Earlier in the week, I shared a post with my list of books for the newest Classics Club Spin challenge (see it here), and a few days ago, this spin’s number was announced. (For those keeping track, it’s CC Spin #37, and for me personally, #9!)
Hosted by The Classics Club blog, the Classics Club Spin is a reading adventure where participants come up with a list of classics they’d like to read, number them 1 to 20, and then read the book that corresponds to the “spin” number that comes up.
For CCSpin #37, the lucky number is:
And that means I’ll be reading:
Howards End by E. M. Forster (published 1910)
Synopsis:
‘Only connect…’
Considered by many to be E. M. Forster’s greatest novel, Howards End is a beautifully subtle tale of two very different families brought together by an unusual event. The Schlegels are intellectuals, devotees of art and literature. The Wilcoxes are practical and materialistic, leading lives of “telegrams and anger.” When the elder Mrs. Wilcox dies and her family discovers she has left their country home—Howards End—to one of the Schlegel sisters, a crisis between the two families is precipitated that takes years to resolve. Written in 1910, Howards End is a symbolic exploration of the social, economic, and intellectual forces at work in England in the years preceding World War I, a time when vast social changes were occurring. In the Schlegels and the Wilcoxes, Forster perfectly embodies the competing idealism and materialism of the upper classes, while the conflict over the ownership of Howards End represents the struggle for possession of the country’s future. As critic Lionel Trilling once noted, the novel asks, “Who shall inherit England?”
Forster refuses to take sides in this conflict. Instead he poses one of the book’s central questions: In a changing modern society, what should be the relation between the inner and outer life, between the world of the intellect and the world of business? Can they ever, as Forster urges, “only connect”?
I think I was hoping for one of the lighter books on my list, but I’m still pleased with this spin result. Howards End has been on my to-read list for a very long time — in fact, I have a paperback 2-in-1 edition bundled with A Room with a View (which I’ve read), and I think I must have picked it up over 20 years ago!
I also really enjoyed the TV mini-series (2017) with Hayley Atwell and Matthew Macfadyen, and that heightened my interest in eventually reading the book. Well, the time has come! I have a copy in my Kindle library (approx. 300 pages), and the book is also available via Serial Reader (40 issues), so either way, I shouldn’t have a problem finishing by the spin end date, June 2nd.
What do you think of my newest spin result?
Here’s my list of 20 titles for Classics Club Spin #37:
Frenchman’s Creek by Daphne DuMaurier
The Ghost and Mrs. Muir by R. A. Dick
An Old-Fashioned Girl by Louisa May Alcott
Dracula by Bram Stoker
Peony by Pearl Buck
White Fang by Jack London
Black Beauty by Anna Sewell
Howards End by E. M. Forster
The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie
I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith
The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien
In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
Tevye the Dairyman and Motl the Cantor’s Son by Sholom Aleichem
Earlier in the week, I shared a post with my list of books for the newest Classics Club Spin challenge (see it here), and a few days ago, this spin’s number was announced. (For those keeping track, it’s CC Spin #36, and for me personally, #8!)
Hosted by The Classics Club blog, the Classics Club Spin is a reading adventure where participants come up with a list of classics they’d like to read, number them 1 to 20, and then read the book that corresponds to the “spin” number that comes up.
For CCSpin #36, the lucky number is:
And that means I’ll be reading:
A Night to Remember by Walter Lord (published 1955)
Synopsis:
Lord’s classic bestseller, and the definitive account of the unsinkable ship’s fateful last hours
At first, no one but the lookout recognized the sound. Passengers described it as the impact of a heavy wave, a scraping noise, or the tearing of a long calico strip. In fact, it was the sound of the world’s most famous ocean liner striking an iceberg, and it served as the death knell for 1,500 souls.
In the next two hours and forty minutes, the maiden voyage of the Titanic became one of history’s worst maritime accidents. As the ship’s deck slipped closer to the icy waterline, women pleaded with their husbands to join them on lifeboats. Men changed into their evening clothes to meet death with dignity. And in steerage, hundreds fought bitterly against certain death. At 2:15 a.m. the ship’s band played “Autumn.” Five minutes later, the Titanic was gone.
Based on interviews with sixty-three survivors, Lord’s moment-by-moment account is among the finest books written about one of the twentieth century’s bleakest nights.
