تجربه من در مواجهه با بعضی کلاسیک‌ها این بوده که این‌قدر درباره‌شان شنیده بودم فکر می‌کردم انگار آن‌ها را خوانده‌ام و دیگر چیز جدیدی برایم ندارند. اما وقتی می‌نشینم و می‌خوانمشان می‌فهمم چه اشتباهی کرده بوده‌ام و چه شاهکاری داشته از دستم می‌رفته. این تجربه را مثلا با محاکمه یا مسخ یا ژرمینال داشته‌ام.

موش‌ها و آدم‌ها هم از این همین دست بود. می‌دانستم کتابی است درباره رابطه دو دوست کارگر فصلی در دوره رکود بزرگ در امریکا و فکر می‌کردم خب دیگر می‌دانم چیست. اما خب چند سال پیش که ترجمه سروش حبیبی از این کتاب منتشر شد گرفتم و خواندم و واقعا لذت بردم. بی‌اغراق یکی از بهترین کتاب‌هایی بوده که خوانده‌ام. نمی‌دانم چه چیزیش این‌قدر جذبم کرد ولی هم محتوای کتاب برایم فکربرانگیز بود و هم نثرش لذتبخش.
کتاب کم‌حجمی است و خواندنش سه چهار ساعت بیشتر وقت نمی‌گیرد. اگر نخوانده‌اید پیشنهاد می‌کنم.

سروش حبیبی این کتاب را در سال ۵۶ که در امریکا بوده ترجمه کرده بود و وقتی خبردار شده بود پرویز داریوش هم ترجمه‌ش کرده ترجمه را گذاشته بود توی کشو. حدود ده سال پیش بچه‌های نشر ماهی وسط حرف‌هایشان با آقای حبیبی اتفاقی فهمیده بودند چنین ترجمه‌ای وجود دارد و راضی‌اش کرده بودند که منتشرش کند. که چه کار خوبی هم کردند.

"Hey Tim, old buddy… I hear you've been depressed recently. A book should cheer you up, right?"
"Why yes Tim, that sounds delightful. Got any good ideas?"
"How about a classic?"
"Brilliant idea Tim! One I haven't read?"
"Of course! How about Steinbeck?"
"I don't know… I hear he's a bit depressing."
"Come now, it's only 105 pages! How depressing could it be?"

…

Should I just end the review there? Nah, of course not.



Of Mice and Men is one of those books that pretty much everyone has read. I once saw an article that said it was one of the most commonly read books in High School classes in America. Somehow it is another one of those classics that I managed to never have assigned to me in both High School or College (and I majored in English). Well, I've read it now. My thoughts?

Well, it's a wonderfully well told story, frequently feeling more like a play than a novel, but I mean that as a compliment as it makes for a fast paced conversational tone. It's depressing as all hell mind you, but wonderfully told.

Did I enjoy reading it? No, no I sure as hell did not. I mean the writing is well done, Steinbeck created one of the best literary pairs ever written and managed to have the most perfect moment of foreshadowing I've ever read (in the form of a dog, so animal lovers beware!). I'm very glad I read it and genuinely liked the book. Enjoyment though? No, no and no.

Do I have anything else to add? Not really. It's a short review, because there's really not much I can say that hasn't already been said. I could address how Curley's wife is annoyingly only called Curley's wife despite being a main character, and the treatment she's given in the book… but I think this is entirely because Steinbeck is showing her only from the point of view of his characters. This is further reinforced by an article I saw in which it discussed how he wrote to Claire Luce, the actress who originated the role on stage saying the following about the character: "She is a nice, kind girl and not a floozy. No man has ever considered her as anything except a girl to try to make... As to her actual sex life — she has had none except with Curley and there has probably been no consummation there since Curley would not consider her gratification and would probably be suspicious if she had any." So I guess mission accomplished in showing how others viewed her, but also a bit of a failure if that was his real aim for the character (though I do love his jab at Curley there).

Will I read more Steinbeck in the future? Sure! I apparently like sliding down the rain slick precipice of despair, so why the hell not? 4/5 stars.

"Tell me what you told me before...about them rabbits"

Una historia terriblemente triste que narra muy bien la pobreza, precariedad y racismo existente durante la gran depresión en Estados Unidos.
Me ha gustado muchísimo como está escrito porque consigue ser crudo y evocador al mismo tiempo. Luego el tema de que este sea el segundo libro que lea de Steinbeck y sea el segundo en el que la mujer es el mal de males... pues uf.
De todas maneras eso no ha impedido que disfrutara muchísimo de esta novela corta y que haya perdonado al autor tras "Al este del Edén" por fin xD
No me puedo quedar sin hablar de esta IMPRESIONANTE edición de Edelvives con las ilustraciones de Rebecca Dautremer, una de mis ilustradoras preferidas desde tiempos inmemoriales, y que aquí realiza un trabajo para caerse del asiento. Estamos ante una auténtica obra de arte en todos los sentidos y creo que el hecho de haber leído el libro en esta edición ha conseguido que me gustara aún muchísimo más. Recomendadísimo queda.

