User Reviews
Rating: really liked it
Man, I love Steinbeck. I love the simplicity of his characters and the humdrum feeling their lives evoke. I love the indigence of his settings and the candidness with which these characters accept their conditions. I love how quietly he frames his stories with comments on fatalism, while still revealing to us the potential for happiness that pushes at its surface, trying to elbow its way out. At its core, the Steinbeck novel want us to figure out how to embrace the cards life has dealt us. It knows that the sooner we do, the sooner that happiness can become ours for the taking. It might be a fatalistic coin we’re being asked to pocket, but it’s a coin on which has been embossed a seal of optimism.
But he certainly doesn’t make it very easy. The characters in his books are so far down the economic ladder you need a pair of binoculars to find them. And when you do spot them, you discover they are haggling over nickels and frogs. You almost want to step in and give them a Lowe’s gift card, just to make things a little easier for them. But Steinbeck characters don’t
need your damn Lowe’s gift card. The point is not to move up that ladder; it’s to find comfort with the rung you’re already on. If they can recognize that, why can’t you?
And that’s the thing about Steinbeckian characters: they often possess a deeper level of knowledge and understanding than their financial statuses—or their grammar—would otherwise suggest. There are also usually one or two who stand out from the rest for their capacity to grasp and relay human need. Where Ma Joad was just such a character in
The Grapes of Wrath, it is Doc who lays it to us straight in
Cannery Row.
“The things we admire in men, kindness and generosity, openness, honesty, understanding and feeling are the concomitants of failure in our system. And those traits we detest, sharpness, greed, acquisitiveness, meanness, egotism and self-interest are the traits of success. And while men admire the quality of the first they love the produce of the second.”
Ruminating on the contradictory nature of being human, wherein one’s needs are in direct competition with one’s moral goals, Doc reminds us what’s worth appreciating about Mack and his Flophouse friends. Sure, they manipulate a situation for an advantageous edge if they can, and sure their idea of a party would make Clarissa Dalloway scream in mortified horror, but when all is said and done, they are honest with their friends and true to themselves in their dealings, and that is what makes their lives—at least that part of it—worth emulating.
So keep your Lowe’s gift cards. They are not wanted here.
Rating: really liked it
“Doc would listen to any kind of nonsense and turn it into wisdom. His mind had no horizon and his sympathy had no warp. He could talk to children, telling them very profound things so that they understood. He lived in a world of wonders, of excitement. He was concupiscent as a rabbit and gentle as hell. Everyone who knew him was indebted to him. And everyone who thought of him thought next, 'I really must do something nice for Doc.’” 
Cannery Row Doc is one of those fictional characters that never leaves a reader’s memory. This book is dedicated to a man by the name of Ed Ricketts who was a marine biologist with a lab, like Doc, on Cannery Row in Monterey, California. Whenever I discover that a fictional character is based on a real person, it seems to lend extra life to that fictional person. It puts bones under the skin and blood in the veins.
It becomes evident, very quickly, how much John Steinbeck admired Ricketts. The biologist has a profound impact on his writing and also on the writing of Joseph Campbell, who, like Steinbeck, lived in Monterey and spent as much time in Ricketts’s lab as possible. The influence of Ricketts on Steinbeck is palpable in The Pearl, Cannery Row, Sweet Thursday, The Log of the Sea of Cortez, The Moon is Down, and The Grapes of Wrath. Ricketts’ death, killed tragically young when his car is hit by a Del Monte Express Train just up the hill from Cannery Row, has a profound impact on many people. Steinbeck’s writing suffers after the death of his friend, and in the opinion of many critics, his writing after 1948 is diminished, except for his final epic East of Eden.
Edward RickettsIt makes me wonder, would we know John Steinbeck’s name if he’d never met Ed Ricketts? Or what if he had never been influenced by what he experienced while living in Cannery Row?
It is a place at the right time tailor made to inspire a writer.
“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. 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 inhabitant 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 holymen’ and he would have meant the same thing.” Lee Chong runs the grocery store which is really a general store because you can find just about anything that you need and most things you never knew you wanted. Lee never discounts. Everything is the price it was when it was first carried in the door. He “rents out” a building he acquired as trade for an overdue grocery bill to a group of layabout guys who work when they have to, but choose not to work when they absolutely don’t need any money. It was interesting to see a bit into the mind of Lee as he ponders the universe and weighs the benefits and risks of any investment. He has an ongoing financial battles with the boys from The Palace Flophouse and Grill, which is the rather creative name the guys decided to use to refer to the Lee Chong storage shed, as they try to tempt him into their many doomed enterprises.
