A Final Word

All colors and blends of Americans have somewhat the same tendencies. It's a breed -- selected out by accident. And so we're overbrave and overfearful - - we are kind and cruel as children. We're overfriendly and at the same time frightened of strangers. We boast and are impressed. We're oversentimental and realistic. We are mundane and materialistic -- and do you know of any other nation that acts for ideals? We eat too much. We have no taste, no sense of proportion. We throw our energy about like waste. In the old lands they say of us that we go from barbarism to decadence without an intervening culture. 

--East of Eden, John Steinbeck 

It has been written that John Steinbeck considered East of Eden his crowning achievement, and in my mind he was quite right in thinking so, and I am so glad to have finally, after 71, nearly 72 years, to have gotten around reading it through.ll Then again, maybe I was not remiss or lazy in the past. Maybe this has been the proper time to read the book, because you have to be patient, you have to be focused, and you have to have, perhaps, some of the experience of life under your belt to fully digest and appreciate what is being said. 

Of course, it is hard to compare vastly dissimilar efforts in literature. East of Eden is one thing - - very long, sprawling, complex--while titles such as Cannery Row, Sweet Thursday, Of Mice and Men are as sharp and focused as one of Muhammad Ali's left jabs. I loved those brilliant short novels as well. But pressed to choose, I do conclude that East of Eden is Steinbeck's masterpiece.