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. Instead it felt like a place Steinbeck must have lived in, people he must have known.Ĭannery 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. This is a male-centric story, while I would have liked more female characters, but nothing about the book felt sexist or racist. Steinbeck’s characters leap off the page, each of them having strengths and flaws. What might feel stereotypical and cliché is in fact exactly the opposite. Dora runs the brothel, and Mack leads a group of guys who live in an abandoned warehouse. Lee is a Chinese-American who owns the local grocery store. Doc is a gentleman who makes a living collecting animal and plant samples for laboratories and classrooms. This is a book about people living on the outside of society, getting by with what they have. Which is not to say that life in this time and place is easy. But it’s also an ode to the natural beauty of coastal California, something that really resonated with me. I think I expected something more industrial from the title – Cannery Row refers to Monterey’s cannery district, where most of the men of this town make their living.
I loved this novel about a small community in Monterey, California.
0 kommentar(er)