I am delighted with this spin result! I’ve read my share of Titanic-related fiction over the years, but somehow never got around to this non-fiction book, which is considered (as the synopsis says) the definitive account of the events of that fateful night. As a plus, A Night to Remember is one of my shorter picks this time around — 182 pages for the Kindle edition — so finishing by March 3rd should not be a problem.
What do you think of my newest spin result?
Here’s my list of 20 titles for Classics Club Spin #36:
Frenchman’s Creek by Daphne DuMaurier
The Ghost and Mrs. Muir by R. A. Dick
An Old-Fashioned Girl by Louisa May Alcott
Dracula by Bram Stoker
Peony by Pearl Buck
White Fang by Jack London
Black Beauty by Anna Sewell
Howards End by E. M. Forster
The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie
I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith
The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien
In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
Tevye the Dairyman and Motl the Cantor’s Son by Sholom Aleichem
A prominent turn-of-the-century social critic and lecturer, Charlotte Perkins Gilman is perhaps best known for her short story “The Yellow Wallpaper,” a chilling study of a woman’s descent into insanity, and Women and Economics, a classic of feminist theory that analyzes the destructive effects of women’s economic reliance on men.
In Herland, a vision of a feminist utopia, Gilman employs humor to engaging effect in a story about three male explorers who stumble upon an all-female society isolated somewhere in South America. Noting the advanced state of the civilization they’ve encountered, the visitors set out to find some males, assuming that since the country is so civilized, “there must be men.” A delightful fantasy, the story enables Gilman to articulate her then-unconventional views of male-female roles and capabilities, motherhood, individuality, privacy, the sense of community, sexuality, and many other topics.
Decades ahead of her time in evolving a humanistic, feminist perspective, Gilman has been rediscovered and warmly embraced by contemporary feminists. An articulate voice for both women and men oppressed by the social order of the day, she adeptly made her points with a wittiness often missing from polemical writings.
Herland by Charlotte Perkins Gilman is an ahead-of-its-time feminist novel imaging a secret society of women living in an isolated utopia that’s existed for 2,000 years. The plot is narrated by one of a trio of male explorers who “discover” Herland and must learn to adapt to its highly evolved society.
Herland is a utopian novel from 1915, written by American feminist Charlotte Perkins Gilman. The book describes an isolated society composed entirely of women, who bear children without men (parthenogenesis, a form of asexual reproduction). The result is an ideal social order: free of war, conflict, and domination. It was first published in monthly installments as a serial in 1915 in The Forerunner, a magazine edited and written by Gilman between 1909 and 1916, with its sequel, With Her in Ourland beginning immediately thereafter in the January 1916 issue. The book is often considered to be the middle volume in her utopian trilogy, preceded by Moving the Mountain (1911). It was not published in book form until 1979.
As the book opens, narrator Van and his traveling partners, Terry and Jeff, become obsessed with the idea of locating a hidden land that’s rumored to be inhabited only by women. The men are all scientists of one sort or another, and each has his own attitude toward women. All find it hard to believe that such a place could actually exist, but they finally organize an expedition to discover the truth.
Before arrival, they seem to share a belief that there must be men in this land somewhere, whether residents or occasional guests. How else could this society continue to exist? As well, there’s a doubt about a society of women’s ability to manage — they can’t conceive of women as builders, providers, or growers, and deduce that they must have men’s help. On the other hand, Terry is the womanizer of the group, and while he’s doubtful about the rumors, he’s also sure that a group of women deprived of male company will be absolutely delighted to have him in their midst.
Once the men arrive in Herland, it becomes clear that their expectations are completely off-base. After initial tensions that seem likely to erupt into violence, the men are treated as guests — although without permission or opportunity to leave, they’ve more like gently-treated prisoners. They’re provided shelter, food, and clothing, and the women of Herland begin a lengthy, patient process of teaching the men their ways, culture, and habits.
The men are astonished — Herland is civilized and thriving, with beautiful cities, rich agriculture, and swarms of happy, healthy children. Motherhood is valued above all else, and the women eventually teach the men how their country came to be, and how parthenogenesis spontaneously occurred many generations back, allowing their people to continue to reproduce and flourish.
The men bring with them the expected sexism of their time, and only Terry seems to find it difficult to let the old attitudes go once faced with the reality of a women’s utopia.
