Vivid Portrait of a Rough Seaside Town

books:

	• Cannery Row: (Centennial Edition) John Steinbeck Penguin (Non-Classics), 2002 - 192 pages average customer review:based on 223 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

No emotional attachments

I enjoyed parts of this book, but it did not draw me in nor give me any emotional attachments to the characters. It seemed to be divided into shorter stories that make up the book in whole. This left me missing details and there didn't seem to be a smooth transition between stories. I enjoyed hearing about Mack and the boys and their adventures, but at other points Steinbeck seemed to introduce characters that don't play any part in the story. The look at the blue collar life and discussion of what type of work makes one happy did interest me as I am going through a career crisis.

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Monterey again

Steinbeck's Monterey is an entrancing place. Starting with Tortilla Flat (New Longman Literature: Steinbeck) through Cannery Row and into Sweet Thursday (Penguin Modern Classics). Cannery Row is less about a story with a central character but more about this small section and its inhabitants. It's a book about a community with a variety of smaller stories intertwined to make it one of Steinbeck's most overlooked books. The characters are entertaining and the vividness of the setting is fully fleshed out by Steinbeck. Certainly worth reading.

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Vivid Portrait of a Rough Seaside Town

Although not a moralistic epic like "Grapes of Wrath", "Cannery Row" delivers a short, entertaining tale of the many lives in Monterey, California, circa 1940s. There is no one character that stands out as the protagonist, as Steinbeck paints an elaborate portrait of the characters that make up this rundown, seedy part of town. This ensemble of characters and their intertwining stories serve as the foundation of his novel.

Throughout the novel Steinbeck paints a vivid picture of life in this lonely port town. Although the Great Depression is over, most of the characters are still downtrodden and poor off financially. However, Steinbeck generally focuses on the better aspects of these people. Yet, there is not all glowing praise for these outcasts and misfits. Steinbeck infuses his generally optimistic view on Cannery Row with flashbacks and vignettes that are dark and disturbing. Death and suicide are an occasional subject, as Steinbeck pierces his otherwise uplifting book with morbid accounts. Of course, this helps to contribute to the realism of his book.

Overall, "Cannery Row" is a short yet poignant story of life for the downtrodden living in a rough port town. Although we can generally sympathize with the characters, Steinbeck lends just enough realism to prevent us from having an overly utopian view of Cannery Row. It's ironic that the real Cannery Row in Monterey has now been gentrified into an upscale shopping area. Yet, Steinbeck's "Cannery Row" lives fresh in the novel that he wrote more than 60 years ago.

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Steinbeck - Simple & Sublime

"The sale of souls to gain the whole world is completely voluntary and almost unanimous - but not quite." J.S. "Cannery Row"

Like Jack Kerouac's "On the Road", Steinbeck focuses on a cast of characters that fail to consent to the rigid rules of our money-obsessed, Capitalistic American society that the rest of us automatons (myself included, unfortunately) blindly conform to. Like Kerouac's unconventional classic which would come out a dozen years later, "Cannery Row" doesn't have much a plot. It is essentially a short tale about the lives of the men and women who populate the cannery district of Monterey, California right after the great depression. And a truly unforgettable cast they are - Mack, Doc, Lee Chong, Dora, et al... Each character is real and unique, each character so exquisitely human. One of the main reasons why I enjoy Steinbeck so much is the fact that he is able to write about the frailties of the common American while not being as overly judgmental and self-riotous as other greats tended to be at times (i.e. Sinclair Lewis and Dreiser to name two). He was a writer who focused on the benevolence that resides in men's hearts and souls, despite all their imperfections and sins.

In my past life, before I became a well respected,'successful' business man. Before the ulcers, before the insomnia, before the apathy and ennui swallowed up my soul, I was your classic beach bum. It almost seems as if that past life of mine never really existed - surfing twenty to forty hours a week, living off of bad coffee and Top Ramen, working odd jobs a couple days a month so that I had enough money for beer and to cover rent, letting my hair go long and shaving only when I felt like it, partying five nights a week, etc... etc... What a bum I was back then! Yet back then, you never saw me sans a smile. Despite all the unhealthy food, all the beer, all the late nights, etc... I was never healthier in my mind and body. I was never healthier because I was truly at peace and happy. This is why I loved "Cannery Row", because it brought me back to that simple time and place. In many ways, reading this was quite a bittersweet experience. However, we all have to grow up someday don't we? At least that's what they all say...

This is one of my favorite reads of all-time. Right up there with "Grapes of Wrath" and "East of Eden" (the latter being my second favorite novel of all-time) and of all his novellas, this is definitely the best in my opinion. I haven't read them all, but I've read the majority of them, and although there are plenty of other jewels in that bunch, "Cannery Row" is the gem among gems. It is a simple story, but sometimes simple can be sublime, and this short story is all the proof one needs to back up that statement.

So great, I read it twice!

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A different kind of love story.

I will just say this: When I finished reading Cannery Row, I turned the book over and read the description on the back cover, which ends "...and Doc, a young marine biologist who ministers to sick puppies and unhappy souls, unexpectedly finds true love."

Those last four words, "unexpectedly finds true love", were my key to this story. At first I thought they made no sense (I will not say why so as not to spoil the ending for anyone), so I went back and read the book again, particulary the last three chapters, and thought about the story as a whole. And there I discovered the true genius of the book, the subtle and mysterious layers of meaning beneath the surface of this seemingly lighthearted tale.

Breathtaking. Beautiful. Sublime.

That's all I can say. Every chapter and word counts in this story. It all adds up if you pay attention, so read it, with your eyes and with your heart.

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