Howdy folks! Let’s talk about Cannery Row by John Steinbeck.
I will say that despite the short length of the book it took me forever to get into it. I would read half a page, sigh, and put it down again because it just wasn’t that interesting. After about 30 pages it started to get good, and while I haven’t finished it yet it has gotten good enough that I’m looking forward to finding out what happens in the end. I loved most of the characters once they were fleshed out a bit. My absolute favorite by Steinbeck is The Grapes of Wrath and Cannery Row doesn’t hold a candle to that, but the idea of learning all about people who all live on the same block and how their stories intertwine is an excellent one.
Fell in love with it instantly when I was in my teens, and still love it 45 years later.
It’s not so much a novel as a series of images, but they’re beautiful images, and they make you (or me, anyway; YMMV) care about the people in them. Doc, Mack and the boys, Lee Chong, Dora and the girls at the Bear Flag, Henri the painter, and all the rest.
The book alternates chapters that are mostly about the various characters, with chapters that are only marginally connected vignettes. Some of those have the surreal feeling of an Escher print.
I agree, Rufus T (if I may): “not so much a novel as a series of images.” Very nice.
I hadn’t read it before and am very happy to have done so, now. Aside from perhaps a tiny touch of sentimentality about Mack and the Boys, it’s very, very smart about human psychology, and not at all heavy-handed about it.
It’s a vision of humanity that has nothing to do with the fantasy-wish-fulfillment and melodrama of 99% of novels. Not that there’s anything wrong with those things–but the difference becomes apparent only when we experience it, as we do when reading this book.
I find myself curious about the 1982 movie. Obviously it’s a distortion of the book, given that the promotional materials ballyhoo a Romance between Doc (played by Nick Nolte) and “Suzy” (played by Debra Winger). I wonder if anything of Steinbeck’s creation made it in?
A comparatively unknown book of Steinbeck’s is Log of the Sea of Cortez, a non-fiction account of a sea cruise down to the Gulf of California (also called the Sea of Cortez) a year before the outbreak of World War II.
As I recall, the purpose of the trip was gathering of sea life specimens for Doc Ricketts, who was on the boat.
Steinbeck later wrote a sequel to Cannery Row, titled Sweet Thursday. It’s much more of a conventional novel, and is a pleasant read, but not nearly as memorable as the original.
The movie’s plot line is mostly drawn from Sweet Thursday, where Suzy’s character is introduced, and she and Doc have a budding romance. So that part is actually from Steinbeck, just not from the book you were expecting.
Some material from the movie is borrowed from the book Cannery Row, but not that much IIRC, and really none of the plot. I suspect they named the movie Cannery Row rather than Sweet Thursday because, well, which title is better known?
In “Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands,” Dylan sings to Sara: “With your sheet-metal memories of Cannery Row, and your magazine husband who just one day had to go”. Sara’s first husband had been a magazine photographer. AFAIK she had no connection with the subject of Steinbeck’s novel, so this association with her must be alluding to her father’s scrap metal business.
Which reminds me, I’ve been meaning to ask: every time I see your handle, I think of Dylan’s “Visions of Johanna.” Is your username a reference to that song?
The further I get in the book the more I am enjoying it. I still find it to be a bit of a slog, but that might be because I haven’t gotten a lot of sleep lately and reading in general is not very high on my list of priorities as of late. I’m going to have to go back and reread it again in a few months after my schedule has settled down a bit.