Herland examines early 20th century attitudes toward femininity and masculinity, gender-based social roles, appearance and age, and the dynamics of relationships and marriage. Nothing is as the men expect, and their firmly-held beliefs about women’s abilities, about the purpose and goals of wives and mothers, and about the necessity of men to a healthy society are all proved wrong, time and time again.
The writing flows well and contains plenty of amusing outbursts and exclamations each time the men discover some new and unexpected aspect of Herland. I had to laugh over Van’s description of the clothing they’re provided with:
I see that I have not remarked that these women had pockets in surprising number and variety. They were in all their garments, and the middle one in particular was shingled with them.
See? Even in 1915, it’s clear that women’s clothing with pockets absolutely ruled.
After hearing about Herland for years, I’m glad to have finally read it. There is apparently a sequel, With Her In Ourland, which follows immediately upon the events of Herland, showing what happens when a woman from Herland accompanies the men back to the United States. Right now, I don’t feel all that inclined to read the sequel, although I may come back to it at some point down the road.
All in all, Herland is a fast, enjoyable read, with a style reminiscent of the works of H. G. Wells, The Lost World by Arthur Conan Doyle, or other adventure tales of the era. Herland provides a compelling look at the state of feminist theory and literature in the early 20th century. It’s a fascinating story about cultural and gender-based biases and expectations from that time, and has many concepts and situations that resonate even today.
Another terrific read thanks to a Classics Club Spin!
This was originally going to be a book review post dedicated to my newest Classics Club Spin book… but then I got carried away! Not only did I read the book, but I also watched the movie and TV mini-series versions as well. Read on for my thoughts on all three (or, for the tl;dr version, jump right to the end!)
Let’s start where all such things should start — the book:
Title: Picnic at Hanging Rock Author: Joan Lindsay Publication date: 1967 Length: 204 pages Rating:
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 4.5 out of 5.
Synopsis (Goodreads):
It was a cloudless summer day in the year 1900. Everyone at Appleyard College for Young Ladies agreed it was just right for a picnic at Hanging Rock. After lunch, a group of three girls climbed into the blaze of the afternoon sun, pressing on through the scrub into the shadows of the secluded volcanic outcropping. Farther, higher, until at last they disappeared. They never returned. . . .
Mysterious and subtly erotic, Picnic at Hanging Rock inspired the iconic 1975 film of the same name by Peter Weir. A beguiling landmark of Australian literature, it stands with Shirley Jackson’s We Have Always Lived in the Castle, Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca, and Jeffrey Eugenides’ The Virgin Suicides as a masterpiece of intrigue.
Picnic at Hanging Rock is my most recent Classics Club Spin book. This is a book I’ve had my eye on for some time, so I was delighted when its number came up!
This 20th century Australian classic centers around the Appleyard College for Young Ladies, run by headmistress Mrs. Appleyard, a stiff and proper Englishwoman who enjoys the income afforded her by providing a fine finishing school education for the daughters of Australian society’s affluent families.
As the story opens, it’s Valentine’s Day, 1900, and the young women of Appleyard are setting out on a picnic, chaperoned by two teachers. It’s a hot day, and their destination lies hours away by horse-drawn carriage. After the excitement of receiving Valentine’s cards, emotions are running high. The girls are eager for adventure, yet must always remember the expectation that they behave like proper young ladies.
After a picnic at the foot of the towering Hanging Rock, as it’s almost time for the return journey, a few girls beg permission to take a short walk along the stream… and never return. Hours pass; finally, one of the party returns in terror, but with no explanation of what’s actually happened. No sign can be found of the three missing girls, and what’s more, it’s discovered that one of the teachers has also vanished. As night approaches, there’s no choice but to return to the school.
An intense manhunt follows, and while one girl is eventually found — but again, with no memories of what happened to her or the others — there’s no luck in finding the others. Rumors and intrigue spread; the incident becomes known as the College Mystery. Months pass, and the ripples of that fateful day spread and touch more and more people — and the enigmatic Mrs. Appleyard seems to slowly fall apart as well.
The writing in Picnic at Hanging Rock is lush and vivid. The depiction of Hanging Rock is stark, and the author carefully describes not just the rock formations themselves, but all the flora and fauna of the area as well. The contrast between the proper, buttoned-up, virginal girls and the wildness of their environment is vivid — while providing a simulated British boarding school environment, the school cannot help but also expose the girls to the dangerous, venomous, and treacherous landscapes all around them.
