10. East Of Eden: Steinbeck, Sin, and Redemption

Summary

The Book Club – Episode 10: East of Eden: Steinbeck, Sin, and Redemption

Date: April 20, 2026
Hosts: Dominic Sandbrook (B), Tabitha Syrett (D)

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Episode Overview

In this episode, Dominic Sandbrook and Tabitha Syrett tackle John Steinbeck’s East of Eden, a multigenerational saga set in California's Salinas Valley. The discussion uncovers the novel’s biblical underpinnings, themes of sin and redemption, its relationship to American history and myth, and the complex life and motivations of Steinbeck himself. The hosts debate the novel’s literary merits—and flaws—while exploring memorable characters (especially Cathy/Kate), the question of free will, and the book’s bumpy critical reception over time.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. East of Eden: Plot and Themes

Timestamps: [01:38]-[08:36]

• The episode opens with a dramatic passage from East of Eden, highlighting the violence and melodrama central to the book ([01:38]).
• Dominic: Frames the novel as a massive retelling of Genesis, especially the Cain and Abel story:
  “It's a book about good and evil, about free will and destiny. How much are we trapped by heredity...you're not tainted by original sin.” ([03:20])
• The book is deeply personal for Steinbeck, intended as a message to his sons that the past does not dictate your future ([03:20]-[03:59]).
• Tabitha: Recaps the Trasks and Hamiltons, the story’s twin families ([05:01]).
  • Adam, with tragic optimism; his brother Charles, prone to violence.
  • Cathy/Kate, Adam’s wife—criminal, sadistic, possibly psychopathic ([06:00]-[06:40]).
  • Their sons Cal and Aaron, opposites in temperament, echo the biblical Cain and Abel ([07:18]-[08:36]).
• The Salinas Valley is a “character” itself, a symbol of duality in both nature and human hearts ([26:54]).

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2. Reception and Legacy

Timestamps: [03:59]-[04:59], [22:31]-[23:32], [64:09]-[65:42]

• Upon publication (1952), East of Eden was divisive:
  • Critics found it “moralistic” and “sensationalized.”
  • “Clumsy in structure and defaced by excessive melodramatics and much cheap sensationalism.” – New York Times ([22:31])
  • Christian Science Monitor lamented its focus on “naked animality.”
• Enduring popular success:
  • Hit No. 1 on the NYT bestseller list.
  • James Dean starred as Cal in the 1955 film adaptation.
  • Oprah’s Book Club revived it in 2003, calling it “maybe the best book she'd ever read.” ([03:59])
• The hosts revisit the divide—Dominic siding with critics, Tabitha with the novel’s fans ([64:09]).

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3. Steinbeck’s Life and Intentions

Timestamps: [11:00]-[21:38]

• Deeply autobiographical, the Hamiltons are based on Steinbeck’s maternal family ([11:08]-[11:31]).
• Steinbeck’s own fraught marriages and difficult relationship with his children inform themes of broken families and guilt ([13:21]-[16:58]).
  • “The great epiphany of my childhood was realizing that my father was an asshole.” – John Steinbeck IV, as relayed by Dominic ([16:58])
• He wrote East of Eden in a state of intensity and therapy, pouring personal pain into the work, writing in spiral notebooks, alternating narrative and letters to his editor ([19:37]).

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4. Cain, Abel, and the Shadow of the Bible

Timestamps: [24:01]-[25:05], [57:29]-[61:35]

• Deep dive into Genesis:
  • The pattern of sin, violence, exile “East of Eden.”
  • Steinbeck’s central question: are we forever trapped by inherited guilt and history, or can we choose our fate?
• The Salinas Valley as “America’s Eden”—a place to re-enact salvation or failure ([26:09]-[27:23]).
• The spiral of familial trauma echoed for generations ([25:05]-[26:09]).

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5. Narrative Voice & Structure

Timestamps: [28:00]-[30:05]

• The blending of fiction, memoir, and American myth.
• Dominic: Finds the shifting voice “patchy and unsustained.”
• Tabitha: Celebrates the “loose, free, unrestrained” structure as it mirrors the book’s themes of freedom and choice ([30:05]).

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6. Character Deep Dive

Timestamps: [31:09]-[44:45]

• Samuel Hamilton: Beloved Irish patriarch. Dominic questions his vividness; Tabitha defends the family’s domestic realism ([31:09]-[32:54]).
• Trask Family (Cain and Abel figures):
  • Charles: Violent, conflicted; Adam: Naive but good-hearted.
  • “He's not exactly a proactive character. Massive drifter...goodness in life gets you nowhere.” – Tabitha ([34:24])
• Cathy (Kate):
  • One of literature’s great villains—or misunderstood?
  • “I believe there are monsters born in the world to human parents...can there not be mental or psychic monsters born? The face and body may be perfect, but if a twisted gene or a malformed egg can produce physical monsters, may not the same process produce a malformed soul?” – Steinbeck, quoted by Tabitha ([38:01])
  • Tabitha finds her chilling, nuanced, and a vital challenge to the book’s moral simplicity.
  • Dominic questions whether this is misogynist “pantomime villainy”; Tabitha rebuts, citing real-life psychopathy.
• Discussion on Steinbeck’s limited, but often strong, portrayals of women: the “mother or whore” dichotomy and whether Cathy subverts it ([44:45]).
• Lee: The Trasks’ Chinese-American servant and a fount of wisdom.
  • His affected dialect as social camouflage ([48:50]-[49:02]).
  • Dominic is annoyed by Lee’s “fortune cookie” philosophy; Tabitha appreciates his steadying presence ([49:34]-[50:04]).

