up.

“Hazel's mind was like wandering alone in a deserted museum. Hazel's mind was choked with uncatalogued exhibits. He never forgot anything but he never bothered to arrange his memories. Everything was thrown together like fishing tackle in the bottom of a rowboat, hooks and sinkers and line and lures and gaffs all snarled up.”

He is what he is. Watching Mack and the boys or Dora and her ‘girls’ plan a party for Doc reminds me of Seinfeld, the TV show that was said to be ‘about nothing’, but of course, was also about everything, as is Cannery Row, although it seems strange to mention them in the same sentence.

I believe the people of Monterey weren’t thrilled with Steinbeck’s portrayal, but the rest of the literary world appreciated it. I certainly love it all, the “gathered and scattered, tin and iron and rust and splintered wood, chipped pavement and weedy lots and junk heaps, sardine canneries of corrugated iron, honky tonks, restaurants and whore houses, and little crowded groceries, and laboratories and flophouses.”

Painting of Cannery Row by Bruce Ariss

This is a re-read, because I do love Steinbeck. He packs such a lot into a little.

P.S. I just saw an article about a rare Steinbeck story (which I haven't seen), and I quote a paragraph here:

"I am sometimes criticized for avoiding the great discordant notes of the times and closing my ears to the drums of daily doom," Steinbeck notes drolly. "But I have found that the momentary sound very shortly becomes a whisper and the timely fury is forgotten, while the soft verities persist year after year. We have not survived on great things, but on little ones . . ."

The link seems to be broken, but maybe you can find it somwhere else. Glad I copied this bit anyway.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/entert...

A true classic - and opportunity for our Library Book Discussion group to have another Steinbeck roundtable chat.

The "story" of Cannery Row follows the adventures of Mack and the boys, a group of unemployed, yet resourceful men who inhabit a converted fish-meal shack on the edge of a vacant lot down on the Row in Monterey, CA in the 1940's.

As readers we have the opportunity to watch the characters interact through business deals and random conversations and unbalanced bargains.

One thing that is interesting, is that Steinbeck's writing doesn't age well. He uses racial terms that would not be acceptable today (i.e., Wops and Chinamen and Polaks). At the time, most likely acceptable. We intuitively know he isn't being derogatory, but reading it as a contemporary, it does make one wince.

Still, there is still something to appreciate about the way he writes. Just the everyday life of people living at the time. The visuals are so easy to appreciate.

Follow-up with Sweet Thursday here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

n  "Cannery Row in Monterey in California is a poem, a stink, a grating noise, a quality of light, a tone, a habit, a nostalgia, a dream. Cannery Row is the gathered and scattered, tin and iron and rust and splintered wood, chipped pavement and weedy lots and junk heaps, sardine canneries of corrugated iron, honky tonks, restaurants and whore houses, and little crowded groceries, and laboratories and flophouses. Its inhabitants are, as the man once said, "whores, pimps, gamblers and sons of bitches," by which he meant Everybody. Had the man looked through another peephole he might have said, "Saints and angels and martyrs and holymen" and he would have meant the same thing."n

Steinbeck's love letter to Depression-Era Cannery Row is the author at perhaps the peak of his abilities, flinging out memorable phrases and vibrant descriptions and characters so impossibly warm and funny you'll feel like you just met them, a whole room of new friends. Each chapter is a vignette, almost a self-contained story, centered around a different character, or maybe even a groundhog, to show the reader another brilliant facet of this make-believe real world place - or no, not just a place but more like an attitude. One of the central characters - "Doc" - is based on Steinbeck's close friend Ed Ricketts, to whom the book is dedicated and who died in a train accident three years after he enjoyed a burst of publicity when this book was published. You won't have to stretch your imagination to see this book's influences on many other authors in many other books, although the one that jumps to my mind the quickest is Sometimes a Great Notion by Ken Kesey.

n  “When you collect marine animals there are certain flat worms so delicate that they are almost impossible to capture whole, for they break and tatter under the touch. You must let them ooze and crawl of their own will onto a knife blade and then lift them gently into your bottle of sea water. And perhaps that might be the way to write this book - to open the page and let the stories crawl in by themselves.”n

ترجمه‌ی نشر مروارید رو به هیچ وجه نخونید. ترجمه‌ی نشر روزگار رو هم توصیه نمی‌کنم. ترجمه‌ی نشر نگاه، گزینه‌ی بهتریه، گرچه که خالی از اشکال نیست.

