While his earlier Grapes of Wrath may have earned him a Pulitzer, East of Eden is widely acknowledged as a better and more mature novel and I was surprised at how readable it was 70 years after its original publication. Sadly, I don’t believe that I ever read East of Eden back in high school but I’m glad I finally grabbed it off my book shelf where it had languished gathering dust the past 14 years!
Certain novels continue to be widely read because they capture and bring to life timeless themes and ideas, such as family, loss, original sin, forgiveness, rivalry, greed, and daring. East of Eden covers all of these but most importantly it captures the great divide between the East and the West at the turn of the century with the narrator observing that: “I always found in myself a dread of West and a love of East.” This notion would be captured once again by another virtuoso author named Chris George Latore Wallace some 45 years later in his seminal album Life After Death. It is here in his single “Going Back to Cali” that Mr. Wallace opines “If I got to choose a coast, I got to choose the East I live out there, so don't go there.” There too in Chris Wallace’s West lied uncertainty, foreboding, and in his case–death–that same year.
With a novel like East there’s a lot more I could say but what I’ll highlight here is Steinbeck’s amazing eye for character descriptions.
1. Timshel: Free Will and the Human Soul
The concept of Timshel ("Thou mayest") is the book’s philosophical core. It argues that humans are not doomed by their heritage or past but have the choice to overcome evil.
Page 303-304: “But I have a new love for that glittering instrument, the human soul. It is a lovely and unique thing in the universe. It is always attacked and never destroyed— because ‘Thou mayest.’”
Page 308-309: “‘Thou mayest’ rule over sin! Why, that’s it! I don't believe all men are destroyed... ‘Thou mayest’! ‘Thou mayest’! What glory!... Timshel!”
Page 522: “I said that word carried a man’s greatness if he wanted to take advantage of it... Said it gave him a right to be a man, separate from every other man.”
Page 602: “His whispered word managed to hang on the air: ‘Timshel!’”
2. The Universal Story: Good vs. Evil
Steinbeck argues that every human life is a re-enactment of the same fundamental struggle, primarily modeled on the story of Cain and Abel.
Page 270: “I think this is the best-known story in the world because it is everybody’s story... The greatest terror a child can have is that he is not loved, and rejection is the hell he fears.”
Page 413: “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?”
Page 414: “All novels, all poetry, are built on the never-ending contest in ourselves of good and evil... vice has always a new fresh young face, while virtue is venerable as nothing else in the world is.”
3. The Individual and the "Glory" of Creation
Steinbeck uses his narrative interruptions to examine the idea of the individual mind against the "group" or the system.
Page 131: “Sometimes a kind of glory lights up the mind of a man... it relates us to the world. It is the mother of all creativeness, and it sets each man apart from all other men.”
Page 132: “Nothing was ever created by two men. There are no good collaborations... the free, exploring mind of the individual human is the most valuable thing in the world.”
Page 132: “I can understand why a system built on a pattern must try to destroy the free mind... and I hate it and I will fight against it.”
4. Family, Legacy, and Childhood
How children view their parents and the distinct personalities of the Hamilton siblings.
Page 19-20: “The gods have fallen and all safety has gone. And there is one sure thing about the fall of gods: they do not fall a little; they crash and shatter.”
Page 11-12 (Liza Hamilton): “She frightened her grandchildren because she had no weakness.”
Page 40 (Tom Hamilton): “He was born in fury and he lived in lightning.”
Page 422 (Aron Trask): “His very prettiness caused some difficulty... His body was as insensitive to pain as his mind was to subtleties.”
5. The Nature of Monsters and Malice
Through Cathy (Kate), Steinbeck explores the idea of an "innate" evil—someone born without the "norms" of morality.
Page 72-73: “Having never had any morals, she could not miss them. To the inner monster, it must be even more obscure, since he has no visible thing to compare with others.”
Page 75: “The only drawback in that freedom [from sexuality] is that without it one would not be a human, one would be a monster.”
Page 146: “There’s a black violence in this valley... It is as secret as a hidden sorrow.”
6. Reflections on Success and Mortality
Lee and Samuel often discuss the emptiness of wealth and the ultimate "measuring stick" of a person's life.
Page 308: “I have noticed that there is no dissatisfaction like that of the rich. Feed a man, clothe him, put him on a good horse, and he will die of despair.”
Page 414: “Most of their vices are attempted shortcuts to love. When a man comes to die... if he dies unloved his life must be a failure to him and his dying a cold horror.”
Page 541: “Money is easy to make if it’s money you want. But with a few exceptions, people don’t want money. They want luxury and they want love and they want admiration.”
Key Quotes:
Page 3 “I always found in myself a dread of West and a love of East.”
Page 4 “Maybe the less you have, the more you are required to boast.”
