East of Eden

East of Eden
by John Steinbeck
read: circa 1995
Guardian 1000 Novels

I had to read East of Eden for summer reading before my sophomore year of high school.  This passage stuck with me:

"... A great and lasting story is about everyone or it will not last.  The strange and the foreign is not interesting - only the deeply personal and familiar."

Samuel said, "Apply that to the Cain-Abel story."

And Adam said, "I didn't kill my brother -" Suddenly he stopped and his mind went reeling back in time.

 "I think I can," Lee answered Samuel.  "I think it is the best-known story in the world because it is everybody's story.  I think it is the symbol story of the human soul."

I didn't really understand that - the idea that the Cain-Abel story is universal - at the time.  Looking back, it's a powerful statement, but I don't think it's true. Maybe if I had a brother, I might think it was true.  And the larger sentiment here - that only familiar stories resonate - I think isn't quite true, either.  I'd say only the familiar parts of stories resonate, or the parts that can touch on familiar feelings.  Ultimately, we are always piecing together a story out of our own experiences and our own feelings.

The Grapes of Wrath

The Grapes of Wrath
by John Steinbeck
read: circa 1996
Time 100 Novels, Modern Library #10, Guardian 1000 Novels, Pulitzer Prize, National Book Award

Another required book for school, read during my sophomore year of high school.  We had been required to read East Of Eden the summer leading up to that school year, and while I liked both books, 1500+ pages of Steinbeck was a bit much (especially since we ended up giving short shrift to Faulkner, Fitzgerald, Hemingway, and pretty much everyone post-1950).  I also thought East Of Eden was a better book.  I understand why Grapes of Wrath is more important historically: it captures the dust bowl, the migration to California,  and the misery of impoverished rural folks of that time period.  I just found the more personal story of sibling rivalry in East Of Eden to be more affecting.

I have Woody Guthrie's album Dust Bowl Ballads, so whenever "The Ballad of Tom Joad" comes on in shuffle I get a little plot refresher.  I remember that Tom Joad is the main character for most of the book only to disappear towards the end.  This led to a debate in English class as to who the main character was, with the class coming to the inarguable conclusion that the family was in fact the lead character.  I still find this pretty unsatisfying.