I know...classic, movies, been around for years, greatly respected author, etc., etc., etc. But, nihilism leaves me cold...

Enjoy if it's you...but (and I've used this quote before) this book typifies "life is hard and then you die". Who cares how well the story is written that gets you there.

The very quality of the writing here made the experience worse for me. It has been brought to my attention of late that Steinbeck was a gifted writer. It's true he was, and the message in the story he relates here carries that much more weight. I suppose the bottom line is, I live in the world where pain happens, a lot. I don't really need it here. So, I leave my rating as it is because my experience here remains a 1 star experience. So, as I said for you who love this book, and I know some...I'm happy for you, I don't and I can't really recommend it.

4/5

This won't be a "real" review, however I wanted to point out how I read this in Middle School and didn't enjoy it -- and now at 20 years old, I thought it was amazing! They're making kids reads this far too soon, in my opinion.

Regardless, Steinbeck can really write well. I'm going to have to read East of Eden soon!

این استین بک بی رحم! عین تقدیره داستان هاش: اول به آدم رؤیاهای شیرین نشون میده، در حالی که آدم میدونه قراره همه چیز به فاجعه ختم بشه.
فکر نمی کردم بعد از این همه مدت، یه داستان بتونه این طور منقلبم کنه، با این که آماده ی همچین پایانی بودم.

So it starts as you lay there awake, in the quiet hours of night, lulling your head to be hushed of those deafening thoughts, faces, voices, you kept on getting day long, as you con your head into forged drowsiness, and it starts dawning on you, the coiled snake sitting in the corner of your mind tilts its head, clogs every nerve in his coil, deep-seated thought of being all alone in this universe of biological process over process strikes you to the core, universal loneliness houses your whole being, Our uniqueness makes us special, makes perception valuable - but it can also make us lonely. This loneliness is different from being 'alone': You can be lonely even surrounded by people. The feeling I'm talking about stems from the sense that we can never fully share the truth of who we are, we can never talk the next soul of our inner happenings, the loneliness of this kind eats our being and we device heavens, If not in this life, but in the life to come, we don’t want to be this alone, but there are some stories who teach us the inevitability of it, no matter how far we travel in pursue of a dream land, we will always be alone!
“Just like heaven. Ever’body wants a little piece of lan’. I read plenty of books out here. Nobody never gets to heaven, and nobody gets no land. It’s just in their head. They’re all the time talkin’ about it, but it’s jus’ in their head.”
What if just in our head it all is, what if we are always been delusional by definition, of people we thought we loved or were loved, of sickness we thought were cured, of people we thought we’d known, of souls we thought had touched, of love we thought had lived, of memories we thought had faded, of faces we thought had gone, or weren’t there at the first place. This is the story of unloved and alone, of George Milton and Lennie Small, the story of two antithetic coming together in bond only death dared disrupt. The story of the dream which dwelt all just in head and inspired them to work from place to place in the wake of depression years in America.
Steinbeck’s characters are suspiciously caricaturesque,as if placed there just for that purpose, with no backdrop stories of their own, no life before the opening scene, a giant-structured low at wits character to be paired with equally short-statured but quick-wit George who protects Lennie from the harms of his world, they dreamt of rabbits and a farm where there won’t be having any masters, a land of their own, in the times of impossibilities and hunger extreme, universality of their dream takes the reader in awe of ingeniousness of the writer, nihilistic viewpoint of life being a journey from zero to zero is too much loud in undertones of his prose, the dream of a land of their own was a driving force to keep their heads up the consuming loneliness which seems to be ever prevalent in the air that all characters breathe in.
“There is a terrible emptiness in me, an indifference that hurts” said Camus in his last manuscript, this emptiness echoed through this sad tale of shocking ending, the ending we were given the hints of from the very start, the ending we kept denying to accept till the very end...

موش‌ها و آدم‌ها برای من جز همون مجموعه کتابایی بود که باید یواشکی و دزدکانه از توی کتاب‌فروشی برمی‌داشتمش و سریع حساب می‌کردم و می‌پریدم بیرون! چرا؟! چون اضطراب سنگینی نگاه دوستان و مردم که با خودشون بگن: «عه! دیگه این که همه خوووووندن!!» اذیت کنندست.
بهرحال، خیلی خیلی حالم خوب میشه وقتی مترجم مقدمه رو می‌بره آخر داستان و با خیال راحت به خواننده اجازه می‌ده بدون مقدمه چینی بره شخصیت‌ها و داستان کتاب رو لمس کنه و در نهایت نظر خودش و محتوای کتاب رو بهمون می‌گه.

شخصیت لنی خیلی دوست داشتنیه البته قطع به یقین فقط در رمان!!! ، چرا که اگر در زندگی واقعی همچین کسی از اطرافیانم وجود داشت دلم می‌خواست هر روز بمیرم و رنج کشیدنش رو نبینم!