Page 5-6 On the Salinas Valley: “And it never failed that during the dry years the people forgot about the rich years, and during the wet years they lost all memory of the dry years. It was always that way.”
Page 11-12 On Samuel Hamilton: He is remembered as an ingenious, circumspect man. Of his wife, Liza, the narrator says: “She frightened her grandchildren because she had no weakness.”
Page 13-14 Describing the men who came from Europe to California, Steinbeck compares the "giants" who arrived with nothing to those who arrived with money and did well clearing land and planting wheat, such as Adam Trask: “Such things have disappeared because men do not trust themselves anymore, and when that happens, there’s nothing left except for perhaps to find some strong sure man, even though he may be wrong, and to dangle from his coattails.”
Page 19-20 On the realization that parents are human: “When a child first catches adults out—when it first walks into his grave little head that adults do not have divine intelligence, that their judgments are not always wise, their thinking true, their sentences just—his world falls into panic desolation. The gods have fallen and all safety has gone. And there is one sure thing about the fall of gods: they do not fall a little; they crash and shatter or sink deeply into green muck. It is a tedious job to build them up again; they never quite shine. And the child’s world is never quite whole again. It is an aching kind of growing.”
Page 20 “Charles felt for his brother the affection one has for helpless things, for blind puppies and new babies.”
Page 21 The narrator notes that the sin Adam Trask’s mother assumed was likely the sin of his father, Cyrus.
Page 21 In describing Alice’s private moments: “For Alice had been naked—she had been smiling.” (An observation on her rare emotional vulnerability).
Page 24 “Charles had one great quality. He was never sorry—ever.”
Page 27 “But if you can bring yourself to face not shadows but real death, described and recognizable by bullet or saber, arrow or lance, then you need never be afraid again, at least not in the same way you were before. Then you’ll be a man set apart from other men, safe while other men may cry in terror.”
Page 27 “Charles is not afraid so he could never learn anything about courage.”
Page 40 Of Tom Hamilton, the third son: “He was born in fury and he lived in lightning.”
Page 40 On the Irish: “The Irish do have a despairing quality of gaiety, but they also have a towering and brooding ghost that rides on their shoulders and peers in on their thoughts.”
Page 70 Adam Trask reflects on his father, Cyrus, and the comparison to the biblical Isaac: “Maybe he loved me. He tested me and hurt me and punished me and finally sent me out like a sacrifice, maybe to make up for something. But he did not love you, so he had faith in you. Maybe—why, maybe it’s a kind of reverse.”
Page 72-73 Steinbeck uses the character of Cathy Ames to examine the idea of "malformed" souls: “Having never had any morals, she could not miss them. To the inner monster, it must be even more obscure, since he has no visible thing to compare with others... It is my belief that Cathy Ames was born with tendencies, or lack of them, which drove and forced her all of her life... She made people uneasy, but not so that they wanted to go away from her. Men and women wanted to inspect her, to be close to her, to try and find what caused the disturbance she distributed so subtly, since it had always been so. Cathy did not find it strange.”
Page 74 “But a lie is a device for profit or escape.”
Page 75 “What freedom men and women could have, were they not constantly tricked and trapped and enslaved and tortured by their sexuality. The only drawback in that freedom is that without it one would not be a human, one would be a monster.”
Page 129 In the introductory chapters of Part Two, Steinbeck provides social commentary on the 19th century: “Oh, but strawberries will never taste so good again, and thighs of women have lost their clutch and bold.”
Page 130 “We were like a man scratching at his own face and bleeding into his own beard.” Overall, his view is: “To hell with that rotten century!”
Page 131 “Sometimes a kind of glory lights up the mind of a man... that a man pours outward a torrent of him, and yet he is not diminished. And I guess a man’s importance in the world can be measured by the quality and number of his glories. It is a lonely thing, but it relates us to the world. It is the mother of all creativeness, and it sets each man apart from all other men.”
Page 132 On the individual mind vs. the group: “Nothing was ever created by two men. There are no good collaborations, whether in music, in art, in poetry, in mathematics, in philosophy. Once the miracle of creation has taken place, the group can build and extend it, but the group never invents anything... And this I believe: that the free, exploring mind of the individual human is the most valuable thing in the world. And this I would fight for: the freedom of the mind to take any direction it wishes, undirected. And this I must fight against: any idea, religion, or government which limits or destroys the individual. This is what I am and what I am about. I can understand why a system built on a pattern must try to destroy the free mind, for that is one thing which can by inspection destroy such a system. Surely I can understand this, and I hate it and I will fight against it to preserve the one thing that separates us from the unherded beasts. If the glory can be killed, we are lost.”
Page 146 Samuel Hamilton on the Salinas Valley: “There’s a black violence in this valley. I don’t know—I don’t know. It’s just that some old ghost haunts it out of the dead ocean below and troubles the air with unhappiness. It is as secret as a hidden sorrow. I don’t know what it is, but I see it and I feel it in the people here.”