This book is quite famous for not actually answering the questions it raises. This isn’t a whodunnit with a big reveal at the end. We don’t know, and never find out, what truly happened to the missing girls. There’s another large question at the end that also doesn’t get answered. People appear in the story, and then fade from it, with the author pointing out at various points that this is where so-and-so’s role ends, and we hear no more from them.
A modern-day reader used to fast-paced thrillers and explosive plot twists might find this book slow, but I actually loved it. The mood builds slowly yet inexorably. There’s intrigue and dread, yet we also gets views of love and passion, disappointments and escapes, jealousies and fears. There’s an insidious sense of doom — from the day of the picnic, everything begins going downhill, even when the connections aren’t obvious.
There’s much debate about what happened to the girls. Were they attacked, murdered, kidnapped? Simply lost, perhaps fallen down a cliff? Were supernatural elements at play? An unpublished final chapter holds the key to the author’s original explanation, but even after reading about it, I think I’m happier with the book not providing answers to the mysteries.
I’m glad to have read Picnic at Hanging Rock. It’s a tautly-written, fairly short novel that contains great writing and creates an eerie, aching mood. Highly recommended.
Next up, the first filmed version of Picnic at Hanging Rock:
Right after finishing the book, I watched the 1975 film by director Peter Weir, which is considered a movie masterpiece. At the time of its release, Vincent Canby of the New York Times wrote:
HORROR need not always be a long-fanged gentleman in evening clothes or a dismembered corpse or a doctor who keeps a brain in his gold fish bowl. It may be a warm sunny day. the innocence of girlhood and hints of unexplored sexuality that combine to produce a euphoria so intense it becomes transporting, a state beyond life or death. Such horror is unspeakable not because it is gruesome but because it remains outside the realm of things that can be easily defined or explained in conventional ways.
Read full review, here, and an opinion piece written in 2017, here.
The movie delivers on the mood of the book, from start to finish. It’s cinematic in scope and has a dreamlike quality, often focusing in on the girls’ faces, showing their beauty and their overpowering emotions. Emotion rules everything — the girls’ romantic passion while reading Valentine cards, the devotion of a younger girl to an older, the delight of peeling off gloves and shoes as soon as civilizing forces are left behind, and for the young men encountered at the picnic, the obsessive dreams that follow a mere glimpse of a girl of startling beauty.
We also clearly see the downside of these emotional states, as various group scenes turn hysterical or threatening, when heightened emotions turn the girls (or in another instance, local townsfolk) into menacing mobs.
The film captures the book’s contrasts between the British-style manners and rules of the school and the untamable nature of the Australian bush, with gorgeous shots of the girls in white dresses disappearing between stones or coming in contact with insects and lizards. There were times in the book where I couldn’t quite connect the physical descriptions of the landscape with an image in my mind, so seeing the settings in the movie was very powerful.
The movie is just as ambiguous as the book. There’s no attempt to provide answers or tie things up neatly. The point of the movie is the feelings it evokes.
Finally, my 2nd viewing experience — the 2018 mini-series, currently streaming on Prime Video.
This six-episode TV mini-series stars Natalie Dormer as the domineering headmistress Mrs. Appleyard. Based on the key art alone, it’s clear that this version is going for a very different vibe.
According to the Variety review:
Joan Lindsay’s much-acclaimed 1967 Australian novel “Picnic At Hanging Rock” has already resulted in one stunning adaptation — Peter Weir’s 1975 film of the same name — so a second attempt, this time a television series, may already feel unnecessary. But it doesn’t take long for writers Beatrix Christian and Alice Addison to make the case for their own 2018 “Picnic,” a darker, more mysterious, and extended version that manages to feel updated for our time while still keeping the original 1900 setting.
In “Picnic At Hanging Rock,” the central mystery is laid out immediately: Four young women — three students and their teacher — suddenly vanish on Valentine’s Day, 1900, while on a school picnic at, well, Hanging Rock. The base premise is familiar to fans of crime series, but this is no ordinary drama; it’s eerie and haunting. It’s less dreamy (a quality frequently ascribed to the film) and more of a nightmare that you’ll be eager to dive into.
(For an additional critical take on this mini-series, check out the New York Times review, here.)