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7. Themes: Free Will, Good and Evil, and Tim Shell

Timestamps: [53:54]-[61:35]

• The central philosophical question: are we trapped by cycles of evil, or can we choose our destiny?
• Tim Shell (“Thou mayest”):
  • Lee, Hamilton, and Adam puzzle over a verb in Genesis. The translation debate (is it “thou shalt” or “thou mayest” rule over sin) unlocks the idea that humans are free to choose good or evil:
    • "Thou mayest. Why, that makes a man great...for in his weakness and his filth and his murder of his brother, he still has the great choice." – Lee (as paraphrased by Dominic, [58:10]-[59:37])
  • Tabitha is moved by this message of hope and liberty.
  • Dominic notes, with some irony, that the translation is likely incorrect—but concedes that the idea matters more in the novel’s context ([61:02]-[61:35]).

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8. Memorable Quotes & Moments

• “You're not bound by the past. You're not trapped by history. You can choose your own fate.” – Dominic ([03:20])
• “As John the Fourth said later, the great epiphany of my childhood was realizing that my father was an asshole.” – Dominic ([16:58])
• “I believe there are monsters born in the world to human parents.” – Read by Tabitha ([38:01])
• “A loving woman is indestructible.” – Steinbeck, quoted by Tabitha ([44:45])
• Cal’s prayer:
  “Dear Lord, let me be like Aaron. Don't make me mean. I don't want to be...I don't want to be mean. I don't want to be lonely for Jesus's sake. Amen.” – (Read by Dominic, [48:02])
• On Tim Shell:
  “Thou mayest. Why, that makes a man great, that gives him stature with the gods...he still has the great choice.” – Lee as paraphrased ([58:10]-[59:37])
• The message of forgiveness: “Adam does bless him. He whispers that word, Tim shell. Thou mayest. Meaning...you can choose to be a good person, set yourself free and be a good person. I forgive you all of this.” – Dominic ([61:47])

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9. The Hosts' Final Verdict

Timestamps: [64:09]-[66:36]

• Dominic:
  • 5 out of 10
    • Finds the characters uneven, the symbolism too on-the-nose, and some elements (Hamiltons, Cathy, Lee) unconvincing.
• Tabitha:
  • 9 out of 10
    • Praises Steinbeck’s style, the broad emotional and philosophical sweep, the hopeful message, and the setting.
    • Minor points deducted for Aaron and Lee being “a bit boring.”

“This book has created the tension at the heart of the Book club. We've never disagreed so much.” – Tabitha ([64:09])

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10. Upcoming Episodes

• Next: The Hound of the Baskervilles (Arthur Conan Doyle)
• Followed by:
  • A Court of Thorns and Roses (Sarah J. Maas)
  • The Woman in White (Wilkie Collins)
  • Beloved (Toni Morrison)
  • Mrs Dalloway (Virginia Woolf)
  • The Hunger Games (Suzanne Collins)

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Notable Quotes with Timestamps

• On the novel’s structure:

  • "I think it's a kind of massive retelling of the story of the opening chapters of Genesis in the Bible..." – Dominic ([03:20])

• On Cathy/Kate:

  • "She is described as having been born different, a monster from birth with a malformed soul." – Tabitha ([38:01])

• On Tim Shell/free will:

  • "It might be the most important word in the world that says, the way is open. Thou mayest." – Lee as paraphrased by Dominic ([59:37])

• On reading and subjectivity:

  • "Tabby stands with Oprah Winfrey. And I stand with the New York Times, as always." – Dominic ([64:17])

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Tone and Language

The episode is lively, sometimes combative, deeply researched, and always entertaining. Tabitha brings emotional intensity and admiration for Steinbeck, while Dominic offers a skeptical, literary-critical perspective. Their banter combines warmth with intellectual challenge, mirroring the complexity—and enduring controversy—of East of Eden itself.

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For listeners who haven’t read or heard East of Eden:
This episode is a rich, accessible guide to the novel’s big ideas, context, and emotional weight. Spoilers abound, but the discussion might just persuade new readers to pick up Steinbeck’s magnum opus—or join the ongoing debate over its place in American literature.

Transcript

[A]

I sold my car in Carvana last night.

[B]

Well, that's cool.

[A]

No, you don't understand. It went perfectly. Real offer down to the penny. They're picking it up tomorrow. Nothing went wrong.

[C]

So what's the problem?

[A]

That is the problem. Nothing in my life goes as smoothly. I'm waiting for the catch.

[C]

Maybe there's no catch.

[A]

That's exactly what a catch would want me to think.

[D]

Wow.

[C]

You need to relax.

[A]

I need to knock on wood. Do we have wood? Is this table wood?

[C]

I think it's laminate.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

Yeah, that's good. That's close enough.

[D]

Car selling without a catch. Sell your car today on Carvana.

[E]

Pick up.

[D]

Fees may apply.

[C]

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[B]

Her voice came from so near that he jerked his head back. He heard richness in her voice. Dear, she said softly.

[D]

I didn't know you would take it so. I'm sorry, Adam.

[B]

His breath burst hoarsely out of his throat. His hand trembled, trying to turn the key. He pushed the door open. She stood three feet away. In her right hand she held his Colt and the black hole in the barrel pointed at him. He took a step toward her, saw that the hammer was back. She shot him. The heavy slug struck him in the shoulder and flattened and tore out a piece of his shoulder blade. The flash and roar smothered him and he staggered back and fell to the floor. She moved slowly toward him, cautiously as she might toward a wounded animal. He stared up into her eyes, which inspected him impersonally. She tossed the pistol on the floor beside him and walked out of the house. So that is probably the most melodramatic and violent of many melodramatic and violent confrontations in John Steinbeck's novel East of Eden, which he published in 1952. It's a family Saga set in the Salinas Valley of California, where Steinbeck grew up. But it's much more than that. Steinbeck, of course, is seen as the great champion of the downtrodden America of Californian workers, the Dust Bowl Depression, America of Mice and Men and the Grapes of Wrath. His most famous books. High school standards, aren't they?