There is also Dora Flood who manages the Bear Flag Restaurant, but she is more accurately described as Madam Flood as the Bear Flag Restaurant isn’t a restaurant, but a whorehouse. She gives twice as much to charitable organizations as anyone else. She bends over backwards (Not so much over a bed anymore) to help people in need. She never turns a whore out when they get too old to be productive.
"Some of them don't turn three tricks a month, but they go right on eating three meals a day." She is a whore with the heart of gold, but with an astute head for trying to not agitate the more conservative wives of the community.
Ed Ricketts’s lab on Cannery Row.Doc is lonely, but he isn’t alone. He doesn’t have a John Steinbeck living next door or a Joseph Campbell living down the street, but he never seems to lack for female companionship. Whenever the Sistine Choir or Gregorian Chants can be heard coming from Doc’s laboratory everyone knows he is in the midst of wooing well on his way to fornicating.
Doc takes a road trip down the coast of California to collect some specimens for his laboratory. We travel along with him and as the towns are listed off...Salinas, Gonzales, King City, Paso Robles, Santa Maria, and Santa Barbara I had a distinct heart pain of longing for the Golden State. He stops off frequently to sample the local cuisine and also manages to cross a very unusual concoction off his bucket list.
“If a man ordered a beer milkshake he'd better do it in a town where he wasn't known.” He orders more than once while on this trip a healthy slice of pineapple and blue cheese pie. It sounds so weird that I have to try it.
Steinbeck sprinkles in some poetry from Black Marigolds by E. Powys Mathers. It is sensual and evocative poetry.
Even now
Death sends me the flickering of powdery lids
Over wild eyes and the pity of her slim body
All broken up with the weariness of joy;
The little red flowers of her breasts to be my comfort
Moving above scarves, and for my sorrow
Wet crimson lips that once I marked as mine.
Steinbeck includes several stanzas and with each one I read my appreciation for Mathers continued to grow.
This book is an ode to a friend, an ode to a period of time when I can tell Steinbeck may have felt most alive, and it is an ode to Cannery Row. A perfect storm of diverse elements that contributed to making Steinbeck one of the Great American Writers. There is a film version of the book starring Nick Nolte and Debra Winger which I have queued up to watch sometime this week. It looks like they muck up the film version with a love story, but I will reserve judgment until I’ve actually watched it.
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Rating: really liked it
Cannery Row is of frogs and men…
The frog pool was square—fifty feet wide and seventy feet long and four feet deep. Lush soft grass grew about its edge and a little ditch brought the water from the river to it and from it little ditches went out to the orchards. There were frogs there all right, thousands of them. Their voices beat the night, they boomed and barked and croaked and rattled. They sang to the stars, to the waning moon, to the waving grasses. They bellowed love songs and challenges.
Or to be more precise it is of friendship and love…
The boiler looked like an old-fashioned locomotive without wheels. It had a big door in the center of its nose and a low fire door. Gradually it became red and soft with rust and gradually the mallow weeds grew up around it and the flaking rust fed the weeds. Flowering myrtle crept up its sides and the wild anise perfumed the air about it. Then someone threw out a datura root and the thick fleshy tree grew up and the great white bells hung down over the boiler door and at night the flowers smelled of love and excitement, an incredibly sweet and moving odor.
In the age of steam, sages dwell not in barrels, like they used to in the time of antiquity, but in boilers…
The novel is strangely poetic… And the poetry of streets and the poetry of ideals are capriciously intertwined.
Rating: really liked it
Cannery Row (Cannery Row #1), John SteinbeckCannery Row is a novel by American author
John Steinbeck, published in 1945. It is set during the Great Depression in Monterey, California, on a street lined with sardine canneries that is known as
Cannery Row. The story revolves around the people living there:
Lee Chong, the local grocer;
Doc, a marine biologist; and
Mack, the leader of a group of derelicts.
Cannery Row has a simple premise: Mack and his friends are trying to do something nice for their friend Doc, who has been good to them without asking for reward. Mack hits on the idea that they should throw a thank-you party, and the entire community quickly becomes involved.
Unfortunately, the party rages out of control, and Doc's lab and home are ruined, and so is Doc's mood. In an effort to return to Doc's good graces, Mack and the boys decide to throw another party but make it work this time. A procession of linked vignettes describes the denizens' lives on Cannery Row. These constitute subplots that unfold concurrently with the main plot.