Over the course of six episodes, the bones of the plot of Picnic at Hanging Rock remain intact, but the mini-series expands just about every element, creating backstories for many characters, envisioning heaps more romantic entanglements, and showing scenes of events at the Rock that are eerie and perhaps even intriguing, but that don’t ultimately add a whole lot to the story.
The key change, of course, is the character of Mrs. Appleyard. It’s evident early on that she is not what she seems. Rather than an older widowed Englishwoman focused on the profitability of turning out refined young women, here, she’s a scheming con artist posing as a wealthy, respectable woman — but we’re treated to her hidden Cockney accent early on, and through flashbacks, learn much more of her character.
The girls in her care are sympathetic, much more diverse than in the 1975 movie, and more explicitly curious about their own sexuality as well as the eroticism of the untamed world beyond the confines of the school. The cruelty and abuse are much more explicit here as well, and certain subplots and side characters are completely extraneous, either there as deliberate sensationalism or as plot padding.
The middle few episodes sag, and I had to restrain myself from fast-forwarding, but by the end, I did want to see the wrap-up and how it all plays out. The mini-series keeps some (but not all) of the ambiguity of the source material, but the heavy focus on Mrs. Appleyard makes many of the other elements fade into the background, and some of the romantic entanglements seem to serve no purpose other than distraction.
I suppose I’m glad to have watched the mini-series — to satisfy my curiosity and for the sake of completion — but I would have been perfectly fine without it too.
But don’t let me talk you out of checking it out! Here’s the trailer — see if it piques your interest:
Back to the Classics Club Spin:
Yes, I ventured far afield, not just reading my chosen book, but watching two different adaptations as well. And to wrap it all up, I’ll simply say:
THE BOOK: Haunting, eerie, ambiguous, beautiful
THE 1975 MOVIE: Dreamlike and artistic, maybe not suited to 21st century moviegoer tastes, but as an older film, it’s lovely to see. Even when the plot gets lost amidst the gorgeous cinematography, the spell of the movie makes it worthwhile.
THE 2018 MINI-SERIES: OK if you like this sort of thing. It’s all a bit of a muddle, dreamy in parts and then crossing over into a campier gothic feel. (Maybe I’m alone in this reaction — has anyone else seen it?)
The biggest takeaway: Picnic at Hanging Rock is definitely worth reading, and I’m so glad I did.
O Pioneers! (1913) was Willa Cather’s first great novel, and to many it remains her unchallenged masterpiece. No other work of fiction so faithfully conveys both the sharp physical realities and the mythic sweep of the transformation of the American frontier—and the transformation of the people who settled it. Cather’s heroine is Alexandra Bergson, who arrives on the wind-blasted prairie of Hanover, Nebraska, as a girl and grows up to make it a prosperous farm. But this archetypal success story is darkened by loss, and Alexandra’s devotion to the land may come at the cost of love itself.
At once a sophisticated pastoral and a prototype for later feminist novels, O Pioneers! is a work in which triumph is inextricably enmeshed with tragedy, a story of people who do not claim a land so much as they submit to it and, in the process, become greater than they were.
And from Wikipedia:
O Pioneers! is a 1913 novel by American author Willa Cather, written while she was living in New York. It was her second published novel. The title is a reference to a poem by Walt Whitman entitled “Pioneers! O Pioneers!” from Leaves of Grass (1855).
O Pioneers! tells the story of the Bergsons, a family of Swedish-American immigrants in the farm country near the fictional town of Hanover, Nebraska, at the turn of the 20th century. The main character, Alexandra Bergson, inherits the family farmland when her father dies, and she devotes her life to making the farm a viable enterprise at a time when many other immigrant families are giving up and leaving the prairie. The novel is also concerned with two romantic relationships, one between Alexandra and family friend Carl Linstrum and the other between Alexandra’s brother Emil and the married Marie Shabata.
O Pioneers! is my most recent Classics Club Spin book, and once again, it’s been a great experience getting that little push to read a book that I might have missed out on otherwise.
Prior to O Pioneers!, the only work of Willa Cather’s that I’ve read was My Antonia, which I read once during high school and again more recently when I came across a copy at a library sale. I loved Cather’s writing style and the sense of beauty that comes through her descriptive passages, and I’ve always meant to seek out more of her books.