[D]

Yeah.

[B]

But Tabby, this is the book that Steinbeck regarded as his absolute masterpiece, the book by which he thought he'd be judged. And there's a lot going on in east of Eden, isn't there?

[D]

It's a very complex, surprisingly dramatic book.

[B]

I think it's a kind of massive retelling of the story of the opening chapters of Genesis in the Bible, particularly the story of Cain and Abel and a little bit of Adam and Eve in there as well. It's a book about good and evil, about free will and destiny. How much are we trapped by heredity or by sort of cycles that repeat down the generations? And above all, I guess, from Steinbeck's point of view, he wrote it as a message to his two young sons. And basically what he was telling them was, you're not bound by the past. You're not trapped by history. You can choose your own fate and be whatever you want, and you're not tainted by original sin or anything like that.

[D]

I mean, that all seems fairly kind of straightforward. But it was very controversial at the time. A lot of critics absolutely hated it. And I keep. I'm struck by the fact that a lot of the books we've done so far on the book club have been hated by critics upon their publication. So there's something in that. But it's obviously been enduringly popular. So there was this very, very famous film in 1955 starring James Dean, of only the second part of the book, an Elia Kazan film. And then Oprah Winfrey's book club, Oprah's Book club championed it in 2003, unexpectedly, and then that sent it back up to number two on the bestseller list. And she described it as maybe the best book she'd ever read.

[B]

Wow. No less a critic than Oprah Winfrey.

[D]

No less a critic. I know we're following in some lofty footsteps there, but then part of the reason that we were drawn back to it, or I certainly was, was because there's a Netflix adaptation coming out this year starring Florence Pugh as Kathy, who we'll be getting onto, because she is surely one of the most genuinely evil characters in all literature.

[B]

Or is she just misunderstood Tabby?

[D]

Or is she Misunderstood. Yeah. So let's get into the plot a little bit and be warned, there will be spoilers. But this isn't, I think, a book in which the plot is really the point. Spoilers won't, won't ruin reading it for you. So obviously, as you said, it's kind of a massive window into America during a period of flux. So the novel's set in California's Salinas Valley and it chronicles the lives of these two interwoven families, the Trasks and the Hamiltons, between the start of the 20th century and then the end of the First World War. And we start with the kind of the well intentioned Adam Trask. And he leaves his violent brother Charles to settle in this kind of Eden like valley, the Salinas Valley. And he brings with him his mysterious but blatantly evil wife Cathy. And she, before coming to the Trasks, she turned up on their doorstep kind of half dead. She had burnt her parents alive, burnt

[B]

down their house when she was a teenager. Proper teenage rebellion.

[D]

Exactly. And we'll explain all that later on. But she had worked as a prostitute before becoming a mistress to a horrible pimp.

[B]

Yeah.

[D]

Anyway, she's pregnant, possibly with Charles baby, but Adam believes it's his. And after they move, she's not happy in the Salinas Valley and she gives birth. She ends up shooting Adam and running away. And that's the opening reading. Anyway, Kathy goes off, she becomes this sadistic brothel owner.

[B]

She's running the worst brothel in the town. Right, that everyone speaks of in hushed tones.

[D]

Exactly. Famously sadistic. She kind of. It's famed for using the kind of dark, toxic desires of powerful and rich men against them.

[B]

Yes.

[D]

Anyway, so meanwhile, a kind of brokenhearted Adam raises his two sons who Kathy has given birth to. Caleb and Aaron, Cal and Aaron. With the help of his Chinese American servant Lee and their neighbors, the Hamiltons, who I mentioned in the beginning. Who. That's Samuel Hamilton. He's an Irish immigrant, he's well loved. And his family of endless children. I can't remember their names, but let's just.

[B]

They're all called Tom, Dick and Harry.

[D]

Tom, Dick and Harry. Yeah, they might as well be.

[B]

I mean, basically no one. Massive spoiler. No one really cares that much about the Hamiltons. They take.

[D]

I do.

[B]

You know. Do you? Okay, totally. Well, I do.

[D]

I love the Hamilton passages. Oh my.

[B]

Oh my God. I was tempted to skip those.

[D]

I think they bring jollity to what is otherwise quite a dark but you know, ultimately important story. Anyway, so the twins grow up and they kind of grow into polar opposites, like emblems of good and evil. Maybe Aaron is kind of good, kind, virtuous. Cal is kind of more troubled and jealous, isn't he? He's jealous. He's jealous of his father's love. He's afflicted by guilt over the fact that he knows he has a real strain of evil inside him. Aaron becomes a priest, becomes obsessed with being virtuous. And then Cal wins back the family fortune, which Adam had lost in an ill advised refrigerated lettuce business.

[B]

You'll never read a book that has more about refrigeration.

[D]

And frankly, it adds to the story, in my opinion, but. And they both seek the affection of the same girl, Abra. Finally, this tragic conflict breaks out between Cal and Aaron because Cal offers his father his, you know, recently 140. Adam rejects it and says, you should be more like Aaron. In a fit of jealousy and kind of revenge, Cal takes Aaron, who he's discovered the true identity of his mother, Cathy, who's been living as this madam all these years, and takes Arryn to meet her and show him.

[B]

Shows him the brothel.

[D]

Yeah, shows him the brothel. Shows him, like, who he's born of, what's inside him. And Arryn is so appalled and repulsed by this that he enlists in the First World War and he dies during the battle. Cathy is also affected by this encounter. Adam's heartbroken, he has a stroke, and on his deathbed, he forgives Cal and gives his blessing with this very particular ancient Hebrew word. But what it is, what it all means, we'll be revealing after the break. Before that. I know, Dominic, you absolutely love this book. So for a moment or two, I'll indulge your passion for it. Tell me what you thought of east of Eden.

