‘The sale of souls to gain the whole world is completely voluntary and almost unanimous...but not quite.’

Of all the Steinbeck novels, I find Cannery Row to strike me as the most pure and blissful. It’s a novel that seems to peacefully rock my well-being like a boat on the calm waters of a warm, summer day. Published in 1945, Steinbeck says he wrote it ‘for a group of soldiers who said to me: ‘Write something funny that isn’t about the war. Write something for us to read - we’re sick of war.’’ While this novel is humorous indeed, it is also not without a looming melancholy that textures the narrative in a bittersweet but comforting way, feeling the ache of the weight of the world just beyond the peripheries but enjoying a temporary reprieve in the small joys of the story. Cannery Row is a quiet examination of humanity that celebrates kindness and shows solidarity with those often overlooked or outcast in society, emphasizing them as figures of goodness that shine like a candle against the shadow of darkness in the world built by greed and power, but is also a loving tribute to nature, language, and the way we shape our world that succinctly culminates the many lessons of his earlier novels into one heartwarming tale.

‘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.’

Not unlike Tortilla Flat, Steinbeck focuses in on the daily activities of the average person, specifically the poor, unhoused and jobless. The town’s ‘inhabitants are, as the man once said, 'whores, pimps, gamblers, and sons of bitches,' by which he meant everybody,’ writes Steinbeck, adding that ‘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.’ The Everybody of the town he writes about clearly defines these characters as the Everyperson, the people Steinbeck has always wanted to empower and spotlight in his fiction. The plot of the novel mostly surrounds Mack and ‘the boys’—the local drifters, drunks and such—planning a party for Doc, the local biologist, and their misadventures to raise money and plan the party, but Steinbeck writes it all as if it were high stakes adventure rife with universal truth and beauty. There is a similarity to Tortilla Flat again here as something as goofy as collecting frogs and crashing in a stranger’s house come across as Arthurian adventure and moral lessons with Mack as their heroic leader.

‘Mack was the elder, leader, mentor, and to a small extent the exploiter of a little group of men who had in common no families, no money, and no ambitions beyond food, drink, and contentment’

A key to Steinbeck’s morals teachings are the ways he discusses how our actions speak volumes about what society values and how we choose to shape ourselves as well as the world around us. While the characters of Mack and the boys are those society tends to think of as having fallen into vice, Steinbeck reveals them as those of true virtue, as Doc says here:

‘Look at them. There are your true philosophers. I think that Mack and the boys know everything that has ever happened in the world and possibly everything that will happen. I think they survive in this particular world better than other people. In a time when people tear themselves to pieces with ambition and nervousness and covetousness, they are relaxed. All of our so-called successful men are sick men, with bad stomachs, and bad souls, but Mack and the boys are healthy and curiously clean. They can do what they want. They can satisfy their appetites without calling them something else.’

The unhappiness that weighs down the rest of the world, Steinbeck says, is from the pursuit of wealth and power, which he deems trivial matters that do not bring value at the end of life. ‘What can it profit a man to gain the whole world and to come to his property with a gastric ulcer, a blown prostate, and bifocals?’ he questions in a twist on Mark in the Bible asking ‘What shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?’ Steinbeck argues that the draw to wealth and power is strong and most give in to it’s call, thusly sacrificing their soul and happiness, a theme strongly addressed in his novella The Pearl. He warns against giving in to temptations too strongly such as writing ‘where men in fear and hunger destroy their stomachs in the fight to secure certain food, where men hungering for love destroy everything lovable about them.’ Furthermore, Steinbeck looks at the way we react in the face of society, and how many conform in order to fit in at the expense of themselves instead of embracing themselves and not worrying if society accepts them or not. ‘For there are two possible reactions to social ostracism - either a man emerges determined to be better, purer, and kindlier or he goes bad, challenges the world and does even worse things.’ Once again he reminds us ‘the last is by far the commonest reaction to stigma.’

Steibeck also shows how we shape the world through the ways we perceive it, and speak it. He writes

‘The Word is symbol of delight which sucks up men and scenes, trees, plants, factories, and Pekinese. Then the Thing becomes the Word and the back to Thing again, but warped and woven into a fantastic pattern.’

I love this quote. Here we see nature as constant, a being-in-and-of-itself, but we tend to understand and conceptualize the world through language. This becomes subjective, and it sets up how language is faulty and through our own individual perceptions on the world we often misread or talk past one another. It also has biblical connotations, such as Adam naming the animals of the world putting them under his domain.

