East of Eden

by John Steinbeck

Wow. This was a fantastic book. Thank you Belle for suggesting it. It was captivating and thought provoking, and altogether a wonderful novel. If I were to begin to describe what this book is about... I think I would fail miserably. Ultimately, it's a view of life in the Salinas Valley in California mostly through two families- the Hamiltons and the Trasks. But there is so much more to it than that.

This is a novel about good vs. evil. Really. This entire novel is full of Biblical references and parallel, and it doesn't take much to see that we see the story of Adam and Eve and Cain and Able played out more than once. And it seems, as we start out, that evil always triumphs. we have Cyrus Trask who succumbs to evil but stealing from the US government and dying a rich man. Then we have half-brothers Charles (Cain) and Adam (Abel). On one of their father's birthdays, the two boys give him gifts- Charles a pen-knife, and Adam a puppy. Cyrus favors the puppy over the knife- very much like God choosing Abel's offering over Cain's. Eventually this leads to Charles almost killing his brother Adam.

We also get to meet Cathy who seems to be nothing but evil. All she sees is evil, and she spends her life trying to exploit the evil in others. It isn't until the end of her life, when she sees that her sons have something she doesn't that she begins to realize that maybe the whole world isn't evil. Adam trask marries Cathy, and out of their union came twin sons named Caleb and Aron. And once again, the Cain and Abel story is played out, only with a different ending this time around. In fact, at one point, Adam and his housekeeper Lee are asking on the whereabouts of Aron, and Cal snaps back with "Am I supposed to look after him?" I doubt anyone even half familiar with Cain and Abel would miss the reference to "Am I my brother's keeper?"

A huge point with this novel- I think, is the one of timshel, or Thou Mayest. In the Bible, in the story of Cain and Abel, God tells Cain that he CAN overcome evil- that he mayest, and the Hebrew translation of that is timshel. Ultimately, I believe that Cal was the sole winner in this book. He ultimately attained timshel by realizing the power of free choice and resists the evil within himself. Free choice to overcome evil.

There are so many other parallels in this book that could be touched on, I would love to hear from others who have read this book. There's the issue of money... Cyrus stole a fortune and passed it on to his sons who couldn't triumph over evil wholly themselves. Charles left his portion of that fortune to Cathy who used it to the benefit of her whorehouse, and subsequently left that fortune to Aron. Aron, the pure son possibly couldn't handle the taint of evil within the money itself- hence part of what drove him to his eventual demise. Only Cal remained untouched by the tainted money... does that have any bearing on his triumph over evil? Is this another story about money being the root of all evil? Samuel Hamilton was the happiest man on earth- but the poorest. And when his children moved on to try and make something of themselves, they all fell into ruin of some form or another.

A fascinating book. I would love to hear from anyone else! This is definitely a novel worthy of discussion. I'm actually sorry I didn't read this for a class- it would have been a fun one.