[B]

So I had never read this before. I had read Steinbeck, obviously, but not this one. Put off partly by the fact that it's quite long and you have been waxing lyrical about it, about what a brilliant book it was. I have to say I was a tiny bit suspicious.

[D]

What?

[B]

I was a bit skeptical because the last massive book that you recommended to me, Phineas Finn by Anthony Trollope, consumed a giant part of my life. And I wasn't even doing the podcast then. I was reading that for pleasure.

[D]

This is basically what I do. I seek to entrap you in long, tedious novels, to sort of slowly rob you of the desire to live.

[B]

I know you love it, so I don't want to rain on your parade. What do you Love about it so much because you've always. You read this a long time ago, did you?

[D]

I actually read it for the first time two years ago. So not ages and like, right. Right from the beginning, I was pretty captivated by it, I thought. And I hate it slightly pains me to use this word because it's a bit vague and it's a bit sort of obvious. But I genuinely found it to be powerful. But not just powerful, also enjoyable. It felt as though it kind of encompassed everything that. That matters and is best and worse about being human. I love the way that Steinbeck writes. I have a real weakness for books like this. Quite masculine prose set in the, you know, west or Midwest America. And I love the way that even though it's his kind of plain, masculine voice, he manages to have very ornate and delicate descriptions interwoven throughout. I loved his descriptions of the land, Salinas Valley. I thought the characters were vivid. Yeah. The biblical stuff's a bit blatant, but it doesn't really bother me. Like, all stories are derivative of other stories and the Bible is surely the biggest of all.

[B]

Yeah.

[D]

The source of some of the greatest stories of all time. So I. I absolutely loved it. And I did this time as well.

[B]

Well, let's kick off by talking about Steinbeck himself. So. So Steinbeck's a really interesting character. He's born in the Salinas Valley in California in 1902.

[D]

Yeah. This is almost autobiographical, isn't it?

[B]

There's a lot of his family history and there's a lot of kind of therapy, I would say, in the. In the writing of this book. Yeah. So he grew up in this sort of frontier valley. It's about 25 miles inland from the Pacific. His father called John Ernst Steinbeck, and he was a local government official. And his mother, Olive, was a teacher. And she appears in the book, doesn't she?

[D]

She does, yeah. Olive Hamilton.

[B]

I mean, actually, I'm quite. Because I'm quite slow. It took me quite a long time to work out that this was Steinbeck's own family, the Hamiltons, 300 pages in or something. And. And then I started to realize the narrator was John Steinbeck. And actually, we'll talk about this a bit later. Steinbeck is effective in his use of the narrative voice. Anyway, so as a teenager, he worked on. And farms and ranches. And he was struck at the time by the terrible conditions of the migrant workers, which is something that obviously he was to write about in the 1930s, in the 1920s, he studied English at Stanford. He would travel to New York and try to become a writer and failed. He came home back to California. Bizarrely, he tried to make a name for himself as a manufacturer of a plaster mannequins. Then he ended up sponging off his parents for a bit and he went back to writing. Then he had a real breakthrough in 1935 with a book called Tortilla Flat, which is about a group of mates who are home in Monterey in California from the First World War. And they're kind of getting up to japes with girls and drinking and stuff like that. Then two years after that, Of Mice and Men, a novella, and then the great seraph, 1939, that makes him a massive name. So it was the best selling book of 1939. It won the Pulitzer Prize. There was a film made by John Ford starring Henry Fonda. And then there was a massive backlash against it. Because the grace of Roth is really about the plight of the Okies, the people who have moved west during the Great Depression to flee the Dust bowl. And people on the right side, conservatives, business owners and stuff. But also lots of people in California were outraged by it and tried to ban it. So, you know, at the end of the 1930s, Steinbeck is simultaneously very successful. He's very well known, he is a kind of touchstone for it's kind of New Deal depression America, kind of very polarized between left and right. But at the same time he's very controversial and he's getting an awful lot of flack, not least in his native California.

[D]

Yeah, and this all had quite a big impact on his personal life, which was getting very, very messy by this point. So he'd been married to a woman called Carol Henning in 1930, but by the end of the 1930s, their marriage was really fraying, like in part because of all the pressure, the pressure from the backlash to Grapes of Wrath. So then he starts an affair with a 19 year old singer called Gwyn Conger. This is just horribly, it's a horribly toxic back and forth. You know, the two women are fighting for Steinbeck. They both claim to be pregnant. Carol is lying. Gwyn then has an abortion. Finally, Steinbeck ends up divorcing his first wife, Carol. He pays her $100,000, which is a massive sum of money at this point, and he marries Gwyn and by this point he's 40 and she's 23. So it's a significant age gap. And he was always afflicted after all this by massive guilt and actually self loathing. And you can see this in east of Eden. You can see it in characters like Carl to some extent, maybe Adam. And the themes of the novel, you know, love turning to hatred, women who lie and manipulate men, you know, people who love and are therefore betrayed by that love. It's a huge factor in the book and you can see why. Therefore it is, as you said, kind of therapeutic, his writing it.

[B]

Yeah. So amidst all this, he goes off to Europe as a war correspondent for the New York Herald Tribune when America joined the war. But he was never really the same afterwards. So he was hit by shrapnel in the head during the Allied landings at Salerno in Italy. And he almost lost his hearing. And then he came home basically scarred by the war. He was drinking a heck of a lot. I mean, this. He's absolutely one of those mid century American writers like F. Scott Fitzgerald who we talked about in our Great Gatsby episode, or Ernest Hemingway, another of your favorites. These people who basically the first they do when they get up in the morning is drink a bottle of whiskey or something. Steinbeck is cut from that cloth.