پایان: پانزدهم شهریور ماه سال ۱۴۰۲

[Reading other goodreads reviews of this brings home to me that I really was in the classes for kids they'd given up on. I never read Of Mice and Men as required reading assignment.]

Tell us how it's gonna be...

I've never wanted a book to spontaneously change endings so badly. I yearn for that little place as much as they do. I wanted them to have it desperately. Proof the incredibly sad ending isn't hopeless is that on a reread I could still hope it would end differently. Oh, it does happen, loneliness and cruelty and mass mob hating mentality. The possibility that it won't, that people might come through, is still a chance. Otherwise why bother reading a book such as this one.

Lennie dying alone like a dog haunts me. The dying with honor issue I've read about in other stuff isn't an issue with me. Dignity, yes, because in this case the dying was robbing his life of dignity. Lennie had precious little of it as it was. I know that in those times that kind of thing was not unheard of (or much later than that). Still, depressing as shit. Maybe those kinds of hateful things make some kind of a stain on the atmosphere, like a ghost. (If ghosts exist, I imagine they'd come out of something like that. Why are ghosts usually from like Colonial usa or Civil War times? Not the 1970s?) So the dying and the living are the same as both are long over. It should never have to be that way.

Curly's wife haunts me. I related her to Lennie in their inability to think and mourning what happens without any possibility of understanding why. I see in her other abused women and find it heartbreaking and frustrating and reminding.

Of Mice and Men touched on a lot for such a little story. I find that I think of it for comparions when thinking about things like what we owe other people, and expectations of ourselves and others. George's exhaustion of taking care of Lennie, and how everybody else let him down. It's awful to be completely alone, and awful to have to carry so much yourself. Burdens can also make you feel weighted to something. I don't know, I just think about George sometimes. I catch myself being suspicious of what people want, want, want from everybody and those expectations and then I remember George and how it wasn't all bad having someone else to think about like he did for Lennie. It's scary to rely on anyone else. I get why George wanted his little place.

Read this the first time in a middle school science class by holding the book under the desk and ever so slightly ducking my head to read my lap. (Probably as subtle as kids today text messaging.) I had a hard time keeping it together. (Any time they talked about their little place with Candy made me squirm in my seat in excitement.) (I stopped reading books under the desk after that. Did it all the time in elementary school, but for lighter fare like Ramona Quimby series and Dr. Suess.) [I read it on the sly. The smart kids were forced to read it. Maybe those kids were sneaking in The Outsiders inside their textbooks?]

در بین چند کتابی که از استاین بک خوانده‌ام موش‌ها و آدم‌ها را خیلی دوست داشتم. فوق العاده بود. ترجمه و موخره آقای سروش حبیبی هم بسیار عالی بود. دوستانی که کتاب را خوانده‌اند اگر اهل فیلم هستند فیلم اقتباسی این اثر
Of mice and men (1992) 7.5
را ببینند که جان مالکویچ هم در آن ایفای نقش می‌کند. البته گویا چندین اقتباس از این اثر صورت گرفته است ولی من این نسخه را دیدم و فیلم خوبی بود.

A kind of modern fairy tale of a little intelligent man and a big powerful giant, however shall we say quite dumb ( intellectually challenged). The friends wander California's many dusty roads and get any job possible, as lowly migrant farmhands during the harsh lengthy Great Depression, 1929- 1939 just trying to survive the deluge, nothing very special here the sad truth be told, as so many millions of
others are in the same frightening situation, starvation. George Milton the little guy is always telling Lenny Small, (the name sure doesn't fit him) the large fellow what to do, guidance the poor man desperately needs. The two arrive at another farm where they meet Curley the boss's sin , make that son. A bully who pushes Lenny too far, some people don't know when to quit, he pays the price. Best scene in the novella is Lenny crushing Curley's hand, like it was made of jelly...you can almost literally feel his bones crack and crumble, the result makes for a sickening sound. The childlike behemoth likes tiny cute things animals or women, still with a bad habit of killing them by accident, he means well, yet they're nevertheless... dead. The men are always talking about buying a modest ranch, the goal more a dream than a probability for that era, keeps them together, George feels responsible for Lenny and the truth they need each other. However Curley's wife, no name just "wife" she wasn't an important enough character the author believed, to have one is killed, the dream shattered. Can Lenny escape punishment or does he ...the crude would say , buy the farm? John Steinbeck; history has shown him to be a great writer, the critics much less numerous now, in one of his most famous books for the interested, the title comes from an old Robert Burns poem "To a Mouse". The if I may judge its meaning is misunderstandings... can lead to hate and violence, all people will be good to each other if only they knew their enemies better, love not hostility would prevail; this may in today's atrocious climate seem naive but we must believe or there is no future.

The most moving work of fiction I've ever read.

"In every bit of honest writing in the world ... there is a base theme. Try to understand men, if you understand each other you will be kind to each other. Knowing a man well never leads to hate and nearly always leads to love." - Steinbeck, 1938

5 stars. A book that brings me to tears. This world could use a few more Lennies, and a lot more Georges.