While much of the humor revolves around Mack and his misadventures, the real heart of the novel is the character Doc, who is based on Steinbeck’s friend Ed Ricketts. Ricketts was also the basis for Doc Burton in In Dubious Battle, Jim Casey in The Grapes of Wrath, and Doctor Winter in The Moon Is Down. Doc is melancholy, which inspires Mack to throw a party for him, and it’s a melancholy that matches the feeling of the world at the time. While the war is never present in the novel (taking place before it began), it was all too present in the lives of the reader and this melancholy represents the need everyone felt to feel something beautiful, such as why he wrote this book for the soldiers that asked for a non-war novel (its a bit meta, I suppose). Doc’s musings on life and humanity are a key element of the novel, such as when he finds a dead woman and notes ‘his eyes were wet the way they get in the focus of great beauty,’ an expression on how life and death are two sides of the same coin.

Doc is also a reminder that we should feel our feelings and that allowing oneself to come to terms with sadness is healthy. ‘Doc was feeling a golden pleasant sadness,’ Steinbeck writes. He also reminds us to look for and embrace kindness. Doc allows Mack to throw the party in his own house, knowing the party means so much to Mack. He does this at the expense of his own stuff and home, knowing things will get destroyed in the process, which is a beautiful and touching moment where we see him reciprocate the kindness Mack wants to show him recognizing that allowing Mack to give his ‘gift’ is Doc’s gift to him.

‘Our Father, who art in nature, who has given the gift of survival to the coyote, the common brown rat, the English sparrow, the housefly and the moth, must have a great and overwhelming love for no-goods and blots-on-the-town and bums, and Mack and the boys.’

This is a lovely little book where Steinbeck is often at his best. It has the whimsicality of his early novels and is delivered in such refined and gorgeous prose. All the major themes of his come together in a peaceful little narrative that aims at reminding us to see the good in others and to embrace kindness. Doc is such lovable character, and I will always think of my father with this book as we both read it at the same time and, upon reading of Doc ordering a ‘beer milkshake’ decided to try to make one himself. This is a heartwarming read that has much more weight and meaning than the simplicity of the novel would imply.

4.5/5

‘In the world ruled by tigers with ulcers, rutted by strictured bulls, scavenged by blind jackals, Mack and the boys dine delicately with the tigers, fondle the frantic heifers, and wrap up the crumbs to feed the sea gulls of Cannery Row.’

This was my fourth Steinbeck novel, and I hadn't read him for a couple of years before reading Cannery Row. Within a matter of pages I was struck by how easy it is to get into a Steinbeck story.
The novel is dripping in nostalgia, not to mention sentimentality, and Steinbeck clearly loved writing of his central character, marine biologist Doc, and the others that are the thread that holds it all together: the boys from the flophouse - Mack, Hazel, Jones and Eddie who pop up throughout and provide much of the entertaining reading. It's not a book heavy on plot, as we are treated to vignettes of life amongst a range of locals, and are invited into their lives and given an insight into the Great depression. I was surprised that it is a funny book in places, with Jokes about booze, sex and food among other things. There's a golden glow about Cannery Row, a persistent delight with the world, a continual sense of wistful affection. It’s there in the enthusiastic descriptions of the landscape which Steinbeck knew so well, and the friendships that have grown up in and around Monterey. I said it had funny moments, but it's also filled with sadness and tragedy. There is suicide, and the Doc, whom Steinbeck insists is beloved and generous, is also melancholy and lonely, frequently drinking alone at night, listening to delicate, sad music. The novel is a complicated metaphor about the richness of life, the way different parts of an ecosystem interact. Just as Doc peers into his tidal pools, Steinbeck’s readers are given a view over a society that is largely cut off from a wider ocean. But we know we are still looking at a place subject to currents and tides, still filled with the same salt water as the rest of the sea. I really liked it, it struck me as very profound, and the area of cannery Row becomes a character itself. It is so alive.

Cannery Row is a little like Winesburg, Ohio, the nice collection of connected stories by Sherwood Anderson. Steinbeck's work is not made up of interwoven stories, but the vignettes that form the tale are sort of isolated, and many could stand alone.

Steinbeck had a knack for developing characters effortlessly, though I'd bet he'd have said it took great effort. Doc, Lee Chong, Mac, Dora, and even the dog, Darling, are all well conceived characters.

Doc: the scientist/philosopher. Mac: the slacker with compassion. Hazel: the dimwitted but strong boy who was almost a girl. Dora: the sophisticated, pragmatic, well-dressed madam of the local brothel. The place itself, the row of canneries in Monterey, CA, is a character, like London might be in a Dickens novel.

The plot is not the center of the action. There are some suicides and some sad souls. There is life, and there is beauty and pain. Love doesn't conquer all but makes the suffering less horrific. It's almost the same story in all the great works of literature. Every great writer is trying to aim their own personal microscope at life, yet most keep seeing the same little one-celled organism squirming around, trying to make sense of chaos, trying to brighten the darkest parts of existence with a little love, a little individuality, a little spontaneity, a bit of good cheer. Sometimes, it doesn't work, and sometimes it does. Sometimes, it just "is," and the little amoeba wakes up with a hangover and has to grab a beer first thing in the morning at Lee Chong's grocery.

