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Showing reviews 6-10 of 223
 The Human Tide Pool September 1, 2008
Roger Brunyate (Baltimore, MD)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Chapter 6 of CANNERY ROW opens with a rich description of a Pacific tide pool. "It is a fabulous place: when the tide is in, a wave-churned basin, creamy with foam, whipped by the combers that roll in from the whistling buoy on the reef. But when the tide goes out the little water world becomes quiet and lovely. The sea is very clear and the bottom becomes fantastic with hurrying, fighting, feeding, breeding animals. Crabs rush from frond to frond of the waving algae. Starfish squat over mussels and limpets, attach their million little suckers and then slowly lift with incredible power until the prey is broken from the rock. And then the starfish stomach comes out and envelops its food." The passage continues for two pages, reveling in grace and beauty, but also in danger, violence, and death, ending at last with the tide filling the basin once more while "...on the reef the whistling buoy bellows like a sad and patient bull."
In her fascinating but rather academic introduction to the Penguin Classics edition of CANNERY ROW, Susan Shillinglaw suggests that the tide pool is also a metaphor for Steinbeck's study of the inhabitants of the ramshackle buildings behind the old sardine canneries in Monterey, California. Certainly, these characters have a lot in common with creatures hidden under rocks that come out only at certain times of day. But they are fascinating when they do. Other readers have rightly commented on the wealth and humor of the loosely-connected series of anecdotes that make up the novel; this is a heart-warming tale that almost simultaneously brings a smile to the lips and a tear to the eye. The Steinbeck that could look with such sympathy into the gentle heart of simple Lennie in OF MICE AND MEN, or applaud the desperate will to survive of Tom Joad in THE GRAPES OF WRATH, paints this collection of marginal characters with affection and without judgement. Describing them as "whores, pimps, gamblers, and sons of bitches," he changes that in the next sentence to "saints and angels and martyrs and holy men" and means the same thing; the book proves his paradox.
But I look at the passage about the starfish quoted above, and read further in Steinbeck's description of the pool, "tranquil and lovely and murderous," to his account of the black eels, the snapping shrimps, the seductive anemones, and that "creeping murderer the octopus... [attacking] ...as ferociously as a charging cat." Although there is danger, death, and tragedy in the human tide pool of Cannery Row, it is relatively muted. Perhaps Steinbeck, writing at the end of WW2 with several tough novels behind him, wanted to leave violence behind. The pay-off is the warmth of what remains; the danger is occasional sentimentality. While there is tragedy implicit in the novel, it is suggested in softer tones.
The tide pool is seen through the eyes of the one character who rises above the others: old Doc, who makes a living collecting zoological specimens. As an observer of the human world as well, Doc might seem the writer's surrogate, but while Steinbeck treats him with empathy, he also keeps a certain distance; this is not autobiography. The character is based on Ed Ricketts, the book's dedicatee, a marine biologist whom Steinbeck accompanied on the extended study trip immortalized in THE LOG FROM THE SEA OF CORTEZ. Doc is well-liked but solitary, his life cheered mainly by classical music on the phonograph, occasional women, and continual beer. Although we meet him early on, we realize only gradually that Doc must be very lonely -- a realization that makes us aware of the essential isolation of most of the other figures in the book. A very few go under, but most manage to rebound by doing something at once outrageous and life-affirming. At the height of a wild party in his honor that brings the whole community to his door at the end of the novel, Doc recites an old Sanskrit poem of lost love. I am not sure that the actual poem completely works, but the combination of sadness and joy, like the two masks in the old theater, is a perfect summary of this marvelous book.
good book for everyone July 24, 2008
Caligrl9205 (California)
i thought this would be a stupid book becuz we had to read it for an english class, but it was actually pretty interesting. i read to the end before the class, for once
Cannery Row July 14, 2008
Michael D. Molloy (Chicago, IL USA)
If you're a person who likes stories with lots of action and an exciting plot, then this book probably isn't for you. If you're a person who likes unique and fascinating characters, then this book is DEFINITELY for you. Cannery Row is about everybody's hometown. It follows the lives of a handful of townspeople--a group of bums led by Mack, a scientist, a whorehouse madam, a shopkeeper--and somehow Steinbeck manages to get me to sympathize with and understand each of them while at the same time making them very real and very flawed. While I might cross the street in real life in order to avoid an encounter with an aggressive "bum," I fell in love with Mack and his boys living in Cannery Row.
