Cannery Row

Rating:
Summary: Cannery Row review
Review: I would have to say that at first I wasn't very excited about reading this book. I thought that it was not going to be very interesting. But as the story went along I actually started to like the book more and more. Stienbeck gives you alot of information on all of the main characters and he throws in some of smaller charaters to give an indepth look into the life and times of cannery row!!

Rating:
Summary: Rachael's Review
Review: I think this book was pretty good. The story was good, and it was written very well. It was easy to follow along with. The only thing that could have been better, was the author could have explained things in more detail than he did.

Rating:
Summary: Cannery row review
Review: This book had some comedy and some deep stuff that was harder to understand... The short stories on the people of cannery row seemed to clutter the book and offered nothing but a few pages to the book.

Rating:
Summary: America, cooked and canned
Review: Open up this novel and you'll smell sardines. You'll hear the sweet sad music from Western Biological late at night, taste "Old Tennis Shoes" whiskey, see the rusting boilers on the vacant lot and feel, well you'll feel a part of the rich marine soup of Cannery Row. A dozen unforgettable characters, a wonderful setting and a story that doesn't seem to go anywhere but carries you along all the same.

This is a novel about relationships. Of men with men, men with women, people relating to their environment and finding where they fit in the framework.

It's a small can of California, and you can open it again and again to tase the unique flavour. And, best of all, when you are done, Steinbeck has a dozen more short novels, every bit as rich and powerful as this one. Several share the same setting and characters.

Open it up and dive in!

Rating:
Summary: American Folklore at its Best
Review: Steinbeck has a way of telling a tale of the
comman man which breathes life into the mythos
which support our culture. America has long had
an affinity for the exploits of those who live
on it's fringes. The drifters, the con men, the
dreamers and searchers doomed to anonymity were
it not for the likes of authors such as Steinbeck.
This is a simple tale, but told so well it can be
read again and again...

Rating:
Summary: Immensly Enjoyable and i know i spelled these words wrong
Review: This is a really fun book to read even if some terribly sad things happen (the fate of the little kid had me in tears) but all in all its full of sentiment witho ut being sentimental. Do your self a favour and join Mack and the boys at the flop house with a bottle of old "tennis-shoes"

Rating:
Summary: Without a little strangeness, life would be so mundane...
Review: Cannery Row is a simple Hamlet by the water. The sun comes up. The people come out. The day goes on. The evening calls everyone back to the homes that they have made for themselves to enjoy a sound and assured sleep. And again comes another day. But like any other place in the universe where a Hamlet exists such as this, it's those odd personalities that make the place an interesting one to examine.

It is Steinbeck's signature to tell a story such as this. It is something made out of nothing. He presents a sort of strange symbolism when he introduces us to an old Chinaman that each day comes walking down the road like the ever-constant sunrise and disappears into the sea. At the end of the day the same old man retraces his flip-flopping steps from the sea, back down the very same road to some place out of town.

Steinbeck again creates a cast of characters so silly that they are charming and of honorable note, the description of how a collection of bumbling idiots have single-handedly created a new wave of frog-catching makes this short story well worth any and all trouble to enjoy. Dear reader will be sure to quake with laughter for some time after.

Rating:
Summary: I recently visted Cannery Row
Review: Decades ago, the main drag of Monterey, CA was lined with canneries which would pack sardines brought in by fishing boats. In the mid 1940s, the yearly yield began to dramatically decline and in 1973, the last cannery went out of business. The street was renamed "Cannery Row" after the title of this novel. Now, Monterey is a trendy tourist spot but, after reading this novel, I can picture the Monterey of years ago. In fact, I grew up in such a village on the east coast called "Greenport" on the eastern end of Long Island. Greenport evolved from a fishing town to a resort area too.

