East of Eden

Author: John Steinbeck

Rating: ⭐ 5/5

Date Read: 2012/09/14

Pages: 601

Wow.

After finishing this book, all I can do is keep repeating the word “wow.” I say the word, I think for awhile, I glace back at the book, and say “wow” again. I can’t help it; it’s just that kind of book.

It’s hard to explain what this book is about. Steinbeck is a much better writer than I am, so I’ll use his words in my review: “I believe that there is one story in the world, and only one… . Humans are caught—in their lives, in their thoughts, in their hungers and ambitions, in their avarice and cruelty, and in their kindness and generosity too—in a net of good and evil… . There is no other story. A man, after he has brushed off the dust and chips of his life, will have left only the hard, clean questions: Was it good or was it evil? Have I done well—or ill?”

As I read this book, I couldn’t help feeling the strangest sense of deja vu. I’ve thought many things, privately, that I filed away in my brain and thought I’d never think again. These were secret thoughts, that I thought were mine alone, and the reason I kept them secret was because I was too afraid to share them. Afraid, because I thought them, and after thinking them I immediately wished that I hadn’t. But these thoughts did not belong to me: Steinbeck thought them first, and he was not afraid, and he wrote them down.

Now, I feel less afraid. Now, I feel more human.