تاریخ نخستین خوانش: روز بیستم ماه فوریه سال 1977میلادی
عنوان: راسته کنسرو سازان (راسته کنسرو سازی)؛ نویسنده: جان اشتاین (استاین) بک؛ مترجم: سیروس طاهباز؛ تهران، کتابخانه ایرانمهر، فرانکلین، سال1344؛ در 239ص؛ موضوع: داستانهای نویسندگان ایالات متحده آمریکا - سده 20م
داستان، در شهر ساحلی «مونتری»، جریان دارد؛ در محله ای با عنوان: «راسته کنسرو سازان (کنسرو سازی)»؛ خیابانی که حاشیه هایش، پر است از ماهیهایی، که قرار است، کنسرو شوند؛ قشر پایین جامعه، و کارگرها، آنجا زندکی میکنند؛ رخدادها، در سالهای جنگ جهانی دوم، روی میدهند، و نویسنده، زندگی بومی ساکنان آن منطقه را، بازگو میکند، و از پیمانهای زندگیشان مینویسد؛ این رمان، از آثار پرخوانشگر «اشتاین بک» است، و همانند بیشتر کتابهای این نویسنده، در فضایی بازگو، و از زندگی نادارها، و مشکلات آنها را، بیان میکند؛ خوانشگر در این رمان، با تصویری روشن از کوشش انسانها، برای ادامه ی زندگی روبرو میشود؛ «راسته ی کنسرو سازان» یا «راسته ی کنسرو سازی»، اثری است، که ته مایه های طنز نیز دارد، و در آن شکستهای آدمیان، در کنار شادیهای کوچک، نشان داده میشود؛ در رمان بر «دوستی»، «قناعت»، «اخلاق»، «پرهیز از نگاه سطحی به انسانها»، و «حس نوستالژی» تاکید شده؛ «راسته ی کنسرو سازی»، مکانی واقعی در «کالیفرنیا» است، که در چندین شعر، و داستان، از جمله در همین اثر «اشتاین بک»، به نام آنجا اشاره شده است؛
تاریخ بهنگام رسانی 27/08/1399هجری خورشیدی؛ 10/07/1400هجری خورشیدی؛ ا. شربیانی
Rating: really liked it
‘
The sale of souls to gain the whole world is completely voluntary and almost unanimous...but not quite.’
Of all the Steinbeck novels, I find
Cannery Row to strike me as the most pure and blissful. It’s a novel that seems to peacefully rock my well-being like a boat on the calm waters of a warm, summer day. Published in 1945, Steinbeck says he wrote it ‘
for a group of soldiers who said to me: ‘Write something funny that isn’t about the war. Write something for us to read - we’re sick of war.’’ While this novel is humorous indeed, it is also not without a looming melancholy that textures the narrative in a bittersweet but comforting way, feeling the ache of the weight of the world just beyond the peripheries but enjoying a temporary reprieve in the small joys of the story.
Cannery Row is a quiet examination of humanity that celebrates kindness and shows solidarity with those often overlooked or outcast in society, emphasizing them as figures of goodness that shine like a candle against the shadow of darkness in the world built by greed and power, but is also a loving tribute to nature, language, and the way we shape our world that succinctly culminates the many lessons of his earlier novels into one heartwarming tale.
‘
It has always seemed strange to me...The things we admire in men, kindness and generosity, openness, honesty, understanding and feeling, are the concomitants of failure in our system. And those traits we detest, sharpness, greed, acquisitiveness, meanness, egotism and self-interest, are the traits of success. And while men admire the quality of the first they love the produce of the second.’
Not unlike Tortilla Flat, Steinbeck focuses in on the daily activities of the average person, specifically the poor, unhoused and jobless. The town’s ‘
inhabitants are, as the man once said, 'whores, pimps, gamblers, and sons of bitches,' by which he meant everybody,’ writes Steinbeck, adding that ‘
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.’ The Everybody of the town he writes about clearly defines these characters as the Everyperson, the people Steinbeck has always wanted to empower and spotlight in his fiction. The plot of the novel mostly surrounds Mack and ‘the boys’—the local drifters, drunks and such—planning a party for Doc, the local biologist, and their misadventures to raise money and plan the party, but Steinbeck writes it all as if it were high stakes adventure rife with universal truth and beauty. There is a similarity to Tortilla Flat again here as something as goofy as collecting frogs and crashing in a stranger’s house come across as Arthurian adventure and moral lessons with Mack as their heroic leader.
