Of Mice And Crummy Endings Part II

Is expanding my impression of this book into two journals a blatant attempt to get more journals out of less reading? Man, I just really liked this book, and wanted to write a lot about it, and that combined with my really busy life has made it the only book I've read in a while. Get off my back.

SO, to my original point- why is Steinbeck awesome? It can't hurt that the characters he weaves into his stories and the lives they live are inherently interesting. Nothing seems more boring to me than a book about rich people. As I'm reading, all I can think is "Stop whining, you're doing fine." Oh, Jay Gatsby, your girl left you while you were away at the war? The family in The Grapes of Wrath, who lived at the same time as you, are STARVING TO DEATH. Ask me how much I care about your feeling of emptiness. Money can't buy happiness, but it can definitely make misery suck less.

Steinbeck puts everything one level beneath the outside. I respect that. He doesn't ram a moral in your face, but you also don't need a cryptology degree to figure out what's going on. The infamous Turtle Chapter of Grapes of Wrath is a perfect example. Everyone's quick to say that it was meaningless or silly, but it was an easy image to put into the head and had an obvious message. I feel the sense of accomplishment that comes from literary analysis, but I don't really have to try that hard.

I've found that Steinbeck carefully balances dialogue and description so that dialogue teaches you about the characters, while description teaches you about their situation. The world around the characters is what shapes them in every book; fate, happenstance, etc. make them who they are. This has an everyman appeal; I can place myself into the work boots of any character, and it proves that the characters are meant to be representative of everybody who undergoes the same experiences.

So, in conclusion, John Steinbeck is the best they was, the best they is, and the best they gon' be.

Of Mice and Crummy Book Endings

John Steinbeck is, by far, my favorite writer. Every piece I'd read by him was an enjoyable read with an engaging storyline, but I'd always wondered exactly what it was about Steinbeck's writing that made him so readable. To figure this out, I read his only major work I hadn't experienced before: Of Mice and Men.

Now, the important question "why is he so amazing" has to be put aside for a moment so that I can rant about the ending of the book. Throughout the entire novel, I had enjoyed the message of the importance of life and how people have value outside of their utilitarian means. A simple example of this would have been the dog at the ranch; he was old and couldn't do a single useful thing, but it was still cringe inducing to hear him die. His owner was clearly upset that his dog was being killed, even though he did finally allow it to go. I like that message. Life is pretty sweet, and anybody who wants to defend it is okay in my book.

Then, Lennie gets shot. This is a dumb ending! What is that, I says to myself. I says self, Steinbeck must be doing something or else this wouldn't be considered one of the greatest books of all time. But seriously now? What is this? Now I have to start all over trying to figure out what the novel actually means, and it means I'm going to have to validate death. This is dumb.

But wait! Maybe not! Mrs. Reilly mentioned last year that the book had something to do with being a worker during the Great Depression, which wasn't a far reach for Steinbeck. His novella The Pearl had been about the dangers of greed, so maybe that plays into it. I finally reach a conclusion that makes some sense to me.

The book isn't trying to validate death, but rather make it look disgusting and show how horribly necessary letting things go in those desperate times was. The dog was eating food and wasting space/other resources. It's useless! It must go, for the people are poor and resources scarce. Lennie was going to ruin George's life, and if not send George to prison at least keep him out of work for a long time. George couldn't afford that, and had to get rid of him, as cruel as that was. A foil to this brutality could be found in the ranch-owner's son; he was a rich kid who was living in excess, showing that the huge wealth gap was erosive to all people.

Boom.