This book is more similar to East of Eden than to Grapes of Wrath. It's short, very easy to read, and I didn't want it to end.
 A "funny little book." May 10, 2008
Cipriano (Planet Claire)
What John Steinbeck does so well, time and again, is show us real people, living real life. Nothing really fantastical, yet just a bit out of the ordinary. But real as dirt.
Reading him makes me wish I did not have to use the past tense when speaking of how he writes.
I just finished his 1945 novel, Cannery Row.
I thoroughly enjoyed it.
The book is not so much about plot, as it is an evocation of time and place. Almost, at times, a panoply of connected vignettes.
Short, economic chapters; never a suffocating moment.
The "cannery" district of Monterey California comes alive, as we meet people like Lee Chong, the shrewd, yet good-hearted general store owner.
From aspirin to zippers, if Lee Chong ain't got it, you ain't need it!
Then there's Mack, the self-appointed ringleader of a veritable posse of down-and-outers. These guys don't work. [I envied them all the way through...] They just sit around all day and cause unintentional mayhem for the whole town, the main victim being Cannery Row's one seeming intellectual, the marine biologist known as "Doc."
The central thrust of Steinbeck's novel is that Mack and his boys want to throw Doc a party. Doc is such a "nice guy" and he is always out there helping others, Mack figures it's time to repay him with a bit of a shindig.
Amazing how such good intentions can go awry!
The first attempt at a party is a complete disaster. The second attempt, this time the event being Doc's alleged birthday, is not much better, but by now Doc has taken precautions. Getting wind of his own party plans, he himself does most of the organizing, and feigns surprise when people start arriving.
But what's the use?
At the end of this second party, his front door is again knocked off its hinges, and by now even the police have given up on arresting these well-intentioned hooligans!
It's a terrific little novel [almost a novella] in which my lasting impression shall be the fact that all friendships, indeed, all human relationships, must be willing to embrace imperfection. Not just in the other person, but also in our own self.
In a subtle way, Doc learns through his bumbling friends, that he is not an island. In fact, he may even need these guys, from time to time.
Even he, self-sufficient Doc, may be in need of someone!
I often look into Steinbeck's Letters [a book] to get a better appreciation for the time frame of some of his writings. Of Cannery Row, he said, back in 1943, to a friend... "I'm working on a funny little book and it is pretty nice."
I concur.
It is funny. It is nice.
The character of "Doc" was based on Steinbeck's real-life friendship with a man by the name of Ed Ricketts.
I read Cannery Row in preparation to reading a new book I recently picked up, entitled Beyond The Outer Shores: The Untold Story of Ed Ricketts, The Pioneering Ecologist Who Inspired John Steinbeck and Joseph Campbell.
It's by Eric Enno Tamm, and I look forward to beginning it, next week.
I highly recommend Cannery Row, to all and sundry.
It's not East of Eden.
It's not Grapes of Wrath.
But it's definitely Cannery Row!
 Disappointing April 10, 2008
Robert Obrien (Chicago, IL USA)
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
This is the seventh Steinbeck novel I have read, and also one of the worst (The Short Reign of Pippin the VII is worse). I loved The Red Pony and Of Mice of Men, so I branched out, reading some of his lesser known works. Big Mistake. This novella has no focus, no character you can relate to, no plot to speak of, no definitive climax, and no business being read. I daydreamed through most of it.
The reason I don't give it one star is because Steinbeck, like in most of his novels, provided a great description of post-war Cannery Row, and did a decent job of presenting violence on the periphery (kind of like the news today). We see glimpses of violence but we, nor the characters are ever directly affected. Furthermore, the novel's ending is decent, comparing Doc's lonely isolation to that of a gopher being attacked while trying to seek out a mate. Unfortunately, most things leading up until the ending is uneventful, constantly interrupted by dead-end subplots, and lacking in intrigue.
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