East of Eden by John Steinbeck

East of Eden by John Steinbeck
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I have wanted to read this book ever since seeing the movie years ago, and especially after a dear friend's book club read it last year as one of their selections. I recently saw the movie again on TMC and decided it was time to pick up the book and go for it. It was a well rewarded venture.

The first two thirds of the book are back-story for the characters and the families involved. Steinbeck's writing style is not the best I've read, and the early part of the book was somewhat tedious. But my efforts were richly paid off as I entered the last third of the story. The richness of the characters and the dynamics of their interactions with each other, the events around them, and even with themselves, drew me into the story such that I found it difficult to put the book down for the last 150 pages. The characters are real and complex, and I felt more human, finding parts of myself in many of them, whether protagonist, or antagonist, or secondary. The ending was very moving, and there are many unexpected twists and turns along the way that make this tale so much richer than a simple parable of good and evil, black and white. Compared to the more simplistic biblical story from which this story is based, I found East of Eden to contain more Truth and Reality than the biblical version. Really good stuff! I highly recommend this book, and encourage staying with it to the end. An excellent story.

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