خوندن ِ این کتاب، یکی از سخت‌ترین تجربه‌های کتاب‌خونیم بود. "راسته‌ی کنسروسازی" رو با ترجمه‌ی مهرداد وثوقی از نشر مروارید شروع کردم. بعد از خوندن یک چهارم ِ کتاب، متوجه شدم به قدری سانسور شده و همچنین به قدری ضعیف ترجمه شده، که تقریبا کتاب اصلی، از دست رفته. بنابراین تصمیم گرفتم یکی از دو ترجمه‌ی سیروس طاهباز (نشر نگاه) و یا مرضیه خسروی (نشر روزگار) رو بخونم. ترجمه‌ها رو با متن ِ اصلی ِ انگلیسی مطابقت دادم و متوجه شدم آقای طاهباز، دو صفحه ی ابتدایی ِ کتاب رو، حال نداشته ترجمه کنه. به همین راحتی! بنابراین با هزارتا شک و تردید، شروع به خوندن ِ ترجمه‌ی مرضیه خسروی کردم. اما چه ترجمه‌ای؟ کتاب همچنان دارای سانسورهای زیادی بود. و ازون بدتر، هرجایی که ترجمه سخت می‌شد، خانوم خسروی ترجیح میدادن در متن فارسی اون قسمت رو حذف کنند؛ عبارات عجیب و غریب، و لحنی که هیچ رد و اثری از اشتاین بک توش نبود. انتهای کتاب، سه صفحه رو حذف کرده بود، و خواننده رو لنگ در هوا نگه می‌داشت. اگر به لطف ِ پی دی اف های غیر ِ مجاز ِ تورنت نبود، و همزمان مشغول ِ خوندن ِ متن ِ انگلیسی نمی‌شدم، مطمئنم چیزی از زیبایی‌های کتاب رو درک نمی‌کردم.

اما چرا ترجمه‌ی سیروس طاهباز؟

با این‌که سیروس طاهباز هم، در ابتدای کار، مطمئن نبودن ِ ترجمه‌ی خودش رو، با حذف چند صفحه‌ی اول کتاب (به صورت کامل) نشون می‌ده، اما به نظر می‌رسید ترجمه‌ی شسته‌رفته‌تری ارائه داده باشه، و گرچه که همچنان سانسور ِ کتاب، به طرز خنده‌داری زیاده، اما حداقل پایان‌بندی ِ درستی رو به خواننده ارائه می‌کنه. در نهایت اگر کسی اصرار به خوندن ِ متن ِ فارسی ِ این کتاب داشته باشه، من ورژن ِ سیروس ِ طاهباز رو بهش پیشنهاد می‌کنم، چون عبارات شیواترند و رنگ و بویی از جان اشتاین‌‌بک در کتاب دیده می‌شه. اما شدیدا پیشنهاد میکنم متن انگلیسی رو هم بغل دستتون نگه دارید، و اگر براتون ممکنه، تمام مدت مطابقت بدید.


اما در مورد کتاب

این کتاب، که تجربه‌ی دوم من از جان اشتاین‌‌بک بود (اولی موش‌ها و آدم‌ها)، بار ِ دیگه بهم نشون داد که قلم ِ نویسنده، جادوئی و شخصیت‌پردازی‌ها بی‌نظیره. یه سوال جالب هست که می‌تونه قوت یا ضعف ِ شخصیت‌پردازی رو نشون بده:

آیا می‌تونیم حدس بزنیم فلان شخصیت، چه جهت‌گیری ِ سیاسی یی داره؟ یعنی مثلا جمهوری‌خواه می‌تونه باشه یا دموکرات؟ چپ می‌تونه باشه یا لیبرال؟ با کدوم آزادی‌ها مخالفه؟ با کدوم محدودیت‌ها موافقه؟

به تجربه دیدم که، در کتاب‌ها و فیلم‌هایی که پرداخت به کاراکترها، قوی صورت می‌گیره، میشه جواب‌هایی (بر پایه‌ی استدلال) به این سوال‌ها داد. مثلا در مورد ِ کتاب ِ اخیر، احتمالا اکثرمون، یه برداشت ِ دموکرات و لیبرال از "داک" خواهیم داشت؛ کسی که‌ احتمالا به هیلاری کلینتون رای می‌داد، برای مالیات ِ بیشتر می‌جنگید، سقط ِ جنین رو به رسمیت می‌شناخت و با ازدواج ِ هموسکشوال‌ها هم مشکلی نداشت.

از ویژگی‌های خوب ِ کتاب، یکی هم فصل‌چه هایی بود، که داستانی رو (به ظاهر بی ربط به بقیه‌ی ماجراها) تعریف می‌کرد. مثلا داستان ِ اون موش‌‌کور که یه گوشه‌ای از راسته‌ی کنسروسازی، درحال ِ کندن ِ خونه‌ش و پیداکردن ِ شریک ِ زندگیش بود. این ویژگی ِ کتاب رو توی فیلم‌ها هم بعضا دیدیم (مثلا داستان در مورد روابط ِ یه سری آدم توی یه لوکیشن ِ بزرگه، و دوربین هرچندوقت یکبار، در حد چندثانیه، دو نفر آدم ِ بی‌ربط که دارن کار ِ جالبی می‌کنن رو نشون می‌ده و میگذره). اما در کتاب، من تا به حال ندیده بودم و چه‌قدر که برای من شیرین بود. انگار نویسنده واقعا داشت "راسته‌ی کنسروسازی" رو به خواننده نشون می‌داد. درسته که تاکیدش روی یه سری از آدم‌های این راسته، بیشتر بود، اما، هدف ِ اولیه و اصلیش، نشون دادن ِ راسته‌ی کنسروسازی بود؛ جایی که خود ِ نویسنده هم، کودکیش رو توش میگذرونه.

جان اشتاین‌بک، نویسنده‌ی چپ‌گرایی که در آخر ِ عمر، از تمام‌ِ عقایدش برمی‌گرده و حتی از جنگ آمریکا علیه ویتنام حمایت می‌کنه (تا حدی که خودش در این جنگ شرکت می‌کنه)، نوبل ادبیات رو در سال ۱۹۶۲ از آن ِ خودش می‌کنه و حقا که حقشه. اشتاین‌بک سبک ِ مخصوص ِ خودش رو داره، داستان‌هاش شیرین اما کمی ناراحت‌کننده‌ان، شخصیت‌ها بی‌پول، اما در نهایت پر از شوق ِ زندگی‌ان؛ کاراکترها آزادند، کاراکترها انسانند و هاله‌ای از خوبی، همیشه دورشون رو فراگرفته؛ انگار که ذات ِ بشری رو عاری از بدی می‌دونه و همیشه درباره‌ی انسان‌ها، در حال ِ دیدن ِ نیمه‌ی پر ِ لیوانه.



راسته‌ی کنسروسازی، با این‌حال که سزاوار ِ ترجمه‌ی بهتریه، لیاقت ِ خونده شدن رو هم داره و کتابیه که می‌تونه تا مدت‌ها توی فضاش نگهتون داره.