‘
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 key to Steinbeck’s morals teachings are the ways he discusses how our actions speak volumes about what society values and how we choose to shape ourselves as well as the world around us. While the characters of Mack and the boys are those society tends to think of as having fallen into vice, Steinbeck reveals them as those of true virtue, as Doc says here:
‘Look at them. There are your true philosophers. I think that Mack and the boys know everything that has ever happened in the world and possibly everything that will happen. I think they survive in this particular world better than other people. In a time when people tear themselves to pieces with ambition and nervousness and covetousness, they are relaxed. All of our so-called successful men are sick men, with bad stomachs, and bad souls, but Mack and the boys are healthy and curiously clean. They can do what they want. They can satisfy their appetites without calling them something else.’
The unhappiness that weighs down the rest of the world, Steinbeck says, is from the pursuit of wealth and power, which he deems trivial matters that do not bring value at the end of life. ‘
What can it profit a man to gain the whole world and to come to his property with a gastric ulcer, a blown prostate, and bifocals?’ he questions in a twist on Mark in the Bible asking ‘
What shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?’ Steinbeck argues that the draw to wealth and power is strong and most give in to it’s call, thusly sacrificing their soul and happiness, a theme strongly addressed in his novella The Pearl. He warns against giving in to temptations too strongly such as writing ‘
where men in fear and hunger destroy their stomachs in the fight to secure certain food, where men hungering for love destroy everything lovable about them.’ Furthermore, Steinbeck looks at the way we react in the face of society, and how many conform in order to fit in at the expense of themselves instead of embracing themselves and not worrying if society accepts them or not. ‘
For there are two possible reactions to social ostracism - either a man emerges determined to be better, purer, and kindlier or he goes bad, challenges the world and does even worse things.’ Once again he reminds us ‘
the last is by far the commonest reaction to stigma.’
Steibeck also shows how we shape the world through the ways we perceive it, and speak it. He writes
‘The Word is symbol of delight which sucks up men and scenes, trees, plants, factories, and Pekinese. Then the Thing becomes the Word and the back to Thing again, but warped and woven into a fantastic pattern.’
I love this quote. Here we see nature as constant, a being-in-and-of-itself, but we tend to understand and conceptualize the world through language. This becomes subjective, and it sets up how language is faulty and through our own individual perceptions on the world we often misread or talk past one another. It also has biblical connotations, such as Adam naming the animals of the world putting them under his domain.
While much of the humor revolves around Mack and his misadventures, the real heart of the novel is the character Doc, who is based on Steinbeck’s friend Ed Ricketts. Ricketts was also the basis for Doc Burton in In Dubious Battle, Jim Casey in The Grapes of Wrath, and Doctor Winter in The Moon Is Down. Doc is melancholy, which inspires Mack to throw a party for him, and it’s a melancholy that matches the feeling of the world at the time. While the war is never present in the novel (taking place before it began), it was all too present in the lives of the reader and this melancholy represents the need everyone felt to feel something beautiful, such as why he wrote this book for the soldiers that asked for a non-war novel (its a bit meta, I suppose). Doc’s musings on life and humanity are a key element of the novel, such as when he finds a dead woman and notes ‘
his eyes were wet the way they get in the focus of great beauty,’ an expression on how life and death are two sides of the same coin.
Doc is also a reminder that we should feel our feelings and that allowing oneself to come to terms with sadness is healthy. ‘
Doc was feeling a golden pleasant sadness,’ Steinbeck writes. He also reminds us to look for and embrace kindness. Doc allows Mack to throw the party in his own house, knowing the party means so much to Mack. He does this at the expense of his own stuff and home, knowing things will get destroyed in the process, which is a beautiful and touching moment where we see him reciprocate the kindness Mack wants to show him recognizing that allowing Mack to give his ‘gift’ is Doc’s gift to him.
‘
Our Father, who art in nature, who has given the gift of survival to the coyote, the common brown rat, the English sparrow, the housefly and the moth, must have a great and overwhelming love for no-goods and blots-on-the-town and bums, and Mack and the boys.’
This is a lovely little book where Steinbeck is often at his best. It has the whimsicality of his early novels and is delivered in such refined and gorgeous prose. All the major themes of his come together in a peaceful little narrative that aims at reminding us to see the good in others and to embrace kindness. Doc is such lovable character, and I will always think of my father with this book as we both read it at the same time and, upon reading of Doc ordering a ‘beer milkshake’ decided to try to make one himself. This is a heartwarming read that has much more weight and meaning than the simplicity of the novel would imply.
