So, I've decided to make a blogpost to honor Steinbeck, the author I loved the most as a young student and for years to come. And while I loved each Steinbeck novel - in keeping with the common themes of this blog, I want to highlight another of his novels -East of Eden-.
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Two hours south of San Francisco and dubbed “the circle of enchantment,” the Peninsula is home to three lovely towns—Monterey, Pacific Grove, and Carmel—and miles of rocky shore, beaches and forests. When I took a trip northward from my southern California home with my sister - to this location - we found driftwood in the shapes of many different kinds of creatures as we ran enchanted among wind-sculpted trees (and perhaps in that state where dreams and reality meet as well - since we had been up all night driving.) A haunting memory for two sisters.
How fitting- this peninsula is home for so many scenes in Steinbecks works. Because Steinbeck creates "a circle of enchantment" with his poetic style and universal themes.
Having read and been deeply impressed with nearly all Steinbeck's novels before the age of twenty-five or so, somehow I skipped over -East of Eden- until my French teacher - a kindred soul - said I should see the film. When I saw the early classic -at first I was put off by the stylized approach until I recognized how this story was helped thereby to become clearly timeless.
For me "...Eden" told what happens when any person or group of persons are led to feel less worthy than others - abandoned. What about the fury in such a wake? A fury only sometimes matched by the tempest of the sea - churned during those storms apparently forever. The jealousy and destruction - which is thereby stirred - leaves all too many generations and nations to experiences of the same.
Of course there are other themes, perhaps even more important to Steinbeck and his readers. Yet these triple themes of sibling rivalry - abandonment - jealously are the ones which struck me then and are the ones which still strike me now in literature, film and life.
Note that Chapter 34 of the novel East of Eden was privately printed in 1952 with the title “What is the World's Story about?”
Perhaps readers will find here some recognition and connections?
Connie, One Heart blogger
BACKGROUND
John Steinbeck's East of Eden was published for the first time by Viking Press in September 1952, ten years before the writer was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, and has never been out of print since. In November 1952 East of Eden was number one on the fiction best-seller list.
In A Journal of a Novel: The East of Eden Letter, the writer's diary of East of Eden, Steinbeck calls the novel “...the story of my country and the story of me.” The book spans the history of the nation from the Civil War to World War I and tells the story of two American families, The Hamiltons, Steinbeck's matenal relatives, are the “Universal Family” and the fictional Trasks are the “Universal Neighbors.”
Steinbeck's inspiration for the novel comes from the Bible, the fourth chapter of the book of Genesis, verses one though sixteen, which recounts the story of Cain and Abel. The title, East of Eden, was chosen by Steinbeck from Genesis, Chapter 4, verse 16.
The novel was originally addressed to Steinbeck's young sons, Thom and John IV (then 6 1/2 and 4 1/2 respectively). Steinbeck wanted to describe the Salinas Valley for them in detail: the sights, sounds, smells, and colors.
Steinbeck called East of Eden “a sort of autobiography of the Salinas Valley.”
East of Eden begins in 1862 and covers three generations and 56 years. The book ends in salinas, California, in 1918.
The theme of East of Eden: “All novels, all poetry, are built on the never-ending contest in ourselves of good and evil.”
Steinbeck called this book “The big one as far as I'm concerned. Always before I held something back for later. Nothing is held back here.”
East of Eden is an allegorical/realistic novel, a daring combination of biography and fiction.
Steinbeck returned to Salinas in February of 1948 to begin intensive research for what he considered would be his greatest book, East of Eden. During his stay in Monterey, he drove to Salinas and used the files of the local newspaper, the Salinas Index-Journal. The novel was completed in November of 1951.
The work on East of Eden followed two blows, the death of Edward Ricketts, Steinbeck's best friend, known as “Doc” in his Cannery Row books, and the separation and divorce from his second wife, Gwyn.
Journal of a Novel: The East of Eden Letters, the posthumously published series of letters to Pascal Covici that accompanied the text of East of Eden, was published in 1969.
WRITING
The book was written in part in New York City in a four-story brownstone house on Seventy Second Street. Steinbeck had an upstairs room for writing. The Steinbecks rented a Victorian two-story family beach house in Siasconset on Nantucket Island where the writer spent several months working on his novel.
Chapter 34 of the novel East of Eden was privately printed in 1952 with the title “What is the World's Story about?”
The novel East of Eden has been translated into many languages of the world, among them Burmese, Chinese, Danish, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Italian, Polish, Portuguese, Swedish, Japanese, Norwegian, Serbo-Croatian, Slovene, and Spanish. Russian scholars are working on the Russian translation.
The original manuscript of East of Eden is in the Humanities Research Center, University of Texas at Austin, Texas.
Steinbeck kept track of things while writing East of Eden, and this is the record:
• Eleven years of mental gestation
• One year of uninterrupted writing
• 25 dozen pencils
• Approximately three dozen reams of paper
• 350,000 words (before cutting)
• About 75,000 words in his work-in-progress journal
• And a rock-hard callus on the middle finger of the writer's right hand.
Steinbeck's widow, Elaine, in looking back on the year that he worked on the book, said that his work on the novel affected him deeply. Perhaps the best way to put it would be to say that it was the last stage in putting himself back together after the years that had torn him apart.
As Steinbeck progressed through the early chapters, he noted that his voice would be more apparent in this book than in any other because he wanted it to contain everything he remembered to be true. He would be in this one and not “for one moment pretend not to be.”
Steinbeck states about East of Eden, “It has everything in it I have been able to learn about my craft or profession in all these years.” He further claimed, “I think everything else I have written has been, in a sense, practice for this.”
East of Eden became a best seller so it was a natural for the movies. East of Eden, the film, was directed and produced by Elia Kazan and starred James Dean as “Cal.” The film opens at approximately Chapter 37 in Part Four of the novel. The film, shot in part in Salinas, California, was finished and released in 1955. The film has now reached the stature of a classic.
TELEVISION PRODUCTION
East of Eden was adapted for television and presented on February 8, 9, and 11 in 1981 by ABC.
PUBLICATION
The Bantam paperback edition became a multimillion copy best seller that later scaled new heights on the strength of the James Dean movie version.
The musical version of East of Eden, “Here's Where I Belong,” opened March 3, 1968, at the Billy Rose Theater and closed after one showing.
East of Eden, a new adaptation for the stage, was performed at Steinbeck Festival XI and XV by The Western Stage Company of Hartnell College.
Compiled by Pauline Pearson
June 5, 1990
Revised 6/95
This review and other material on Steinbeck can be found here
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