Page 150 The narrator describes his mother, Olive Hamilton: “When I, her only son, was sixteen, I contracted pleural pneumonia, in that day a killing disease.”
Page 158 Samuel Hamilton on the nature of desire: “There’s a capacity for appetite that whole heaven and earth of cake can’t satisfy.”
Page 215 As Adam Trask sinks into depression after Cathy leaves him, Samuel urges him: “I’ll be back. I’ll be back again and again. Go through the motions, Adam.”
Page 218 On the evolution of society: “The church supper is the grandfather of the country club, just as the third Thursday poetry reading in the basement under the aegis of the Little Theater.”
Page 267 Samuel on Bibles: “Give me a used Bible and I will, I think, be able to tell you about a man by the places that are edged with the dirt of seeking fingers.”
Page 268 On the story of Cain and Abel: “And Cain went out from the presence of the Lord and dwelt in the land of Nod, on the east of Eden.”
Page 270 Lee on the universality of the Cain and Abel story: “I think this is the best-known story in the world because it is everybody’s story. I think it is the symbol story of the human soul... The greatest terror a child can have is that he is not loved, and rejection is the hell he fears. I think everyone in the world to a large or small extent has felt rejection. And with rejection comes anger, and with anger some kind of crime or revenge for the rejection, and with the crime guilt—and there is the story of mankind.”
Page 283 On the Hamilton family: “Tom loved Dessie best. She was gay; laughter lived on her doorstep.”
Page 295 Samuel Hamilton admonishes Adam Trask for his lethargy: “I’m a nosy man. But there’s all that fallow land, and here beside me is all that fallow man. It seems a waste. And I have a bad feeling about waste because I could never afford it. Is it a good feeling to let your life lie fallow?”
Page 298 Samuel to Adam on his wife: “Contentious. Liza says I’m contentious. But now I’m caught in the web of my children and I think I like it.”
Page 303-304 The discussion on the Hebrew word Timshel: “But I have a new love for that glittering instrument, the human soul. It is a lovely and unique thing in the universe. It is always attacked and never destroyed— because ‘Thou mayest.’”
Page 308 Lee’s observation: “I have noticed that there is no dissatisfaction like that of the rich. Feed a man, clothe him, put him on a good horse, and he will die of despair.”
Page 308-309 Lee on the realization of Timshel: “It took me by the throat and shook me. And when the dizziness was over, a path was open, new and bright... ‘Thou mayest’ rule over sin! Why, that’s it! I don't believe all men are destroyed... ‘Thou mayest’! ‘Thou mayest’! What glory!... Timshel!”
Page 413 The central thesis of the novel: “I believe that there is one story in the world, and only one, that has frightened and inspired us, so that we live in a pure-white parallel of continuing thought and wonder. 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... Virtue and vice were warp and woof of our first consciousness, and they will be the fabric of our last, and this despite any changes we may impose on field and river and mountain, on economy and manners. 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?”
Page 414 “In uncertainty I am certain that underneath their topmost layers of frailty, men want to be good and want to be loved. Indeed, most of their vices are attempted shortcuts to love. When a man comes to die, no matter what his talents and influence and genius, if he dies unloved his life must be a failure to him and his dying a cold horror. It seems to me that if you or I must choose between two courses of thought or action, we should remember our dying and try so to live that our death brings no pleasure to the world.”
Page 414 “We have only one story. All novels, all poetry, are built on the never-ending contest in ourselves of good and evil. And it occurs to me that evil must constantly respawn, while good, while virtue, is immortal. Vice has always a new fresh young face, while virtue is venerable as nothing else in the world is.”
Page 422 On Aron Trask: “Aron was loved from every side. He seemed shy and delicate; his pink-and-white skin, golden hair, and wide-set blue eyes caught attention in the schoolyard. His very prettiness caused some difficulty, though it was discovered by his testers that Aron was a dogged, steady, and completely fearless fighter, particularly when he was crying... Aron did not attempt to hide his disposition; it was concealed by being the opposite of his appearance. He was unchangeable once a course was set. He had very few facets and very little versatility. His body was as insensitive to pain as his mind was to subtleties... His emotions were few and heavy.”
Page 522 Adam and Lee discuss Timshel: “‘Timshel—and you said—’ ‘I said that word carried a man’s greatness if he wanted to take advantage of it... I remember Sam Hamilton felt good about it. Said it gave him a right to be a man, separate from every other man.’ ‘That’s lonely.’ ‘All great and precious things are lonely.’”
Page 541 On money: “Money is easy to make if it’s money you want. But with a few exceptions, people don’t want money. They want luxury and they want love and they want admiration.”
Page 602 The final word of the novel: “His lung labored and then settled into a tired rhythm. His whispered word managed to hang on the air: ‘Timshel!’”