4.5/5‘
In the world ruled by tigers with ulcers, rutted by strictured bulls, scavenged by blind jackals, Mack and the boys dine delicately with the tigers, fondle the frantic heifers, and wrap up the crumbs to feed the sea gulls of Cannery Row.’
Rating: really liked it
"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."
- The first line of Cannery RowI always enjoy Steinbeck. I don’t think I have read a single one that is not 5 stars. I am glad to finally read Cannery Row and discover that it is not an exception to the 5-star rule.
Cannery Row is one main storyline interspersed with slightly related anecdotes every other chapter. Each story is a snapshot into part of the life of a citizen of Cannery Row. The writing is perfect and drew me in and held me. Some parts felt like a little bit of filler, but they really are not. They all serve to enrich the story and the atmosphere. Every second of this story was an absolute treat!
Characters! I want to meet them all: the good, the bad, the silly, the sweet, the criminal, the questionably moral, and the seemingly righteous. Every time I read Steinbeck, I love getting to know the people he creates. And, I figure based on how he writes and what he writes about he probably knew someone just like every one of his characters. While with some of his other stories there have been obvious villains, this is a book you will leave loving very character you meet no matter what they are like.
If you have been wanting to try Steinbeck but are not ready to commit to a larger tome like East of Eden or Grapes of Wrath, Cannery Row would be a great place to start!
Rating: really liked it
Why does Steinbeck's narrative voice entice me so, I've been asking myself over the past few days.
In my second reading of this novella, which has become a favorite of mine, I realized that it's his unshakeable belief in mankind.
Steinbeck reinvents the concept of family and expands its boundaries with his blatant love for humanity. Nobody is homeless in
Cannery Row, not even imps or prostitutes, destitute painters or big-hearted biologists, mentally impaired kids or immigrant shopkeepers. Even mongrels and frogs are treated with decorum in this picturesque portrait of comradeship in Monterrey, California.
Interweaving a wide array of anecdotes with symbolic connotations, Steinbeck paints decent lives for the dispossessed that endure the sentence of social marginalization. Unexpected dignity comes in the form of reciprocal support, selfless loyalty and the humbling acceptance of the foibles of human condition and, as if by some sort of magic, the unappealing milieu of rattling caravans, crumbling shacks and noisy honky-tonks constitute an enchanting place where people live for themselves and need very little to reach serenity of mind.
The spell of Steinbeck’s soothing prose settles in and Mack and the boys, troublesome rascals, become the
Beauties, the
Graces and the
Virtues of this vibrant community. Doc, whose faith in the goodness of mankind is as fervent as his devotion to the mysteries of marine biology, is the converging point that brings out the best in his fellowmen, modeled after his creator. His compassion is genuine and carries not a hint of condescendence, and so when he listens to his friends’ predicaments or to one of his albums of Gregorian music at the
hour of the pearl, he is equally overcome by the joy of extending unconditional friendship or by his not unwelcome loneliness.
But watch out. Don’t allow yourself to be misled.
Steinbeck, like Doc, doesn’t offer a glorified, syrupy version of the hardships of life while sermonizing on the benefits of collective insurgency; his clear-cut vision synthesizes the healing compassion that human beings are capable of and inspires us to find poetry in the most prosaic, even the most repulsive of things.
There is an irresistible modesty in Steinbeck’s minimalistic yet deeply charged prose. The half-deprecating, half-dramatic tone in which he paints these stories gives a tragicomic intensity to the clumsy, reprovable characters and tinges their daily tribulations with an authentic tenderness that pierces right through the thickest skins.
Cannery Road is a toast to ordinariness, an unabashed portrayal of men at his worst shinning with the best of human condition, an ode to the invisible treasures of life.
I dare you who read to look at the world through Steinbeck’s eyes.
And you will see a cocktail prepared with drink leftovers and cheap whisky become a delicatessen, if shared in good company.
A disastrous birthday party; the much-desired present that restores lost innocence.
The high tides and waves splashing on the rocks under the piers; the perfect moonlight sonata at the time after the light has come and before the sun has risen.
And
Black Marigolds that wither with the evanescence of life; an eternal blessing.
Even now. Even here. Even for us.
Rating: really liked it
One of my favorite childhood memories was my family vacation to California the year I turned nine. On that trip one of our stops was the Monterey Bay Aquarium. As a lover of all things marine biology I was captivated by the flora and fauna of the aquarium for an entire day. Before there was an aquarium near Monterey's beach front, the city was home to a few block stretch of fish and fruit canneries so eloquently portrayed in Steinbeck's Cannery Row, the author's homage to depression era Monterey. In this telling historical fiction, the Nobel Laureate creates archetypes of characters who made central California home during a trying time in American history.