«Консервный ряд» я читала еще в школьном возрасте.
Отголоски Великой депрессии слышны в этом романе только по признакам великой безработицы, но сам дух романа наполнен радостью жизни, беззаботностью и легкостью бытия, когда проблемы как-то сами собой решаются. Главные герои этого романа – ватага безработных парней во главе с Маком. Они не просто безработные, они и бездомные, но они образуют своеобразное братство, и все их существование укладывается в несколько простейших потребностей – еда, много выпивки, удовольствия. Под такую формулу можно отнести очень много молодежных формирований – от молодежных банд, организованной преступности и так далее, но нет, эти ребята не такие. Они несчастные, если рассматривать их с точки зрения бедности, обеспеченности базовыми жизненными потребностями, но они не позволяют экономическим трудностям делать их несчастными психологически. Наоборот, может они самые счастливые люди, ибо не обременены собственностью, деньгами, обязанностями. Они свободны, как птицы. Мне кажется, Стейнбек хотел выразить именно это. Своеобразный утопический социализм, где свобода, равенство, братство воплощены в буквальном смысле, где чувство общности, единства, дружбы является главным, что их объединяет
Как им удается выживать в мире, где властвуют деньги? Большинство их методов – это экономический шантаж. Именно так они «убедили» Ли отдать им бывший склад рыбной муки и переделали ее в Королевскую ночлежку. Чувство собственности не было им чуждо, и простые пять прямоугольников, нарисованные на полу быстро сделали склад, похожим на жилище. Везде, где появляется Мак и ребята, начинается пьянка, завершающаяся погромом. Так стало и с их добрым намерением отпраздновать день рождения Дока, чтобы его отблагодарить. Но это не со зла, и все это понимают.
Как недостаток, я могу отнести сюжетную схожесть с Тортилья Флэт, написанной раньше «Консервного ряда». Повторения всегда проигрывают.

“Doc would listen to any kind of nonsense and turn it into wisdom. His mind had no horizon and his sympathy had no warp. He could talk to children, telling them very profound things so that they understood. He lived in a world of wonders, of excitement. He was concupiscent as a rabbit and gentle as hell. Everyone who knew him was indebted to him. And everyone who thought of him thought next, 'I really must do something nice for Doc.’”

n  n
Cannery Row

Doc is one of those fictional characters that never leaves a reader’s memory. This book is dedicated to a man by the name of Ed Ricketts who was a marine biologist with a lab, like Doc, on Cannery Row in Monterey, California. Whenever I discover that a fictional character is based on a real person, it seems to lend extra life to that fictional person. It puts bones under the skin and blood in the veins.

It becomes evident, very quickly, how much John Steinbeck admired Ricketts. The biologist has a profound impact on his writing and also on the writing of Joseph Campbell, who, like Steinbeck, lived in Monterey and spent as much time in Ricketts’s lab as possible. The influence of Ricketts on Steinbeck is palpable in The Pearl, Cannery Row, Sweet Thursday, The Log of the Sea of Cortez, The Moon is Down, and The Grapes of Wrath. Ricketts’ death, killed tragically young when his car is hit by a Del Monte Express Train just up the hill from Cannery Row, has a profound impact on many people. Steinbeck’s writing suffers after the death of his friend, and in the opinion of many critics, his writing after 1948 is diminished, except for his final epic East of Eden.

n  n
Edward Ricketts

It makes me wonder, would we know John Steinbeck’s name if he’d never met Ed Ricketts? Or what if he had never been influenced by what he experienced while living in Cannery Row?

It is a place at the right time tailor made to inspire a writer.

“Cannery Row in Monterey in California is a poem, a stink, a grating noise, a quality of light, a tone, a habit, a nostalgia, a dream. Cannery Row is the gathered and scattered, tin and iron and rust and splintered wood, chipped pavement and weedy lots and junk heaps, sardine canneries of corrugated iron, honky tonks, restaurants and whore houses, and little crowded groceries, and laboratories and flophouses. Its inhabitant are, as the man once said, "whores, pimps, gamblers and sons of bitches," by which he meant Everybody. Had the man looked through another peephole he might have said, ‘Saints and angels and martyrs and holymen’ and he would have meant the same thing.”

