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Summary: "To A God Unknown" is a terrible beauty
Review: "To A God Unknown" is Steinbeck's disturbing treatment of spirituality, superstition, and the power of faith. This is a story that will stick to the ribs of the thoughtful reader. At turns horrific and beautiful, this is a book to be read at intervals in the course of the life of a spiritual seeker. You will be haunted by the truths found beneath the hard stones of Steinbeck's simple language, and will find yourself returning again to this disturbing kingdom of the soul. Combining elements of Christianity, Paganism, and free-form superstition, this book may well cause you to reassess your thoughts on the nature of the mind and of god.
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Summary: brilliant
Review: As a dedicated fan of steinbeck, i would be hard pressed to say anything negative about any of his work. This book, however, needs no favoritism towards its author on my part. A multifacited tale with description transcending any other underlies a plot so strong and powerful that the novel sticks with you and overshadows all others.
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Summary: Early Steinbeck writing
Review: As a lover of Steinbeck's work, I may be prejudiced here, this novel about how a man can feel about himself and his place in the sun is a good way to get a feel about J. Steinbeck's evolvement as a writer of powerful & moving human emotions. As with any story, you must remember the place & time in history that it was written and the cultural parameters occuring during that time. I find this an exceptional early work for an author built on an uncommon, dare I say "daring", openess for religion, raw sexuality, family values and mystical beliefs at a time when American society was strait-jacketed into religous and social constrictions. It is stories like these that let readers stretch and push the boundries of acceptable behaviour and kept censorship at bay. Something that may be taken for granted today.
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Summary: The don't make 'em like the used to
Review: Every great once in a while, a gem of a story falls into your hands, and so it is with "To A God Unknown". I have never understood why this book has not received the notoriety that it well deserves. It is truly Steinbeck's sleeper. I have recently been reading some of the current 'bestsellers' and the Oprah books and have become thoroughly disillusioned and disgusted with what we're killing trees to produce. I think it's time to reread something worthwhile. If only J.S. could be reincarnated.
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Summary: Unsettling, thought-provoking, celebratory, and forboding.
Review: For anyone raised with a pro-nature, Christian ethic, this book is unsettling. Steinbeck personifies nature in a way many readers will see as essentially true. However, many of novel's themes hint at the dualistic Earth-worship which many Christians suspect is hiding within the trappings of New-Age theology. If this novel were made into a movie, it has enough dark undertones that it might be aired on the sci-fi channel. I'm a big fan of Steinbeck's work and this is a particular favorite of mine. However, it is not representative of his other writing. This is a quirky, disturbing novel.
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Summary: Best Steinbeck novel I have yet to read
Review: Granted, I've only also read Totilla Flat and Of Mice and Men. You can tell that Steinbeck spent five years on this -- it pays off. There is so much texture in the book, so many foreshadowings, and a good dose subtle references. It's difficult to put a lot of those in a one book without losing the subtlety, but it works here. It feels like Steinbeck obsessed over every line. To be sure, when this was written, John was still a rookie, and his style and some of his charetarization would improve over time, but for my money's worth, it repays it's price several times over. Thanks Penguin!
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Summary: It was hard to interprate
Review: I read this book for a book report. It was hard to understand. It is hard to find the deep down meaning and put it into words. Even though it was hard to interprate it was an exelent book. It was very inspring.
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Summary: Overblown
Review: I really must dissent here. Steinbeck later in his life made many a pronouncement concerning how it was the duty of the writer to capture the human spirit, in all its greatness and frailty. Unfortunately, in this novel I found few characters that even resembled human beings. It smacks of a young writer trying too hard; so packed with portents, symbols, mysticism, and pseudo-majestic dialog that I almost gave up on it several times. It reads almost like a book of the Old Testament. I feel his later novels, such as "The Wayward Bus" and "The Winter Of Our Discontent" do a much better job of speaking on the human condition.
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Summary: well, he tried
Review: I've read most of Steinbeck's novels and I feel like with this book, he had an idea but didn't quite get there. Without giving away the ending, you might as well just go rent "Dead Man Walking" because it's along the same lines. It's about a man who tries to start a farming "complex" with his family and the trials they endure such as death, birth, drought, etc. There's also this part about religion and a tree, sounds strange... since this was his second novel, I feel like he went back and developed it into two novels- East of Eden about the religion and God and thou maysest/I brought rain and Grapes of Wrath about drought, plight of farmers, desolation, the land turning bad, etc. I also didn't care for his misogyny. I've found it in many of his works, but this has the most overt example: "I thought he'd pick a wife as he'd pick a cow- to be a good cow, perfect in the activity of cows- to be a good wife and very like a cow" (67). Overall, I'd reccommend reading Grapes of Wrath and/or East of Eden (but with EoE, watch out for the misogyny through the character of evil Cathy the (...) mother/poor wife)
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Summary: The Natural World
Review: In Vermont, Joseph Wayne decides to leave the family farm as it is not big enough to provide sufficient land for all of the family. Joseph arrives in California and establishes a new farm there, but still regrets leaving his family (his father in particular).
Following the death of Joseph's father, the rest of the family arrive in California, joining Joseph's struggle to come to terms with the new way of life there.
"To a God Unknown" is a lyrical novel, told in close to Biblical terms. Much of the dialogue is unconvincing as a depiction of real conversation, yet it fits in if you read the novel as a kind of fable. Joseph finds that the land is alive - the novel is overtly pantheistic: the tree benath which Joseph builds his new farm house becomes an embodiment of his dead father. The rock in the pine glade is totemic. The characters live in a California in which Christianity, paganism and pantheism coexist, albeit uncomfortably.
The novel's intensity makes it almost claustrophobic (if that description can be given to a piece of writing) - nature is very alive, affecting all of the characters, both physically and spiritually. An interesting read.
G Rodgers
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