[D]

Hemingway's great kind of Maxim was right. Drunk at its. Sober. So.

[B]

Right. Yeah, there's a bit of that with Steinbeck. I think he. He suspects his wife Gwyn of being unfaithful while he's been away. He's a very troubled and unhappy man. They have two sons in the 1940s called Thomas and. And John. John Steinbeck IV, which is just mental.

[D]

Why do Americans do that? No offense to our American listeners.

[B]

Yeah, American listeners, if they exist. Please direct your complaints to Tabby and not to me on this issue.

[D]

Sorry.

[B]

He's a terrible father. I mean, the irony is that east of Eden is in part a book

[D]

about fathers and sons and also dedicated to his sons. Right.

[B]

And the mad thing is, you know, he went to all the stress of writing a book for his sons, dedicating it to them. And yet he was he, by all accounts, I mean, just to give you a couple of examples, when John IV was three years old, there was an accident with a dog when he let this dog into the apartment and the dog relieved itself on the floor. And Steinbeck discovered this and he rubbed his son's face in the dog mess on the floor.

[D]

It's so sad to discover this dog

[B]

to teach him a lesson or this. This I think is badly. I think this is worse. When he was tiny, Steinbeck would encourage him to jump from his high chair into his arms and he'd do it again and again. And the boy was always laughing and he trusted his dad and stuff. And then one day, you know, Steinbeck was doing this so he could teach his son a lesson. People will betray you. You know, you can't rely on anybody. And one day he basically pulled his hands back at the last minute. So his son fell on the floor with a huge bump. And as John the Fourth said later, the great epiphany of my childhood was realizing that my father was an asshole.

[D]

But, you know, this is actually massively reflected in east of Eden itself. Because there's this little passage about how that moment when children realize that their parents are flawed and fallible and how it shatters you. I just think it's very poignant when a child first catches adults out, when it first walks into his grave little head. That adults do not have divine intelligence, that their judgments are not always wise, their thinking true. Their sentence is just. His world falls into panic, desolation. The gods are fallen and all safety gone. And there is one sure thing about the fall of gods. They do not fall a little. They crash and shatter or sink deeply into green muck. And the child's world is never quite whole again. I mean, it's so interesting that he can understand these concepts and he can see that he, you know, it's his fault and that he's done wrong, but he can't change his behavior. I think that's often the case with serially guilty people.

[B]

Yeah, I think that's probably true. By the end of the 1940s, you know, his life really isn't a mess because his marriage is disintegrating to Gwyn. He's now drinking very heavily. They've fallen out because he wants to move to the countryside out of New York, and she doesn't. And amid all this, he decides he wants to write a history of his family. And you can see that I think there's an element of nostalgia, nostalgic escapism in this. Almost his own family life is a terrible mess. He's basically, you know, extremely distant at best, if violent at worst to his own sons. His wife, Gwyn, ends up asking him for a divorce. So you can see why he would want to look backwards, I guess, and to this sort of idealized paradise of his own boyhood and to sort of want to tease out lessons from that that he can pass on to his own sons. But he doesn't write anything until, in 1949, he meets his third wife, who's called Elaine Scott. She works in theater. They meet at a party, and she is your classic, you know, Mid century male American writer's long suffering wife. So she basically says, I will take care of the house, I'll take care of the, the paperwork, I'll do all the accounts, I'll do everything. I'll organize the cleaner and the man who sweeps up the leaves. You are free to write and so crack on. So in 1951, he starts on east of Eden and he writes to his editor who's called Pascal Covici. And he says, basically, you know, this is it. Now that I'm. I either write the book or I do not. There can be no excuses. The writing will be spare and lean. The concept's hard, the philosophy old and yet newborn. It may destroy everything for me, but it has to be done.

[D]

The way that he wrote this is just mental. It's, it's extraordinary actually. And we know this because there's a really nice essay online about it by a guy called David Kissinger, who of Chicago University. He writes the whole thing in pencil, in a notebook. He writes the story on the right hand pages. On the, on the left hand pages, he writes a series of letter to his editor, Pascal Cavici. And every day he kind of gets into the writing by writing a letter to Pascal. And it's kind of like brainstorm storming. It's basically more therapy. He's thought about the book, his anxieties, his ideas for characters, even just news about himself and his home life. And then he leaps across and continues the story on the right hand page. But it's quite a slow starter. For about two weeks. Progress isn't. He's not getting very far with it. And then on the 14th of February, he goes to visit his sons and he's shocked because they're very, very distant with him, they're very cold with him. I mean, understandably, chucking them out of high chairs and rubbing their face in dog poo. Anyway, but he's still very, very upset by this and as I say, shocked. And then that night he just pours himself into writing and becomes totally absorbed by it for the rest of the year. He writes the whole book over the next 276 days. There's a massive, massive intensity to it. And he says again and again that it has to be this masterpiece. Puts himself under such pressure and he even stops drinking during the week, which for him, he's a heavy, heavy drinker. Yeah. Where does this intensity come from? You know, why does it have to be kind of so powerful to him? And I think it's because it's this central redemptive idea that comes to him and just animates the entire book. And it's a secret wrapped up in the translation of a single Hebrew word, which I mentioned when I was kind of explaining the plot from the Book of Genesis. And this, for him, holds the key to the entire story. And we'll be unlocking that mystery in the second half.