O Pioneers! centers on Alexandra Bergson, whom we first meet as a young woman. From the earliest chapters, we understand that she’s the backbone of her family. Her parents arrived on the Nebraska plains years earlier as immigrants, struggling to establish a home and a livelihood in harsh conditions. As the book opens, Alexandra’s father is dying. While she has three brothers — two teens and five-year-old Emil — her father’s dying instructions are clear:
“Boys,” said the father wearily, “I want you to keep the land together and to be guided by your sister… I want no quarrels among my children, and so long as there is one house there must be one head. Alexandra is the oldest, and she knows my wishes. She will do the best she can. If she makes mistakes, she will not make so many as I have made.”
As the book continues, we see Alexandra doing what no one else in the family can. She keeps the farm going, but not only that — she’s determined to do more than scratch by. She learns, thinks, and grows, and despite her brothers’ objection to what they see as risky ventures, Alexandra uses her wits and strategic planning to acquire more land, invest, and ultimately succeed in becoming one of the best established farmers and landowners in the region.
Of course, the older brothers aren’t always content to abide by Alexandra’s decisions. Rather dull-minded and resentful of hard work, they still uphold the manly tradition of being sexist jerks when it comes to their sister:
Oscar reinforced his brother, his mind fixed on the one point he could see. “The property of a family belongs to the men of the family, because they are held responsible, and because they do the work.” Alexandra looked from one to the other, her eyes full of indignation. She had been impatient before, but now she was beginning to feel angry. “And what about my work?” she asked in an unsteady voice.
[…]
Lou turned to Oscar. “That’s the woman of it; if she tells you to put in a crop, she thinks she’s put it in. It makes women conceited to meddle in business.”
Success takes a toll, as Alexandra remains largely alone. She has friends and neighbors and community, and while she seems content with her life, she’s never pursued romantic love of any sort. As she moves through her adult years, she’s devoted to Emil, now a young man, envisioning herself making a future and inheritance for him. Emil, though, like many young people raised on the plains, doesn’t necessarily want a life as a farmer — he attends college, travels, and seems to have a myriad of options available to him. Ultimately, though, a passionate love affair threatens his and Alexandra’s dreams for his future.
O Pioneers! covers about 20 years of the family’s lives, and we see how time changes them all. Through it all, Alexandra remains the steady, devoted head of the family and keeper of the land, and it’s only a tragedy near the end of the story that forces more extreme change upon her.
The writing in O Pioneers! is simply lovely. Willa Cather’s words are spare, but evocative. From her descriptions of the land itself to her illustration of the characters’ lives and thoughts, the words she uses bring the people and place to life.
ONE JANUARY DAY, thirty years ago, the little town of Hanover, anchored on a windy Nebraska tableland, was trying not to be blown away.
But this land was an enigma. It was like a horse that no one knows how to break to harness, that runs wild and kicks things to pieces.
He best expressed his preference for his wild homestead by saying that his Bible seemed truer to him there. If one stood in the doorway of his cave, and looked off at the rough land, the smiling sky, the curly grass white in the hot sunlight; if one listened to the rapturous song of the lark, the drumming of the quail, the burr of the locust against that vast silence, one understood what Ivar meant.
A pioneer should have imagination, should be able to enjoy the idea of things more than the things themselves.
But off there in the cities there are thousands of rolling stones like me. We are all alike; we have no ties, we know nobody, we own nothing. When one of us dies, they scarcely know where to bury him. Our landlady and the delicatessen man are our mourners, and we leave nothing behind us but a frock-coat and a fiddle, or an easel, or a typewriter, or whatever tool we got our living by. All we have ever managed to do is to pay our rent, the exorbitant rent that one has to pay for a few square feet of space near the heart of things. We have no house, no place, no people of our own. We live in the streets, in the parks, in the theatres. We sit in restaurants and concert halls and look about at the hundreds of our own kind and shudder.
The dawn in the east looked like the light from some great fire that was burning under the edge of the world.
One could easily believe that in that dead landscape the germs of life and fruitfulness were extinct forever.
Other versions of O Pioneers!:
As far as I could discover, there’s been just one O Pioneers! film adaptation — a 1992 made-for-TV movie starring Jessica Lange and David Strathairn. I have no idea if it’s easily available, but I’d love to check it out!
Wrapping it all up:
I’m so happy to have finally read this beautiful, powerful book. Many thanks to the Classics Club for inspiring me to read O Pioneers! and other classics!