In my mind's eye, I can see the colorful characters Steinbeck created frequenting the streets of Monterey. Indeed, many of the characters were based upon real people. The colorful madam of the town's house of prostitution, Dora Flood, was based on an actual person named Flora Woods. The biologist "Doc," who ran a biological supply shop which supplied animals to labs, was based upon Steinbeck's actual close friend. Steinbeck treats these characters with affection. For the most part, they are oddballs and misfits but, on Cannery Row, they manage to fit in perfectly. They belong there and the personalities of these colorful individuals mesh perfectly. Oh sure, there are conflicts and trouble but, all in all, everything works out.

The book is lighthearted. After being a WWII war correspondant, Steinbeck gave the soldiers something funny to read. At times the book is poignant and at other times, it is almost slapstick as some of the characters find themselves in situations which would do justice to the Three Stooges. Where else but in this community can a prisoner in the local jail get furloughed for a day since the prisoner has influence to deliver votes to the sheriff in the next election? Where else can a married couple live happily in a large, abandoned boiler located in a vacant lot on Cannery Row?

Interestingly, none of the action takes place in a cannery. The only references to the canneries are when one of the characters needs a job for a couple of months and takes one at a cannery. Somehow, with little money and sporadic work, everyone seems to survive in flophouses, boilers, pipes or wherever else they can mooch their way through life and they are happy with their lots in life. Yes, it's a fantasy but it's a beautifully written, descriptive one. It is a fine work of literature that I heartily recommend.

Rating:
Summary: Capturing humanity in small town coastal Cali
Review: I was pretty much blown away by this book. Unfortunately, I'm coming late to discovering Steinbeck. I read "Travels With Charley" early on and more recently "Tortilla Flat." Of his fictional works "Cannery Row" has far been my favorite to date.

From "Tortilla Flat" Steinbeck has come a long way. "Cannery Row" is more cohesive of the two; it's storyline being more linear. It still reads like a series of vignettes but each leading to the next to put together the tale, and what a tale it is. It hangs on to a thread of realism and captures a greater sense of what it is to be human, the interrelatedness of a community, despair, and hope, magnifying all of humanity within a microcosm of Cannery Row.

Again, there is a characteristic band of Monterey merry men, but this time there is the offset of people with jobs and responsibilities. Doc, who is based on Steinbeck's great friend Edward Ricketts, leader of the Oceanic Biological Institute, is an endearing character. Steinbeck paints a portrait of someone you would want to meet, instantly respect, and be lifelong acquaintances. There is a strong sense of familiarity here.

Chapter 2 is some of the finest writing I've come across. A beautiful two-page poem. "Mack and the boys, spinning in their orbits. They are the Virtues, the Graces, the Beauties of the hurried mangled craziness of Monterey and the cosmic Monterey where men in fear and hunger destroy their stomachs in the fight to secure certain food, where men hungering for love destroy everything lovable about them."

Truly elevated writing with a sense of melancholy that presents itself as part of life, hanging in the balance with the parties, grocery stores, tidal pools, whorehouses. Great book. Now on to Tom Joad.

Rating:
Summary: Steinbeck strikes again!
Review: John Steinbeck strikes again! First in The Grapes of Wrath and Of Mice and Men and now in Cannery Row. Living among the sardine canneries of Monterey, California, are Mack, Hazel, Eddie, Hughie, and Jones. Young men with no jobs and nothing to do, just hanging out by the sea, chipping in their two cents. They aren't bad just haven't got a thing to worry about or do. As a result they are always doing things for the people of Monterey. From Doc, the owner of Western Biological, to Lee Chong, the owner of the grocery store. The only problem is that things often go wrong for Mack and his boys. Lee is wary every time one comes in the store, and Doc knows something is up every time Mack comes by asking if he's got any specimen orders to be filled. Throughout the book, the crew runs into problems but somehow for better or worse they get through it. A wonderful book about the simpleness of the poor life. A well written book with a good steady plot that lets you hear the Chinese man and his wet shoes go squishing by every morning, see the tall cannery buildings and smell the salty ocean air. John Steinbeck has yet another great book that brings you into Monterey and love the characters, even if you don't want too.