[B]

So he finishes the book in November 1951. He tells his friends it's his masterpiece. The longest and surely the most difficult work I've ever done. He says to his sister Mary and to a Swedish artist friend, these very celebrated lines he writes. I've put all the things I've wanted to write all my life. This is the book. If it's not good, I have fooled myself all the time. Always. I had this book waiting to be written. And then he spends four months cutting it, which is hard to believe when you discover that. The edition that I bought, Tabby told me this was quite a short book and very readable. It's 714 pages long, quite small print, the edition I have, so it's almost as long as one of my own books. So he cut it down. And then in September 1952, Viking released the book. And they basically went to town and they said, this is going to be a major event. He's a, you know, one of America's best known writers, and this is the magnum opus.

[D]

But nevertheless, the reception is pretty mixed. So it does reach. I mean, it's popular with kind of the reading public at large. It reaches number one on the New York Times Fiction Bestseller list in November 1952, and it holds it for five weeks. But a lot of critics say that it's far too moralistic, it's too clunky. The good versus evil is, you know, simplistic and a bit sensationalized. The New York Times said that it was clumsy in structure and defaced by excessive melodramatics and much cheap sensationalism. And then the Christian Science Monitor, Steinbeck's obsession with naked animality, brute violence and the dark wickedness of the human mind remains so overriding that what there is of beauty and understanding is subordinated and almost extinguished. So it's pretty harsh.

[B]

Yeah, but he did win the Nobel Prize 10 years later.

[D]

So there's hope for you.

[B]

Yeah, exactly. Although then the New York Times kicked him again and said, why have the Nobel committee given an award to a writer whose limited talent is in his best books watered down by 10th rate philosophizing?

[D]

Oh, savage.

[B]

Yeah. I mean, you don't want to be reading those reviews. So whether we agree, you know, there are two schools of thought, clearly.

[D]

Yeah.

[B]

There is Oprah Winfrey, who speaks for the general public, who loved the book, who said, come on, don't sneer at this book. And then there are the stuffy, stuck

[D]

up, highbrow critics, cynical, heartless, cynical academics.

[B]

Yeah. Whether Tabria and I identify with Oprah Winfrey or with these sneering academic critics, we shall discover at the end of the episode.

[D]

Before we do that, let's get into the, into the book itself. And to do that, we need to explain a massive central part of it, which is the biblical story of Cain and Abel. And this is taken from Genesis, chapter 4, verses 1 to 16. But God, interestingly, is carefully excluded from the plot. God doesn't really have a part to play in any of it. Even the title, east of Eden was taken from Genesis 4:16.

[B]

Right. So Cain and Abel, basically the two sons of Adam and Eve.

[D]

Cain is a farmer, Abel is a shepherd. And they both bring presents to their father. And Cain's is rejected, Abel's is accepted.

[B]

And so Cain is full of bitterness,

[D]

full of anger and bitterness. He's also marked. He has the mark of Cain on him. It's like a darkness. It's a sign of God's disfavor, basically.

[B]

Exactly, yeah. He ends up being branded as a killer because he's murdered his brother and then he's exiled to the land of Nord on the east of Eden. So Steinbeck basically thought this was the only story in all literature, didn't he?

[D]

He thought it was the first story, the major story, because it's the ultimate confrontation of good and evil from which all stories derive.

[B]

Yeah, all novels, all poetry are built on this never ending contest, he said. And that basically his idea was that this story, that this taint of sin repeats through the generations and there's no escape from it. Or is there? We shall discover.

[D]

It's kind of original sin, isn't it, that all humans are blighted from the moment of birth because Adam and Eve rebelled.

[B]

Exactly. And the idea of east of Eden, I mean, this is the Salinas Valley. And basically some of these characters are trying to create their own Eden in the valley, you know, a paradise they're trying to start again. So many people did when they moved to America, but they end up just repeating the cycle of betrayal, which is Eve betraying Adam, you know, by messing around with the, the snake and the apple and whatnot, all that in the Garden of Eden, all that. Exactly. And then Cain murdering Abel. And these patterns reproduce themselves through. Down the generations. And there's. No matter what you do, you know, the implication is that you are trapped by them. I guess the Salinas Valley. I mean, the Salinas Valley itself is a big character in this. Right. The landscape is a character in the story.

[D]

It totally is. And you can see how important it is to the book and to Steinbeck. In the alternative titles that he considered before naming it east of Eden. It was gonna be called the Salinas Valley or Down to the Valley. I think that was a near miss.

[B]

Down to the Valley. Yeah. No good.

[D]

Or alternatively, recognizing the importance of this biblical element. It was gonna be called Cain's Sign. And he wrote, I want to describe the Saloons valley in detail, but in sparse detail so that there can be a real feeling of it. It should be sights and sounds, smells and colors. But put down with simplicity, as though the boys can read the book. That's his son. So his intention was to give kind of an impression of the valley, a sense of it. And I think he does that extremely well.

[B]

Yeah.

[D]

The whole opening mini chapter of the book is a description of the Salinas Valley. And I think that's. But it's also. It's like a microcosm of good and evil. A microcosm of the world of maybe the nation of America. And that's why this opening section, it's full of kind of dualism. Like there's light and dark, mountains, valleys, rain, dry. And this kind of mirrors like the good and the evil in human nature. And I guess in Steinbeck's view, throughout the course of American history, it's full of light and dark.

[B]

Yeah. When that point about American history. So basically, the book covers the time period from 1862, I think, to the end of the First World War. So this is the moment when America comes of age as a capitalist power. It's the conquering of the frontier, the decline of the American kind of rural dream. Which is being eclipsed by kind of industrial modernity. So you have the two families, the Hamiltons and the Trasks. The Hamiltons have arrived as immigrants and they're working on the land. And Samuel Hamilton is a classic immigrant and he wants to be a farmer. But his sons all end up as sort of urban professionals kind of working in advertising or whatever, or teachers almost

[D]

in reaction to him. And I think that's quite true to life, isn't it?