Lee Chong runs the grocery store which is really a general store because you can find just about anything that you need and most things you never knew you wanted. Lee never discounts. Everything is the price it was when it was first carried in the door. He “rents out” a building he acquired as trade for an overdue grocery bill to a group of layabout guys who work when they have to, but choose not to work when they absolutely don’t need any money. It was interesting to see a bit into the mind of Lee as he ponders the universe and weighs the benefits and risks of any investment. He has an ongoing financial battles with the boys from The Palace Flophouse and Grill, which is the rather creative name the guys decided to use to refer to the Lee Chong storage shed, as they try to tempt him into their many doomed enterprises.

There is also Dora Flood who manages the Bear Flag Restaurant, but she is more accurately described as Madam Flood as the Bear Flag Restaurant isn’t a restaurant, but a whorehouse. She gives twice as much to charitable organizations as anyone else. She bends over backwards (Not so much over a bed anymore) to help people in need. She never turns a whore out when they get too old to be productive. "Some of them don't turn three tricks a month, but they go right on eating three meals a day." She is a whore with the heart of gold, but with an astute head for trying to not agitate the more conservative wives of the community.

n  n
Ed Ricketts’s lab on Cannery Row.

Doc is lonely, but he isn’t alone. He doesn’t have a John Steinbeck living next door or a Joseph Campbell living down the street, but he never seems to lack for female companionship. Whenever the Sistine Choir or Gregorian Chants can be heard coming from Doc’s laboratory everyone knows he is in the midst of wooing well on his way to fornicating.

Doc takes a road trip down the coast of California to collect some specimens for his laboratory. We travel along with him and as the towns are listed off...Salinas, Gonzales, King City, Paso Robles, Santa Maria, and Santa Barbara I had a distinct heart pain of longing for the Golden State. He stops off frequently to sample the local cuisine and also manages to cross a very unusual concoction off his bucket list. “If a man ordered a beer milkshake he'd better do it in a town where he wasn't known.” He orders more than once while on this trip a healthy slice of pineapple and blue cheese pie. It sounds so weird that I have to try it.

Steinbeck sprinkles in some poetry from Black Marigolds by E. Powys Mathers. It is sensual and evocative poetry.

n  

Even now
Death sends me the flickering of powdery lids
Over wild eyes and the pity of her slim body
All broken up with the weariness of joy;
The little red flowers of her breasts to be my comfort
Moving above scarves, and for my sorrow
Wet crimson lips that once I marked as mine.

n
Steinbeck includes several stanzas and with each one I read my appreciation for Mathers continued to grow.

n  n

This book is an ode to a friend, an ode to a period of time when I can tell Steinbeck may have felt most alive, and it is an ode to Cannery Row. A perfect storm of diverse elements that contributed to making Steinbeck one of the Great American Writers. There is a film version of the book starring Nick Nolte and Debra Winger which I have queued up to watch sometime this week. It looks like they muck up the film version with a love story, but I will reserve judgment until I’ve actually watched it.

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how do i review cannery row? like all the steinbeck i have read, except the dead pony, of which i remember very little except not being too keen on it, it is saturated with these wonderful marginalized characters who are desperate and hopeless and yearning. but they are surviving. and there is so much beauty in the squalor. it reminds me in my feeling-parts of suttree, which is one of my all time favorite books. this book is full of such well-meaning ineptitude and many very serious things couched in an effortless prose that comes across as almost humorous, or rather, amused. i'm not sure how to articulate all that i am feeling for steinbeck right now. this one will never be my favorite, but its been so long since i read him, i am remembering why i always list him when rattling off favorite authors when cornered by someone who wants something "really american". this certainly qualifies. the frog story was the best thing i have read in a long time. it didn't escape five stars by much, but there's a visceral reaction i get to certain books that i didn't get here. but really - a fucking gem.

