Rating: 
Summary: Read it AFTER Tortilla Flat
Review: The trilogy, Cannery Row, Tortilla Flat, and Sweet Thursday are my favorites of his tomes I read just for the joy of reading them. Cannery Row is the second of the set. Steinbeck at his best observing how funny is the tragedy of human experience.
Rating: 
Summary: The Humility of Being Human
Review: Cannery Row is a montage of different little stories that all take place within or in close proximity to Cannery Row in Monterey, CA. The characters are simple, and thats the point that Steinbeck is trying to make....that life can be simple and beautiful without the aid of greed, money, prestige, and other material things. The focus is on the main characters' intentions for one another, particularly 'Mack and the Boys' intentions for Doc. The entire point of the book is that humans should not get caught up in material goods so much that they forget who they really are. Overall, this was a pleasant, easy read that brightened my day. It was loosely dynamic, and just well, pleasant. I enjoyed it, so I recommend it, but it may not blow you away in any way.
Rating:
Summary: One of his best
Review: This is a great novel of the 20th century. It is Steinbeck at his best. It is one of hist best Southern California novels and is a true American classic. This is NOT a classic that no one has read, it is actually a classic that deserves to be a classic and everyone should read it! It is a truly great book!
Rating:
Summary: Timeless classic
Review: I have reread this novel every couple of years since I first read it about 10 years ago. (I often listen to it as a book on tape in my car--there is an excellent unabridged version available.) Each reading is better, and with each trip through more of Steinbeck's humor comes forward. This story is first rate.
Rating:
Summary: a tidal pool of humanity
Review: At times hilarious, at others poignant, this is a snapshot of life in early 20th century Monterey. The language is poetic and metaphoric. The plot, which is mostly Mack's attempts to give Doc a party, is broken occasionally by short "interludes", little paintings of other characters that may or may not be seen again. Like a tidal pool after the tide is out, this book is teeming with all sorts of life. A great introduction to Steinbeck, if you need encouragement to read his longer works.
Rating:
Summary: True Steinbeck
Review: Having read many of Steinbeck's novels, I went into this one knowing what to expect, and I was not disappointed. In some ways this book reminded me very much of Tortilla Flats, in that it's largely about poor people who make the best out of their situations. In other ways it reminded me of The Grapes of Wrath, in that there was a lot of thinly-veiled social criticism, but the socialism themes weren't overwhelming. The one thing I found to stand out more in this novel over the other two was the fact that Steinbeck's humor really had a chance to come out in this one. His humor reminds me of, perhaps, the sort of humor one might expect from a grandfather. The book really focuses in on simple living, and the ability to find contentment without wealth. I would reccommend it to anyone.
Rating:
Summary: From The Proper Perspective, This Book Is Incomparable
Review: I had to read this book for a class in high school, and slogging through it was like trudging through ankle-deep tar. It was impossibly tough to get into, and the activities of the characters made no sense whatever to me. However, I re-read it when I was 26 -- after I'd been out on my own for awhile, after I'd loved and lost and (this is the paramount factor) after I had learned what beer is all about. This Doc fellow became my hero. Independent, industrious, popular and, this above all, a great connoisseur of beer under all conditions, any time of day. It's not just for breakfast any more!
Rating:
Summary: Steinbeck at his best
Review: Regular people have never been so entertaining, so moving, so real. In Cannery Row, Steinbecks paints the portrait of a California town and their inhabitants on a canvas that is his pages. True to Steinbeck's form, everybody is a hero in his book and everybody has a story. From a man who loves to work on his boat yet is scared of the water to a stingy yet fair Chinese grocer, Steinbeck creates for his reader a world completely immersable. Cannery Row's short length doesn't make any of Steinbeck's chapters less astounding and moving, his prose style discriptive yet direct. The book is like a good meal, you take it in one bite at a time and savor it before moving on. By the time I had finished reading the book, Mack and the boys, Doc, Lee Chong the grocers might have well been my neighbors. "Cannery Row in Monterey in California is a poem, a stink, a grating noise, a quality of light, a tone, a habit, a nostalgia, a dream..."
Rating:
Summary: Short, yet blissfully sweet
Review: "There are your true philosophers." -
Doc's laconic, yet accurate, observation astutely equates Mack and his motley gang of apathetic winos to that of philosophers. However absurd this may sound to those who have yet to read Cannery Row, it is altogeter true and revealing. Steinbeck, as is his custom, expertly and artistically endears his lowbrow group of characters to the reader. While whores & alcoholic bums living on the indigent fringes of Monterey, California may not sound like your cup of tea, they nonetheless make for a great novel. Steinbeck, allowing his characters to speak with candid blue-collar vernacular, ties in his uncanny and unique ability to pull the reader into the woefully downtrodden, yet extraordinarily vibrant, and all too real, world that is Cannery Row. Just like he so masterfully accomplishes in Of Mice and Men and The Grapes of Wrath, Steinbeck exquisitely explores the inner depths of humanity and the immense resiliency of the human spirit and its inherent propensity to overcome the trials and tribulations of adversity. Despite being miserably destitute and forlorn by others' standards, the eclectic gang of Cannery Row consciously rises above the utter chaos of soulless ambition and covetousness and, in their genuine indolent happiness, perseveringly subsist as "curiously clean." Short, yet blissfully sweet.
Rating:
Summary: Read the Sequel
Review: If you've read Cannery Row, it only gets better in Sweet Thursday.
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