Cannery Row is a book without much of a plot. Rather, it is an attempt to capture the feeling and people of a place, the cannery district of Monterey, California, which is populated by a mix of those down on their luck and those who choose for other reasons not to live “up the hill” in the more respectable area of town. The flow of the main plot is frequently interrupted by short vignettes that introduce us to various denizens of the Row, most of whom are not directly connected with the central story. These vignettes are often characterized by direct or indirect reference to extreme violence: suicides, corpses, and the cruelty of the natural world.
The “story” of Cannery Row follows the adventures of Mack and the boys, a group of unemployed yet resourceful men who inhabit a converted fish-meal shack on the edge of a vacant lot down on the Row.
Cannery Row is my summer 2022 Classics Club Spin book, and I’ll admit that I felt a bit ambivalent when my spin landed on this book. I’ve had a copy of Cannery Row on my shelf for a few years now and have been wanting to read more Steinbeck, but meanwhile, my book group read Tortilla Flat last year, and that seemed like enough for the time being!
Still, once I got started, I couldn’t help but be charmed by Steinbeck’s descriptions and unique way with words.
In Cannery Row, as the synopsis above states, there really isn’t much of a plot. Instead, it’s a series of vignettes and moments that capture the spirit of a time and place. As the author explains in the very first passage of the books:
Cannery Row in Monterey in California is a poem, a stink, a grating noise, a quality of light, a tone, a habit, a nostalgia, a dream.
I read that first line, and I was hooked!
It continues:
Cannery Row is the gathered and scattered, tin and iron and rust and splintered wood, chipped pavement and weedy lots and junk heaps, sardine canneries of corrugated iron, honky tonks, restaurants and whore houses, and little crowded groceries, and laboratories, and flophouses. Its inhabitants are, as the man once said, “whores, pimps, gamblers, and sons of bitches,” by which he meant Everybody. Had the man looked through another peephole he might have said, “Saints and angels and martyrs and holy men,” and he would have meant the same thing.
If there is a main character in Cannery Row, I suppose it might be Mack:
Mack was the elder, leader, mentor, and to a small extent the exploiter of a little group of men who had in common no families, no money, and no ambitions beyond food, drink, and contentment.
A less generous writer might describe Mack and his group as bums, but Steinbeck instead presents them as well-intentioned pranksters whose endeavors usually go sideways, but who never mean anyone any harm. They drink and go on adventures, and are admirers of Doc, who runs Western Biological, the laboratory and business where he collects, studies, and sells the specimens he finds along the shores and in the tidepools of Monterey Bay and beyond.
Others in the neighborhood include the Bear Flag Restaurant, which is actually a popular brothel run by the kind madam Dora, and Lee Chong’s store, where pretty much anything can be found at any time of year. Then there’s the couple who turned an abandoned cannery boiler in a vacant lot into a makeshift house, and then became landlords by renting out the random pipes on the lot as sleeping shelters for the various men needing a roof over their heads.
The characters interact through business deals and random conversations and unbalanced bargains. An ongoing thread in the book is Mack’s desire to throw a party for Doc to show him how much he and the boys appreciate him. Let’s just say that it does not go as planned — before the night is out, much of Doc’s home and lab is destroyed, and there are frogs everywhere! The gang’s search for frogs is another very funny saga, and even results in a brand-new Cannery Row economy based on the value of frog futures.
Of course, some pieces of Steinbeck’s writing don’t age well. He uses racial terms that would be unacceptable today (“Wops and Chinamen and Polaks”), although to be fair, I think he’s attempting to describe the variety of the people of Monterey — he isn’t being derogatory (although I was uncomfortable with how he writes Lee Chong’s dialogue; perhaps not considered out-of-bounds in the 1940s, but certainly not okay today).
I do love Steinbeck’s writing. He can be beautifully descriptive, and also terribly funny just by virtue of the words he uses:
He can kill anything for need but he could not even hurt a feeling for pleasure.
Describing a changing moment in a tidepool:
A wave breaks over the barrier, and churns the glassy water for a moment and mixes bubbles into the pool, and then it clears and is tranquil and lovely and murderous again.
Small moments made me laugh:
“Henri loves boats but he’s afraid of the ocean.”
“What’s he want a boat for then?” Hazel demanded.