Depression era Monterey, California is a quiet community comprised of canneries, whore houses, a few general stores, and one biologist named Doc who is forever tinkering with experiments in his laboratory. Most people are short on funds and use the barter system to get by and many creatively create homes out of deserted steam ovens and warehouses. Despite being short on funds, liquor is always flowing, whore house business is prosperous, and most people appear for the most part happy with their station in life despite the lack of money. Mack and his gang of delinquents call a warehouse owned by Lee Chong home in exchange for only shopping in his general store and never stealing his goods. They come up with one charade and adventure after another in attempt to earn enough money to get by. Often, Mack asks Doc if the gang can obtain him frogs or cats or other animals in exchange for spending money. Although Doc realizes that this gang is only after a good time, he usually resists because he shows them sympathy in their impoverished station in life when people are looking for a morale booster more so than bettering their place in society. Such is the life on cannery row in Monterey, California.
Steinbeck writes in such a captivating style that makes him one of America's master story tellers. This book goes off on tangents that at times makes the story hard to follow; however, this is the nature of Mack's sense of going in the direction of whatever adventure is thrown at him. Yet, even if he is borrowing a car to go frogging or throwing a disastrous party at Doc's lab, his compass ends up on Cannery Row. I enjoyed Steinbeck's depictions of Monterey and the time period more so that Mack's adventures. When describing his cast of characters, Steinbeck got to the gist of the story and painted a picture of the time period whereas Mack's exploits at times took away from the rest of the good people of Monterey and left me wanting more knowledge of daily life in Monterey. In a book under two hundred pages, I was able to read quickly from chapter to chapter to discover how life in Monterey and how each character coped with the times of nationwide depression.
One facet of this novella that left me wanting more was the minimal development of female characters. Mary Talbot made the most of her situation by joining the Bloomer League and throwing parties, and eventually she threw a pregnancy party for herself. Mrs. Malloy made the best out of living inside a steam oven but little is said about her character and interests. The most development given to female characters in Cannery Row is that of Madam Dora and her whores. It appears as though Dora fancies Doc but there is little to advance the story line. Otherwise, the whores simply exist to provide a good time to fishermen and canners and other men who are seeking a quick fix for their personal depression. I would have liked to see more character development for Dora, but as this book focused on the exploits of Mack and his gang, Steinbeck simply did not have the space to focus on each character as he would in a full length novel.
Cannery Row demonstrates Steinbeck's story telling skills while also painting a picture of California during the depression. Most people appeared to desire a good time and quick fix for their troubles without contemplating long term solutions for their own and the country's money troubles. The only character who had foresight was Doc who behind the scenes was creating the basis for what would be Monterey's famed aquarium. I enjoyed reading this novella, which I liked more than the last Steinbeck story that I read, and it left me desiring to return to his work sometime in the future.
4 stars
Rating: really liked it
Cannery Row in Monterey in California is a poem (probably more of a song, as someone walks around playing their music out loud), an aroma (popcorn, I believe), a honking noise, a camera flash as the same photograph is taken for the millionth time. You know, the photographer standing in the middle of the street, CANNERY ROW COMPANY, and farther down MONTEREY CANNING CO. Cannery Row is a tourist trap, where there's always a ton of people, and not a parking spot to be found, the same keychains and bottle openers sold in every damn shop. Been there, done that, and what a variety of overpriced t-shirts to choose from. A nostalgia, a dream (Oh John, if only you could see it now). A nightmare.
Rating: really liked it
When it rains, and rains, and rains, I drink my morning coffee and think of sunny California. Of Steinbeck, of course! Not that the world is more perfect in his imagination than in my reality. Far from it. But it is dusty and dry, and that seems like a welcome change sometimes. His characters would of course drink their coffee, stare at the dust and hope for rain and mud. Such is the world!
As there are countless wonderful real reviews of this classic already, but I feel I have to add my enthusiasm about spending delicious hours rereading Cannery Row, laughing tears of amusement and sorrow, I will offer a little prayer quote, as honest as can be, the absolute antithesis to the equally powerful, yet hypocritical rhetoric of an Elmer Gantry.
“Our Father who art in nature, who has given the gift of survival to the coyote, the common brown rat, the English sparrow, the house fly and the moth, must have a great and overwhelming love for no-goods and blots-on-the-town and bums, and Mack and the boys. Virtues and graces and laziness and zest. Our Father who art in nature.”