Short, very pleasant, and easy to read, Cannery Row does not have the dimension of Grapes of Wrath. But it's a good novel whose primary interest lies in the endearing and deeply human characters and all the complexity that implies.

“For there are two possible reactions to social ostracism--either a man emerges determined to be better, purer, and kindlier or he goes bad, challenges the world and does even worse things. This last is by far the commonest reaction to stigma.”


“Monterey is a city with a long and brilliant literary tradition,” Steinbeck writes, which sounds so funny to our ears now coming from him, its most revered resident, and with a whole chunk of central California from the coast of Monterey to the Salinas Valley known as Steinbeck country.

I love Steinbeck. His writing has a cadence that works for me. It’s kind of slow, allowing you to absorb things. I never feel like I have to make a note about a character so I don’t forget. He makes me remember them.

It seems I love him more with each book. This one is written like a group of individual snapshots, sort of like a travelogue, but instead of a travelogue of places, it’s of characters, and their intertwined stories hold it all together. What it lacks in plot it makes up for many times over in depth.

You come to know all of these Cannery Row misfits, from Doc, the biologist who runs a laboratory and cares for life of all kinds, to Lee who owns the grocery and everything else under the sun store, to Dora the kindly madam, to Mack, who just wants to throw Doc a party to let him know how much his friends appreciate him.

Gosh. Just look at this picture of Ed Ricketts, the Steinbeck friend who inspired the character of Doc.

If you’ve read the book, you’re probably saying, yep, that’s how I pictured him, with so much behind those humbly cast-down eyes.

What Steinbeck keeps showing me, over and over in different ways, is sometimes, when you love people, it’s so damn painful. But worth it all the same.

This book is dripping with humour and pathos. It touches on friendship and romance and community with a solid cast of weirdos and outcasts.

For instance:

William comes to Dora, the local brothel Madam, complaining of depression and suicidal thoughts:

n  Dora had handled plenty of neurotics in her time. Kid 'em out of it was her motto. “Well, do it on your own time and don't mess up the rugs,” she said.n

Mack and the boys are well-meaning vagrants who inhabit the flophouse out back:

n  ’That fellow Gay is moving in with us I guess. His wife hits him pretty bad. He don’t mind that when he’s awake but she waits ‘til he gets to sleep and then hits him. He hates that. He has to wake up and beat her up and then when he goes back to sleep she hits him again. He don’t get any rest so he’s moving in with us.’n

We can quickly move from a gruesome story to an everyday one, as with Sam Malloy and his wife:

        

n  ’I like things nice,’ said Mrs. Malloy. ‘I always did like to have things nice for you,’ and her lower lip began to tremble.
          ‘But, darling,’ Sam Malloy cried, ‘I got nothing against curtains. I like curtains.’
          ‘Only $1.98,’ Mrs. Malloy quavered, ‘and you begrutch me $1.98,’ and she sniffed and her chest heaved.
          ‘I don’t begrutch you,’ said Mr. Malloy. ‘But, darling—for Christ’s sake what are we going to do with curtains. We got no windows.’
          Mrs. Malloy cried and cried and Sam held her in his arms and comforted her.
          ‘Men just don’t understand how a woman feels,’ she sobbed. ‘Men just never try to put themselves in a woman’s place.’
          And Sam lay beside her and rubbed her back for a long time before she went to sleep.n

The love of the neglected boy, Frankie, for Doc is touching and also quietly heartbreaking.

Of course much of the story revolves around the doomed but vaguely charming efforts of Mack and the boys to do anything in life. They lie and steal and are completely unreliable so if you’re on the receiving end of their attention it’s hardly charming. But their efforts to give back to Doc with a disastrous party made me laugh out loud.

As the climax approaches, they decide to give the first failed attempt another go, and Steinbeck is masterful in his ability to maintain the “will they won’t they” tension throughout:

n  And it is also generally understood that a party hardly ever goes the way it is planned or intended. This last, of course, excludes those dismal slave parties, whipped and controlled and dominated, given by ogreish professional hostesses. These are not parties at all but acts and demonstrations, about as spontaneous as peristalsis and as interesting as its end product.n

Delightful.

Lightly-fictionalized stories from Depression-era Monterey. Steinbeck grew up nearby, and at the time he wrote this was living in Pacific Grove, just west of Cannery Row. It's a series of vignettes and stories, some funny, some sad, a couple heart-wrenching, from Monterey in the 1930s. It's a book of its time, so expect some events and language jarring to current sensibilities. Still, if, like me, you've never actually finished a Steinbeck book.... This one is short, very well-written, and is likely to catch your fancy if you know the area. Steinbeck's love for the Monterey Peninsula shines though on almost every page. And there are some very colorful characters here, almost certainly based on people the author knew.