“He likes boats,” said Doc. “But suppose he finishes his boat. Once it’s finished people will say, ‘Why don’t you put it in the water?’ Then if he puts it in the water, he’ll have to go out in it, and he hates the water. So you see, he never finishes the boat — so he doesn’t ever have to launch it.”
And then there’s the time when Mack and the boys manage to restore an old truck just enough to get it running, but with small problems, like the fact that it can only make it up a hill if they go in reverse.
I am truly glad that I read Cannery Row, and I so appreciate the Classics Club Spin challenge that got me to finally take the book off the shelf and give it a try.
I would like to read more by John Steinbeck in the future. So far, besides Cannery Row, I’ve read East of Eden and Of Mice and Men (both very, very long ago) and Tortilla Flat, and I know I should read The Grapes of Wrath at some point too.
Do you have any favorite Steinbeck books? Please let me know if you have recommendations!
Today’s Cannery Row in Monterey
Who knew? There was a movie of Cannery Row released in the 1980s!
Welcome to Shelf Control — an original feature created and hosted by Bookshelf Fantasies.
Shelf Control is a weekly celebration of the unread books on our shelves. Pick a book you own but haven’t read, write a post about it (suggestions: include what it’s about, why you want to read it, and when you got it), and link up! For more info on what Shelf Control is all about, check out my introductory post, here.
Want to join in? Shelf Control posts go up every Wednesday. See the guidelines at the bottom of the post, and jump on board!
Title: The Mysterious Affair at Styles Author: Agatha Christie Published: 1920 Length: 208 pages
What it’s about (synopsis via Goodreads):
Who poisoned the wealthy Emily Inglethorp and how did the murderer penetrate and escape from her locked bedroom? Suspects abound in the quaint village of Styles St. Mary—from the heiress’s fawning new husband to her two stepsons, her volatile housekeeper, and a pretty nurse who works in a hospital dispensary.
With impeccable timing, and making his unforgettable debut, the brilliant Belgian detective Hercule Poirot is on the case.
How and when I got it:
I picked up a Kindle edition a couple of years ago.
Why I want to read it:
After reading the excellent new novel by Marie Benedict, The Mystery of Mrs. Christie, my interest in Agatha Christie is definitely piqued! I’ve only read one of her books so far, but I’ve been intending to read more.
The Mysterious Affair at Styles is Agatha Christie’s first published novel, and it’s also the book where she introduced Hercule Poirot. I feel like this would be a great starting place for me, and if I enjoy it (as I suspect I will), I can pick and choose more of her works to read.
Are you an Agatha Christie fan? Any recommendations on which books to read? Particular favorites?
Welcome to Shelf Control — an original feature created and hosted by Bookshelf Fantasies.
Shelf Control is a weekly celebration of the unread books on our shelves. Pick a book you own but haven’t read, write a post about it (suggestions: include what it’s about, why you want to read it, and when you got it), and link up! Fore more info on what Shelf Control is all about, check out my introductory post, here.
Want to join in? Shelf Control posts go up every Wednesday. See the guidelines at the bottom of the post, and jump on board!
My Shelf Control pick this week is:
Title: I Capture the Castle Author: Dodie Smith Published: 1948 Length: 343 pages
What it’s about (synopsis via Goodreads):
I Capture the Castle tells the story of seventeen-year-old Cassandra and her family, who live in not-so-genteel poverty in a ramshackle old English castle. Here she strives, over six turbulent months, to hone her writing skills. She fills three notebooks with sharply funny yet poignant entries. Her journals candidly chronicle the great changes that take place within the castle’s walls, and her own first descent into love. By the time she pens her final entry, she has “captured the castle”– and the heart of the reader– in one of literature’s most enchanting entertainments.
How I got it:
I don’t even remember — but I suspect I picked up a copy at one of our library’s big books sales (just like at least 50% of the books on my shelves)
When I got it:
Sometime within the last five years or so, I believe.
Why I want to read it:
This is one of those books that everyone tells you to read. It’s supposed to be funny and charming and quirky, and I’ve heard it described as a modern classic. As a bonus reason for reading it, I’m participating in an acrostic challenge with my book club and I’m missing a title that starts with the letter I — so I guess I just have to read this one before the end of the year!
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Want to participate in Shelf Control? Here’s how:
Write a blog post about a book that you own that you haven’t read yet.
Add your link in the comments!
If you’d be so kind, I’d appreciate a link back from your own post.
Bookshelf Fantasies 