[B]

Yeah.

[D]

Of course, they kind of resent his outsider status. So they become kind of apex Americans.

[B]

Yes, exactly. I mean, that's exactly what happened to so many first, second, third generation immigrants in this period. And then you have Adam Trask. I mean, he's the central character of the book. And he's the kind of personification of American history in this period. So he's the son of an east coast farmer who served in the Civil War. He goes into the American army himself, the US army, and he fights against Native Americans. He basically, you know, cleans them from the landscape.

[D]

But he's a pacifist. He. He refuses to commit violence or to take human life, but he's very brave.

[B]

He is, exactly. I'm being too harsh on him, Tabby. I know he moves west, he tries to establish himself as a farmer, but that doesn't really work out. So he ends up in the city, eventually on a town, eventually. He does things like he buys a Model T Ford, he dabbles in refrigeration, as we've already mentioned, and then his son goes off to the First World War. So basically all American history is condensed and embodied in this one character and in the life of his family. So that's the. That's the sweep of American history. One other thing we should talk about before we get into the characters, the style of narration. So I mentioned already I didn't realize the Hamiltons were Steinbeck's own family. For some considerable time, I thought they were the narrator's family, and I didn't think Steinbeck and the narrator were the same person. And actually the reason he did that, I think, is because he'd thought he would write the book as a family history. And then he wrote it very quickly. And I think he still had that idea of it being his family history, and he hadn't quite rid himself of that. And so at times, particularly the beginning, he says, I don't really remember what. What happened. I'm relying on old photographs, I'm relying on kind of family anecdotes and things. So he grounds the narrative in real history. And it's almost as though he's pretending to be a historian. But then I think he forgets about that for whole chapters. And then the narrator almost disappears and then comes back in whenever he remembers. And I find that a bit patchy and unsustained, and I know that some of the early critics did as well. But, Tabby, I know you like this. You think it's very well done.

[D]

I do like it. I think it's intentional, like someone who was putting as much energy and intensity into writing this book. It wasn't just going to start, you know, forgetting what he was doing. But I like it because it's, it feels loose and free and unrestrained and as we'll see, freedom and the ability to choose is a big part of this book. It kind of, it melds history and mythology together which the book does throughout. You know, as you say, it's, it's a window into genuine American history. But then it's also, you know, a retelling of the Bible. It moves you from these kind of very intimate reflections or observations about someone to kind of these. The big, the philosophy at the heart of it and this idea that it kind of encapsulates the heart of a nation over. Overall, I think it's very, very effective. But so let's get onto the major characters in the book then. So we've, we've spoken a little bit about. Samuel Hamilton has a big family. He's an immigrant. He's kind of. People are very suspicious of him originally when he comes to the Valley and then they grow to love him.

[B]

The classic immigrant story, right? He's an Irish immigrants. He, you know, has this large, very

[D]

boisterous family but he never, he's, he's brilliant at inventing things and you know, he's pretty ingenious but he never ever manages to make any money. And I like that kind of detail of him. And so he's always poor but he's always kind of free in himself. He has kind of great faith in himself.

[B]

So if I was being skeptical, I'd say two things. I'd say first of all, if I

[D]

was everybody who reads you are being skeptical.

[B]

All right, fine. The Hamiltons, the stuff with the Hamiltons, I think a lot of critics at the time in the 50s said is redundant because basically everybody who reads east of Eden is really only interested in one of these two families which are the Trasks, which are the family that the Cain and Abel thing.

[D]

Yeah.

[B]

Recurs in and the good versus evil struggle. And the Hamiltons are a kind of slightly stolid counterpoint to that. We joked at the beginning they're all called Tom, Dick and Harry and no one can remember which one is which. And Samuel Hamilton, I would say, you know, he, to me he feels a bit of a stereotype that basically the, the stoical, wise, hard working Irish immigrant who, you know, he's unlucky but he's warm hearted. Things that haven't really worked out for him. But he's a great patriarch and he loves his family and all this kind of thing for me. He and his family do not feel terribly alive as characters.

[D]

I think they do. Each child has a very different character. And each child kind of goes on to, you know, symbolize something different about that kind of American dream. And also Samuel Hamilton, he has a real quirkiness to him, which makes him more than kind of just conventional and a bit of a stereotype. But then let's get onto the Trasks. As you mentioned, they're massively the heart of it.

[B]

You would agree, though, Tabby, the Trasks are the. Are much more interesting than the Hamiltons, wouldn't you?

[D]

Yeah, I would. I would. But that's partly because they're much worse people than the Hamiltons.

[B]

Of course. That's the point.

[D]

Isn't it the case in a way then, that that makes the Hamiltons kind of more realistic? That their flaws and their weaknesses are not evil, they're just like human foibles. Whereas the Trasks are firmly divided into good and evil because they are essentially the second Cain and Abel. So you have the first Cain and Abel in the Bible, Then you have the Trask and you have. And they're called Charles and Adam. So the C and the A and these. There's a massive element of nominative determinism in this book.

[B]

Completely is. Yeah.

[D]

And so Cyrus Trask, their father, he's from Connecticut. He's a fake war hero. I find him really, really funny because he reminds me of someone that was like briefly in the territorial army or something and then makes their identity having been in the army. So I find that quite amusing.

[B]

Exactly. He ends up becoming basically a mate of Abraham Lincoln or something.

[D]

Yeah, well, he claims to have been a big mate of Abraham and Lincoln, and it basically says that all kind of military tactical discussion that goes on is all thanks to him. He uses up his wives, though. So he has a first wife, this is Adam's mother. She dies. And then a second wife, this is Charles's mother, she dies. And he loves Adam more. Yet he also says of him that he's a weakling who will never amount to a dog turd.

