Cannery Row

Rating:
Summary: Steinbeck at his best
Review: If I had to pick only one Steinbeck book out of all of them, this would be the one. It's full of humor and drama. You'll love reading about Mack and the boys, along with doc and all the people in the bear Flag. You'll put the book down after reading it and fell like you just spent an hour or two in Cannery Row.

Rating:
Summary: Steinbeck's got soul
Review: I laughed out loud several times reading this book. It was like I was there too, in the thick of the log-sitting gang straight out of Huck Finn. I say Steinbeck's got soul because I hadn't come into contact with anything so beautiful and personal as his prose other than Marvin Gaye, although the feeling conveyed has more in common with the music of Al Green. His characters are sympathetic but all too human. His writing is lean and natural, and reminds me of the parts of To Kill a Mockingbird. I can't really praise it adaqequately, lacking a B.A. in literature, other than to describe my reaction to Cannery Row. I saw that ray of sunshne falling on the row, and I too was aware of the beauty that Steinbeck saw in the rough hewn characters populating it. The book is just so warm, to the point that my temperature almost came to a boil as well when doc came home to see his place ruined, and I laughed along w. doc when he put only his "best" records away in anticipation of the next party. I also appreciated Steinbeck's lack of pretension. His language and style is appropriate to the subject matter, and further brings you into the world of the row. I've mentioned several times how much I felt like I was there, how real the characters were, but I should point out that the book wasn't merely beautifully written escapist literature (which is nice too). I got close enough to the characters to feel their anxieties and disappointments. I think that's what makes this like both Al Green and Marvin Gaye. In any case, this book is a gift, even moreso than something like Annie Hall (which seemed a bit contrived), reinvigorating faith in human nature while tenderly pointing out how easy it is to fail. The characters in Cannery Row are redeemed, in the end, by continuing to try.

Rating:
Summary: Magic!
Review: Steinbeck`s literary ability blows my mind! Characters, scenes, and vignettes are rendered beautifully. This book is another of Mr. Steinbeck`s gifts to humanity.

Rating:
Summary: One of the greatest in my mind.
Review: The magic of this story never fails to delight me. Steinbeck doesn't run along to long of a plotline, yet still fills a book with beauty. It's the place that is the magic here, with the scenery taking the role of a character all its own. The mastery is revelaed when you realize that you're soaking in the beauty of what is normally considered ugly: docks and a cannery, the decaying part of a town, the homeless camps... But it all seems like the greatest pllace on earth. Steinbeck makes it seem like it's not where you are, but how you look at it.

Rating:
Summary: My husband's favorite book.
Review: I enjoyed Cannery Row, but my husband loved it. He rarely reads fiction, but now reads everything Steinbeck that he can find. The characters in this novel are wonderfully bright and colorful, and wonderfully they have a happy ending and live again in Steinbeck's sequal Sweet Thursday. A great book to change the mind of someone who thinks they don't like literature.

Rating:
Summary: A Steinbeck classic
Review: The only other Steinbeck book I have read was "Of Mice And Men." Although I liked it, I much preferred the much less well-known "Cannery Row."

One thing I like about Steinbeck is that his novels are straightforward. There is none of the stream-of-consciousness experiments or literary time warps & wormholes that you will find in so many other 20th century writers (such as William Faulkner and Hermann Broch). While he is perhaps not in the same league as Earnest Hemingway in writing this style, he is none-theless a very talented author.

"Cannery Row" is about a blue-collar community of people who lead simple lives. However, as Dr. Keating says in "Dead Poets Society," simple does not and need not necessarily = oridinary. I found myself falling in love with many of the characters, with their aww-shucks mentality & sleepy-eyed approach to life.

One thing which differentiates this novels from most other 20th century works is that it is actually, for the most part, an upbeat story. It lacks the morose undertones of the majority of novels written in the past 100-150 years. It is a book about the risks of trying to fulfill one's dreams...and the heartaches and pleasures that this crazy life has to offer. A wonderful book.

Rating:
Summary: A Poem, A Stink, A Grating Noise
Review: In Cannery Row Steinbeck depicts the beauties that everyone bears. Most of us, however, are tarnished by either greed, scandal, or sin. Cannery Row, in my opinion, bears the best style and course of writing. There is no real climax to the book. There is no shocker ending. Nobody gets murdered or wins the lottery. There are 196 pages of rich, pure, and profound content. Cannery does not thrill you by disecting the twisted sadistic mind of a sereal killer, documenting his/her thought and action like Mary Higgins Clark(hint hint Mrs. D.). Steinbeck merely tells the story of a blue-collar town and lets the reader interpret the profound and inspiring deeds and deceits. Yes, I did say profound deceits. You don't understand? READ THE BOOK!

Rating:
Summary: Cannery Row was once a real place
Review:

Cannery Row was, when I first sailed into Monterey Bay on my ketch, the Wild Goose, a real place--much the same as when Steinbeck wrote about it in 1945.

Steinbeck, in his book "Cannery Row," describes it during the period when the sardines were still running, and the canneries were going full blast. He describes the inhabitants, many of whom were drawn from real people ('Doc' Ricketts, for example, whose lab on the 'row' is still maintained as a kind of shrine) and his characterizations are marvelous.

He spins a great yarn.

And the places: The Poppy restaurant is in a different place, now, on Alvarado Street in downtown Monterey, but it still exists.

Steinbeck writes about a time that is no longer, and as everyone knows, you can't go back. But, you can see it through his eyes, and in that way we can, sort of, stop the relentless march of time and enjoy the past as it was.

When I sailed into Monterey for some respite from the sea, I didn't intend to stay long. Our boat was salt-crusted, and needed some repairs. We stayed ten years, and loved every day of it. During that time, we watched sadly as "old Monterey" was torn down and replaced with a Doubletree Inn and a conference center. Time marches on!

When we got there, the canneries were still there, on Cannery Row (which is between Monterey and Pacific Grove, in 'New Monterey'); great, rusted sheet-metal hulks. The sardines had stopped running, but Steinbeck's books had a cult following, and so the row changed into a tourist trap. The canneries were torn down, and bars, cafes and a huge aquarium replaced them. Flora's whorehouse became a pizza joint. The place fourishes, today.

It's all gone. 'Doc' Ricketts was killed when his car was hit at the crossing on the east end of the row by a train. (By the way: he was a married man with a family, some of whom resent Steinbeck's depiction of him as a rake and a drunk.)

Yes, it's all changed--but, through Steinbeck's depiction, you can still enjoy it.

Rating:
Summary: Cannery Row
Review: Cannery Row is an over all good book and great for LA. projects. The title may make you wonder, but Cannery Row is a place in Monterey California where pimps, whores, and basically everybody lives. Lying among it is a sardine cannery, a grocery store, vacant lot, and a few buildings. John Steinbeck is an excellent author and you'll probably be interested how he describes the lives of those who inhabit Cannery Row. The way he describes it, Cannery Row is all squeezed into the book. The way he changes the scenes for every chapter won't let you be get bored. Read this, it'll help you accept and appreciate life as it is.

Rating:
Summary: Fatalism as Philosophy
Review: Cannery Row is much more than the short comic sentimental telling of a year in the life of a marginalized community that exists on such scraps as an industrialized society throws its way. It is also a sustained and almost completely successful protrayal of philosophic fatalism in action. Those who struggle to the top are wasting their lives while those who literally dance to Nature's rhythms can find a sense of joy in being completed. Sometimes that completion is available through death, sometimes through accepting one's lot in life, and sometimes there is an opportunity for a great party...but not if you try too hard to plan any of this.