As it is Saturday, and I am a lazy bum, this will have to do for a review of an all time favourite.
Amen. I rest my case.
Rating: really liked it
“It has always seemed strange to me...The things we admire in men, kindness and generosity, openness, honesty, understanding, and feeling, are the concomitants of failure in our system. And those traits we detest, sharpness, greed, acquisitiveness, meanness, egotism, and self-interest, are the traits of success. And while men admire the quality of the first they love the produce of the second.”This is something I've often pondered on, just like Doc in
Cannery Row. Often society tends to think comparatively low of those good than those successful. I can vouch for that also through my personal experience. The present status of the world is a direct product of our way of thinking. And if we find the world cold, uncaring, and unfeeling, there is no one to blame for it but ourselves.
In
Cannery Row, Steinbeck brings us a set of characters who the world at large considers as "failures". Doc who runs the biological shop, Mack and the boys, who are unemployed, Lee Chong who runs a grocery, Dora who runs a whorehouse and her girls, and various other inhabitants of the Cannery Row, are worlds apart from those "respectable and successful" who live "on the other side of the hill". They are not those who command "social interest", and are even considered as "social outcasts". But the generosity, kindness, honesty, and camaraderie displayed by them demand respect and admiration. Steinbeck brings these somewhat ostracized individuals to life and thrusts them towards us demanding our attention to them. He seems to say that even though they may not be your preferred everyday associates, their human qualities should equally be acknowledged, admired, and respected. This deeply human touch by this deeply humane author is what truly drew me to the story.
Cannery Row doesn't have a proper plot. It is rather character-driven. Yet, you'll not find anything remiss there. Once you get to know the characters, they draw you into their lives. There is, however, an underlying forlorn feeling throughout that makes you painfully emotional. Yet, this strong emotion firmly binds you to the story and its characters. There is also the subtle irony that makes us rethink our own values, principles, and morals.
John Steinbeck is a naturally gifted author. His writing is simple, beautiful, and undemanding. But at the same time, there is subtle power that forces your attention, chokes you with emotion, and demands your notice of the obscurities of life. My repertoire of American classics is not wide. I've read only but few authors. Yet I'm convinced that Steinbeck is one of its greatest products. My only regret is waiting this long to get acquainted with him.
Rating: really liked it
how do i review
cannery row? like all the steinbeck i have read, except
the dead pony, of which i remember very little except not being too keen on it, it is saturated with these wonderful marginalized characters who are desperate and hopeless and yearning. but they are surviving. and there is so much beauty in the squalor. it reminds me in my feeling-parts of
suttree, which is one of my all time favorite books. this book is full of such well-meaning ineptitude and many very serious things couched in an effortless prose that comes across as almost humorous, or rather, amused. i'm not sure how to articulate all that i am feeling for steinbeck right now. this one will never be my favorite, but its been so long since i read him, i am remembering why i always list him when rattling off favorite authors when cornered by someone who wants something "really american". this certainly qualifies. the frog story was the best thing i have read in a long time. it didn't escape five stars by much, but there's a visceral reaction i get to certain books that i didn't get here. but really - a fucking gem.
come to my blog!
Rating: really liked it
A novel without much of a plot but highly invested in its characters, ‘Cannery Row’ centers on Mack and his group of friends, as well as Lee Chong, the local grocer, Dora Flood, local madam, Doc, owner of Western Biological Laboratory, and other varied community members. Mack and his friends are the type that many might judge as shiftless and ‘no count,’ but Steinbeck observes that for them happiness has come gently and without much need for productive endeavor. While other men struggle unnecessarily and have heart attacks and ulcers, these men live in contentment without all the hassle. They take each day as it comes. Some of them work part-time and contribute as they see fit.
In an auspicious world of book synchronicity, I happened to be reading ‘How To Do Nothing’ by Jenny Odell almost congruently with this one. Odell writes, “In the face of the increasingly materialist and pragmatic orientation of our age...it would not be eccentric in the future to contemplate a society in which those who live for the pleasures of the mind will no longer have the right to demand their place in the sun.” Many of us had or have careers in which our minutes are portioned out in allotments of functionality and productivity. During my nursing career, I had to be careful how much time I spent with each patient, so I could get to all of them and still have time for everything else. Most nurses keep the face of compassion, but inside many suffer burn out. Of course, there’s no way to apply the laws of shiftlessness to nursing care, but productivity and compassion do not always make good bedfellows. Although I could never take on Mack’s approach to life, there is something about it that is appealing, that says slow down and take your time...you only pass this way once. As well, there is something about the materialist, productivity oriented lifestyle that can be disconcerting, that can leave one unmoored and grasping for a deeper and more meaningful life.