The central character is Ed "Doc" Ricketts https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ed_Rick..., a respected marine biologist and proprietor of Pacific Biological Laboratories. Ricketts was a friend and mentor to Steinbeck, and coauthor of "The Log from the Sea of Cortez," which I've been meaning to read for years. Added back to the TBR.

Steinbeck wrote one book about the Arthurian legends. However, he wrote a few books using the Arthurian legend model and Cannery Row is one of them.

Here we have a marvelously fun tale, almost a tall-tale, about the bums, prostitutes and common folk living on the California coast south of the San Francisco bay area in and about Monterey and Carmel-by-the-Sea during the Great Depression. Mischievous scamps get up to no good and little comes of it. All of this is inconsequential and yet intrinsic to human nature.

I finished Cannery Row a week or so ago. It's taken me this long to think about how I wanted to review it. That's not because it's a particularly deep and thought-provoking book. I just needed to examine my feelings, and besides, I feel like Steinbeck's work deserves reflection, even his lesser work.

Is this a lesser Steinbeck work? It's heralded by many and often included in "top Steinbeck" lists. I don't see it. Don't get me wrong, it's quite good, 3.5 stars good I'd say, but it's more of a collection of character sketches loosely tied together rather than a fully realized novel. Ah, but they are incredible sketches!

Cannery Row and Tortilla Flats fall into that Arthurian legend model as stated earlier. These are adventure stories in which "heroes" go on quests in an attempt to obtain whatever is their holy grail. Are there morals and lessons to be learned along the way? Sure. Is any of this meant to be much more than entertainment? I don't think so, but that's me. This is highly enjoyable and I think that's what Steinbeck was going for.

5 stars

Although this was not your standard 'read a story straight thru' type novel I still enjoyed it. I enjoyed meeting the "bums" and "flozies" and "business people" on Cannery Row and how they all interacted.

Steinbeck wrote this book more in vignettes than a straight through story. The story was there, but it came and went around the vignettes.

I never realized that there was a sequel to this book. Of course I really should have read this many many years ago and am not sure how I missed doing that. I did however immediately put the sequel - Sweet Thursday - on hold at the library. I also plan to find and watch the movie from 1982 of Cannery Row.

Of Mice and Men remains my favorite Steinbeck book, but this book is up there in the standings.

This is the first Steinbeck that I've attempted to read as an adult. We had some brief flirtations during my teen years but never really hooked up. I think it was probably a wise choice. Now we've found each other as adults and can really appreciate each other's complexities and I can tell that I'll likely be making sweet love to Johnny S. for years to come.

Cannery Row is a really brief read that features some of the most concise yet descriptive writing I've ever come across. Set in a small stretch of Monterey, California, the book tells the story of the town's inhabitants and their attempts to throw a party to show their appreciation for Doc, a marine collector who is generous almost to a fault. A simple plot, which makes the writing shine all the more. Whether he's describing the town's indigent or the short and exciting life of a tide pool, Steinbeck never fails to turn a phrase that is near poetry in its beauty. All prose should aspire to this degree of eloquence.

3.5 Stars

Cannery Row is a small patch of a town with a slew of well drawn characters, a general store and a whorehouse. Steinbeck deftly created a village, with a true sense of camaraderie. What started out as sort of interconnected short stories, turned into different snippets of the characters lives. Some were worth investing more into than others. How can you not find a soft spot for Doc? Who continues to take care of everyone and leave them feeling light and wanting to be better human beings? I loved reading about his Western Biological lab and all the excursions to collect specimens. I appreciate the palace flophouse and watching this motley crew of men really think outside the box to throw Doc a party.

This was delightful and once it got going, I flew through the pages. Sometimes the writing was a tiny bit stilted, and due to the short nature, it felt a little raw and open ended. For me, I just wanted it to keep going on, to really have a chance to see these characters grow.

This is the kind of novel that makes me want to pull out a pen so I can underline so many of the little gems of poetry, knowledge and feeling left inside.

I just had a five year relationship end because my partner felt I didn’t want enough, didn’t pursue enough, didn’t strive enough and that doing so made us both complacent. It was nice to be steeped in a world in which beauty and happiness are so separate from striving as to almost be opposed to it. Where there’s ugliness and beauty, ugliness in beauty and beauty in ugliness, all wrapped up into a living breathing organism of a town, a relationship, a person, an animal, a rock. What is an artists job but to patiently observe and pull out the most beautiful things from the mundane- beautiful not because they are good but because they are true - but their truth is so constantly present as to never be noticed? But Steinbeck chose to notice, and that act, of observing and noticing, of seeking truth, of trying to understand. That someone out there devoted their life to that pursuit makes me happy. It makes me hopeful. And it inspires me to go further.