East of Eden, John Steinbeck

East of Eden was published in September 1952.  It is the tale of two families, The Trasks and the Hamiltons.  It is regarded as the most ambitious work of Steinbeck.  The novel is packed full of themes that involve the human condition.  Some of the major themes covered are depravity, love, struggle for acceptance and greatness, the capacity for self-destruction, guilt and freedom.  Throughout the book these themes are tied together in a way that parallels the book of Genesis in the Bible, especially the story of Cain and Abel.  The title of the novel itself comes from Genesis, Chapter 4, verse 16: “And Cain went out from the presence of the Lord, and dwelt in the Land of Nod, on the east of Eden.”  

I was impressed with the novel in the beginning as it starts out building the characters of the Trask bothers and the relationship with their father.  I thought Steinbeck was insightful and did a great job in character development and I thought the characters where very believable.  Later when Cathy Ames came on the scene, I thought that her character was somewhat unbelievable and remained so throughout the novel. The character of Cathy is so one dimensional and singularly evil that, to me she is not realistic, her character more so than any other in the novel.  I still believe this is one of the best novels I have read, and the character of Cathy is an important part of the story, however in my opinion Steinbeck goes to extremes with her that are unnecessary.

A little over halfway through the novel when Sam Hamilton is having a conversation with Lee about passages in Genesis is where everything came together for me.  I think there is one quote on these pages that for me sums up the main theme of the novel:

“The greatest terror a child can have is that he is not loved, rejection is the hell of all fears.  I think everyone in the world to a large or small extent has felt rejection.  And with rejection comes anger, and with anger some kind of crime in revenge for the rejection, and with the crime guilt – and there is the story of mankind.”

This quote struck me.  This is the line that ties all the subplots in the story together and it is a quote that describes the story of Cain and Able that I have not contemplated before.  The only problem is that after this discussion I was one step ahead of where things were going all the way to the end, in other words the sequence of events were somewhat predictable from that point on.  I was able to predict early on, at the introduction of Abra, that Cal would end up with her in the end. I was also certain that Cal would be involved in some kind of tragic end for Aron, although I did not know how it would develop exactly.    

In summary I believe this novel is one of the better novels I have read; it is entertaining, thought provoking, sometimes shocking, and is full of themes of the human condition that will make one stop and contemplate things.  This is more than likely a book that I will come back and revisit in a few years and I am sure will pull more out of it the second time around.