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কোনো ভাঁড়ামি নেই কিন্তু একটার পর একটা অদ্ভুত মজার ঘটনা ঘটে চলেছে আর আপনি হাসতেই থাকবেন, হাসতেই থাকবেন - এমন একটা বই হচ্ছে "ক্যানারি রো।" হুমায়ুন আহমেদের খুব প্রিয় উপন্যাস জেনে পড়েছিলাম বইটা। হুমায়ুন এর অদ্ভুত চরিত্রগুলো কোত্থেকে আসে সেটা এই বই পড়লে কিছুটা ধারণা পাওয়া যাবে।

One of Steinbeck’s best, but too short! Again Steinbeck draws a picture of a time and place that will remain a vivid portrait. This time it is a derelict area in Monterey, California. Probably the 1920s, although it is not said. There are T-Fords, it is on this I am guessing. Steinbeck was from Salinas, California, so he is writing about what he knows best: a cannery, the sea, its smells pungent, acrid and salt, the octopi and starfish and rattlesnakes and the rats, the sound of the surf, the feel of the air, the quiet at dawn and the heat at the end of a hot summer day. The stickiness and the lilting breeze and the people - who live in a discarded boiler, a rusted tunnel, the lucky in a deserted warehouse. There is a brothel and a Chinese grocery. This book is about these people and it is about friendship and it is about parties. Think back on all the parties you have been at. The ones of your youth. How they start and how they end. The food, the drink, the music and dancing and the whole atmosphere. Reading this book will back to you the parties of your own past. They are made palpable. This book is a tribute to parties, parties with people you love.

Narrated by Trevor White.

Cannery Row is one of the most poignant examples of succinctness in literature that is available to read. There is an impossible breadth and depth of place given its very short length. There is a vigor in the prose that gives the community of Cannery Row so much palpable energy. Although our stay is brief, by the end of the book it feels like we have spent a generation of time in Cannery Row. While it doesn't necessarily have a storyline, at its heart there is a hopeful philosophy behind the book which Steinbeck sums up in the following passage:

"It has always seemed strange to me, the things we admire in men, kindness and generosity, openness, honesty, understanding and feeling are the concomitants of failure in our system. And those traits we detest, sharpness, greed, acquisitiveness, meanness, egotism and self-interest, are the traits of success. And while men admire the quality of the first they love the produce of the second."

“It has always seemed strange to me...The things we admire in men, kindness and generosity, openness, honesty, understanding, and feeling, are the concomitants of failure in our system. And those traits we detest, sharpness, greed, acquisitiveness, meanness, egotism, and self-interest, are the traits of success. And while men admire the quality of the first they love the produce of the second.”

This is something I've often pondered on, just like Doc in Cannery Row. Often society tends to think comparatively low of those good than those successful. I can vouch for that also through my personal experience. The present status of the world is a direct product of our way of thinking. And if we find the world cold, uncaring, and unfeeling, there is no one to blame for it but ourselves.

In Cannery Row, Steinbeck brings us a set of characters who the world at large considers as "failures". Doc who runs the biological shop, Mack and the boys, who are unemployed, Lee Chong who runs a grocery, Dora who runs a whorehouse and her girls, and various other inhabitants of the Cannery Row, are worlds apart from those "respectable and successful" who live "on the other side of the hill". They are not those who command "social interest", and are even considered as "social outcasts". But the generosity, kindness, honesty, and camaraderie displayed by them demand respect and admiration. Steinbeck brings these somewhat ostracized individuals to life and thrusts them towards us demanding our attention to them. He seems to say that even though they may not be your preferred everyday associates, their human qualities should equally be acknowledged, admired, and respected. This deeply human touch by this deeply humane author is what truly drew me to the story.

Cannery Row doesn't have a proper plot. It is rather character-driven. Yet, you'll not find anything remiss there. Once you get to know the characters, they draw you into their lives. There is, however, an underlying forlorn feeling throughout that makes you painfully emotional. Yet, this strong emotion firmly binds you to the story and its characters. There is also the subtle irony that makes us rethink our own values, principles, and morals.

John Steinbeck is a naturally gifted author. His writing is simple, beautiful, and undemanding. But at the same time, there is subtle power that forces your attention, chokes you with emotion, and demands your notice of the obscurities of life. My repertoire of American classics is not wide. I've read only but few authors. Yet I'm convinced that Steinbeck is one of its greatest products. My only regret is waiting this long to get acquainted with him.