East of Eden (Oprah's Book Club)

Rating:
Summary: A perfect book
Review: East of Eden is truly a remarkable novel, I liked the way Steinbeck uses the characters to retell the Biblical story of Cain and Abel. The book shows how a person can be in control with his own moral destiny. The intense dialogue and the smooth flow of narration give the readers the 'can't stop reading factor'. Every single person who reads the book will be able to relate to story because Steinbeck is able to portray themes such as human nature, and man's inhumanity to man. I love the way Steinbeck ended the novel and leaving off with the picture of Adam whispering 'Timshel,' to his son because this gives assurance to the reader and not leaving them in puzzlement in the end. This is truly a must read to all Steinbeck fans!
Also recommended: BARK OF THE DOGWOOD and CHILDREN'S CORNER by McCrae

Rating:
Summary: Before it's time
Review: I found it drudging getting through this novel. It's a soap opera driven plot that seems to have been written before it's time. For a more current, up to date type novel, read the book that's inching up on the Oprah's BC list called LUST OF THE FLESH by Beverly Rolyat. It's engaging, compelling, riveting, gripping and a pageturner. A blockbuster novel with an enlightening message through and through. Highly recommend, but sexually explicit (I guess that accounts for its title and theme).

Rating:
Summary: A Complete Masterpiece!
Review: How does one write a review about "The East of Eden?"
It is so full of beauty that the words are still absorbing
inside of me--
Steinbeck is a master storyteller--and this book follows three generations of families and the choices they make in life, how each choice affects the next choice.

I adore how Steinbeck will throw universal messages in for the reader--deep directives about religion, racism, and most of all---how the choices we make in life NOW can be our down-fall in the end.

"East of Eden" is perfection--with its language, images, universality, humour, and profound intellegence.

I will not go into the characters--because one must read the enire book to get the entire essence--and you will not be the same afterwards. (But I will say "The Chinese Servant") is used by Steinbeck as a sort of wisdom, guru, conscience. He is superb.

"East of Eden" would not be the book it is without "Redemption"
and wouldn't you know it-- Steinbeck throws that in too!

*****This book will live forever***** Perfection.

Rating:
Summary: The Best by the Best
Review: East of Eden is fantastic. I am usually a slower reader, but completed the 600 pages in less than a week. Steinbeck's prose is enchanting. The characters, particularly Sam Hamilton and Lee are entirely believable.

The message of "thou mayest" is timeless and profound. For Steinbeck to find this essential truth buried in one of the oldest and most commonly known stories in the western world is remarkable. Steinbeck's insight that is so valuable because it names an essential mindset that provides enormous leverage in the battle to find your voice. You will be better off for reading this book.

I aspire to teach this novel in class someday.

Rating:
Summary: Reading "East of Eden"
Review: I hadn't read John Steinbeck since high school but returned to him a year or so ago when our book group read his novel "The Winter of our Discontent." Following that, I read several other Steinbeck novels and recently had the good luck to read "East of Eden." It is admirable that Oprah Winfrey used this large, complex novel to present to her audience.

Steinbeck wrote "East of Eden" in a burst of energy over several months in 1951. He loved this book among all his works and, literally, put himself into it. The first-person narrator of the story is, indeed, Steinbeck himself speaking in his own voice as a grandson of Samuel Hamilton, born in Ireland and a hero of this novel.

Steinbeck said that he wrote "East of Eden" to tell "the story of my country and the story of me" to his two young sons in order to demonstrate "the greatest story of all -- the story of good and evil, of strength and weakness, of love and hate, of beauty and ugliness, how these doubles are inseparable." For all its melodrama, length, sometimes black-and-white characterizations, and preachiness, the novel achieves its goals. I was transfixed by the book, couldn't put it down, and read it in a short time.

The story includes the "doubles" to which Steinbeck refers as well as some others. The book is the story of two families, the Hamiltons and the Trasks. It is the story of two Trask brothers, Adam and Charles, and of the two twin sons of Adam Trask and his wife Cathy -- Aron and Caleb. Both Adam and Charles and Aron and Caleb replicate in their own ways the Bible story of Cain and Abel. Steinbeck gives this story a full, rabinnical exegisis as the reader sees the story of the conflict between good and evil play out in double over the course of the book.

The Trask family and the Hamilton family are settlers in the Salinas Valley in Northern California. "East of Eden" develops a finse sense of place, and when I finished bhe book I felt I knew an area and its history that I have only in the most superficial manner seen myself. Samuel Hamilton, Steinbeck's granfather, figures prominently in this book for his wisdom, his stoicism, his inventiveness, and his other - worldliness. His wife, Lisa, is also portrayed lovingly.

Perhaps the most memorable character of the book is Cathy Trask who becomes "Kate" after she leaves Adam Trask and returns to the profession of prostitution in which she was engaged before her marriage. Steinbeck calls her a "monster" and well he might. The protrayal is striking and even nuanced at the end for all the starkness.

Lee, a Chinese servant, is also well-portrayed for his fine mind, wisdom, tact, love of learning, and, ultimately, devotion to the Trasks and understanding of himself.

This is a sweeping, dramatically told story which captures the land, the good and evil of which people are capable, and the importance of what in the Cain and Abel story is described by the Hebrews word "Timshel" with which Steinbeck concludes his novel. People have the capacity for both good and evil and the power for choice -- to understand the good and reject the evil. The story is told in a humanistic rather than a theological way.

"East of Eden" is a memorable work of American literature that, as a result in part of Oprah Winfrey and her edition of the book, is receiving the attention it deserves.

Rating:
Summary: John Steinbeck at his best.
Review: I grew up reading Steinbeck, and i love everything about him. His colourful landscapes, or the unique characters, and the poetic style of every novel. East of Eden ranks amongst the finest of Steinbeck's work, along with The grapes of Wrath and Of mice and men, but also the lesser known works which also astounded me, like To a god unknown. The length of this novel should not put anyone off, as it is an easy read that you won't want to put down. You'll end up wishing it was longer. This is a perfectly epic construe of literature. It is also great to see the recent revival of interest in this book, and many others like it. It gives the choice of reading back to the reader.
This is a modern fable, and one that should last as long as the ones from the bible upon which Steinbeck constantly plays.