Steinbeck writes some captivating sequences such as chapter 6’s descriptions of the Great Tide Pool. It is beautiful and observant of nature, the good and the bad. A crab tearing off the leg of its brother or the murderous octopus, the fluted nudibranchs, the colors and movement detailed, the smells, even the tactile sensation of salt spray, all of it glorious and down to survival. Steinbeck is no less observant of his human characters and one gets the notion that if you could just sit down and observe the world as Steinbeck does, then the richness and meaning of life must surely show itself.
Rating: really liked it
I first read this many years ago. Riddled with ADD, frozen by nervousness, and thrown-off by wack-ass hormones, I had trouble reading
anything at the time, and this was no exception. A parable of my formerly wasted time on earth, I read it and got nothing out of it. Hell, I didn’t even
remember I had read it until I started it (again) 10 days ago.
But oh did I appreciate it this go-round. Steinbeck got me to like the kind of people that, at first judgment, I would deem ignorant, annoying, or maybe even dangerous. The kind of people with brains attuned to a totally different frequency than my own; people so different from myself, that I’d probably be pretty freaking uncomfortable if I met them. I’d maybe even feel
threatened by them. This, of course, is not because Mack-and-his-motley-crew are actually bad guys. Sure they’re slick and they’ll take you for a ride if they can; but they almost always
mean well, and they are
not bad people.
Mack and the boys aren’t enclosed by the excesses and goal-driven constructs that trap most of the population. They live in the moment and are free from most worries. They are content, and are therefore happy. The Doctor –- a very memorable character, and a hero of sorts to the people of Cannery Row -– says it best:
"Look at them. There are your true philosophers. I think that Mack and the boys know everything that has ever happened in the world and possibly everything that will happen. I think they survive in this particular world better than other people. In a time when people tear themselves to pieces with ambition and nervousness and covetousness, they are relaxed. All of our so-called successful men are sick men, with bad stomachs, and bad souls, but Mack and the boys are healthy and curiously clean. They can do what they want. They can satisfy their appetites without calling them something else."Cannery Row was written and ordered expertly, with each chapter short but packing a punch. And while the characters for the most part remain pretty freakin’ lovable, Steinbeck -- true to life -- hits us with dark surprises throughout. People seem to have memories and favorite scenes from this novel that they recall years later: the dead girl, Henri the “painter,” the beer milkshake, the ice skater, to name a few. My favorite and most memorable scene was a full chapter, only a few pages long, in which Steinbeck takes one of his brilliantly dark detours from the main narrative, to tell us about a gopher -– yes, a
gopher. In a vacant lot on Cannery Row, the gopher finds the perfect spot for a burrow. Through strategy, hard work, and passion, the gopher makes himself his ideal home. He loads up food for his future offspring, and enjoys his nice view and rich soil: he is set for life. But as time moves on, no female appears: he remains alone. The gopher gives up on his perfect home, and decides to move where he can find a mate.......and ends up choosing a spot in a nearby garden that is full of gopher traps.
I started reading heavily a little over a year ago. Since then, I’ve had dashes of great love for humanity which have taken place more often, and have been more piercing, than those that took place before I was a hardcore bookster. Oh, I’m still secretly more of a hater than a lover, and ignorance still typically ticks me off. But thanks to reading novels like this, I understand and love my fellow human beings a little more.
And if I could keep within me, all the time, those aforementioned dashes of pure, radiating love in my heart, I think I’d be perpetually happy. But you know, life is flighty. And these moments are few and far between.
Then again, I’ll take what I can get.
Rating: really liked it
Cannery Row is my 5th novel by John Steinbeck and while I enjoyed the read it isn't a standout novel for me like East of Eden or Of Mice and Men and I think this is down to the way in which the book is written as it lacks a plot and reads more like a character study as we get a snapshot of the characters daily lives on Cannery Row. I really liked the setting of the novel. Published in 1945 it is set during the Great Depression in Monterey California on a street lined with Sardine Canneries known as Cannery Row. We meet a host of interesting and entertaining characters who happen to live there and there is no definite plot to the novel, just every day life happenings for these entertaining characters and unlike some of Steinbeck’s other novels it is not a depressing read and the characters do bring a smile to your face and I really enjoyed hanging out with them.
Not one for my favourites shelf but an easy and enjoyable read and a book that I am glad to have picked up and crossed off my TBR list. I listened to this one on audio and enjoyed the experience.
