If there is a heaven, I hope it's like Cannery Row
I'd like to go back in time and talk with a Californian reading Cannery Row hot off the press to see if they'd describe Steinbeck's world as idyllic or depressing, earthy or dirty, half-crazy or charming. Sixty years later we smell the fresh air, relish the wood-and-iron construction of just about everything in sight, appreciate the rarity of television, wallow in the non-existence of computers and yearn for at least a short visit to his pre-nuclear world in which you looked up words in the dictionary and wound your watch to keep it running. In that sense, almost any half-decent novel of the forties benefits from the passing of a half century, but Steinbeck's world is different because it's real, bloody, sweaty, drunk, proud, beautiful, earnest, passionate and jam-packed full of integrity. Steinbeck never turns a blind eye; in fact he takes you inside the bowels of the Malloys' boiler, the perfumed interior of Dora's Bear Flag "Restaurant," and the specimen-filled basement of Doc's Western Biological Laboratory. Along the way there are visions and epiphanies, horrors and violence, joys and triumphs. Steinbeck's world is so vivid that you forget that you're reading. You hear the frogs, the Model T, the glug of the whiskey jug and the crashing of the surf. Everyone's life in Cannery Row is tied to Nature: the sardines, the tides, the seasons, the sun and the moon. Without the ocean and the hills, the creeks and ponds, the tide-pools and cliffs, Cannery Row would cease to exist. When it comes right down to it though, the words of 250 amateur reviewers fall far short. Don't read Cannery Row because of our words, read it because of Steinbeck's: "Cannery Row in Monterrey in California is a poem, a stink, a grating noise, a quality of light, a tone, a habit, a nostalgia, a dream." Only Shot At A Good Tombstone
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A "Must-Read"
While there isn't much in the way of a "plot" in this book, I still consider this a must-read. Steinbeck has an uncanny ability to put a sentence together in the most perfect way possible.
The "story" is not a traditional story per-se, but rather, it is the story of the area at the time... a "slice of life" look at an interesting place and time. It's a loosely related collection of short stories. The book accomplishes what it sets out to do, which is to give the reader a sense of the lives of the people who lived in Cannery Row during the Depression.
There characters are colorful but still human and as I noted before, the writing is superb.
classic
Having read this book, I have a whole new appreciation of Monterey. I will be looking for all the landmarks from the book next time I'm in Monterey visiting Cannery Row!
awesome writer ... blah storyline
John Steinbeck is incredible at giving vivid pictures through using words.
I felt like a watched a movie from reading this book.
the story never really goes anywhere and its a short read.
i guess when u read a steinbeck novel you need to focus on the symbolisms and analogies rather than the actual stories.
(236 reviews)