[B]

That's harsh.

[D]

Yeah. At least he doesn't rub his face in dog turds.

[B]

He doesn't, but he actually says it to him. This is more some of the poor parenting that recurs.

[D]

Adam. Yeah, look, he's guilty of constantly letting things happen to him. He's not exactly a proactive character. He's a massive drifter. But his. His blindness and his naivety, it's kind of Just a form of radical optimism. He's without malice and well, he's not the most charismatic character. He's a good man. And in a sense I think Steinbeck writes him weak because he puts the possibility on the table for readers that goodness in life gets you nowhere.

[B]

Yeah.

[D]

And ultimately that isn't the case in this book. But he's also the perfect contrast to his brother Charles, who is violent, fairly psychopathic, he's cruel, he almost beats Adam to death as a child. You know, again echoing Cain and Abel story. But he's not, I think an entirely one dimensional villain either because he writes these letters to Adam and that are kind of full of guilt and missing, like childish missing of his brother. And there's this line for instance, that says, as with many people, Charles who could not talk, wrote with fullness. He set down his loneliness and his perplexities and I love that because I think there are people in life that you can recognise that in.

[B]

Yeah. So you've got these two characters, they're Cain and Abel effectively. And then big twist in the book. Steinbeck introduces the character who really comes to define the book more than any other. The character that I think most readers, you know, that lives in readers minds.

[D]

Yeah.

[B]

And this is this woman, young woman called Kathy Amis. She's by far the most memorable character in the book. She could be a psychopath, a devil in human form, she could be a scathing portrait of Steinbeck's ex wife. Or she could just be a misunderstood hard working woman trying to make her way in the world with what assets she has. And we will find out which one of those we think she is after the break.

[D]

This episode is brought to you by Welch's Fruit Snacks. Big news for your kids lunchbox. Welch's Fruit Snacks are now made without any artificial dyes. A snack parents can feel good about and the same delicious taste kids can't get enough of. All made with no artificial dyes. Try Welch's Fruit Snacks today.

[E]

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[B]

Welcome back to the book club, everybody. Now, we love a strong female character on this show, don't we?

[D]

Tabby, you're wearing your feminist dad T shirt.

[B]

Feminist dad. This is so Kathy, just to be clear. So Kathy, this person we talked about, she's psychopathic, she's evil, she's slender, she's blonde haired. She has these sort of blank, staring eyes. I'm looking at her right now, frankly.

[D]

Yeah, yeah. So I, I actually think Kathy. Well, maybe it's because I, I see myself in her. I don't, by the way, she's awful. I remember when I first read this and coming to the bits about Kathy and meeting Kathy and being like. And it may seem obvious, but nevertheless it's effective. I was totally chilled by her. So who is she? She is described as having been born different, a monster from birth with a malformed soul. And Steinbeck kind of uses the idea of being born with physical defects, but rather than it being on the outside, it's on the inside. There's something wrong with her inside. So there's this wonderful quote and it's, I believe there are monsters born in the world to human parents. Some you can see misshapen and horrible with huge heads or tiny bodies. And just as there are physical monsters, can there not be mental or psychic monsters born? The face and body may be perfect, but if a twisted gene or a malformed egg can produce physical monsters, may not the same process produce a malformed soul? She's born and raised in a small town in Massachusetts. And the kind of cosmic evil that is manifested in her, it comes out right from the first. When she's a little girl, you know, she's the devil incarnate.

[B]

She entraps a teacher, doesn't she?

[D]

There's a real element of the kind of horror story in this. You know, the pretty little girl with a terrifying cold smile who's got the devil inside her. She manipulates, she harms, she destroys those around her. She frames young boys of her age for sexual assault. She drives a schoolteacher to commit suicide. She smiles when she hears that one of her schoolfellows has died. And there are other kind of unnerving details that give her away. Like her room is always spotless and never betrays the fact that it's lived in by a little girl. The other children are kind of fascinated by her. But then they look at her with like, they look away as if what they've seen is a bit like there's something disturbing there. Most importantly, in fact, about her characterization. She has these chilling, sharp, small white teeth that are constantly referenced when she smiles. She doesn't drink because she's afraid that it will expose her darkness.

[B]

That's a very bad sign.

[D]

That's a terrible sign. Yeah. And at one point it does. There's this moment when the pimp that she is the mistress to persuades her to drink some champagne and she goes utterly mental. All the wickedness comes up to the surface. And like, she tells him that he's a big fat slug, that she knows his mind brutal, that she can use whatever he feels, all of his weaknesses and desires against him. And she does this throughout her life. She spots and recognizes the weakness in people, particularly men, when it's sexual. And she uses that against him because she feels no desire. She has, you know, emotionless hazel eyes. She has a childlike figure and she never develops a woman's figure and like a scary little rosebud mouth. And then over the course of the novel, as she gets older, it's like the evil inside her starts to show on the outside because she becomes kind of twisted and crippled, contorted by arthritis. She's just. She's a formidable, wicked character. And I think she's a joy to read.

[B]

So at first the only person who really sees through her is another so called evil character. So the Cain figure in the first half of the book, which is Charles, Adam's brother. And Charles says to Adam, basically she's been beaten up by the pimp because that she accused him of being a fat slug. He beats her up. She arrives on their doorstep, she's been beaten within an inch of her life. And they take her in. Adam develops this huge fondness for her. Charles says to him, please, Adam, throw her out. She will tear you to pieces. She will destroy you, Adam. But Adam can't see it. As we'll, as we'll discuss being able to see clearly and blindness is one of the themes of the book. Can you see the. The complexity of human nature? Or are you doomed to only see the good or only see the evil in people and not to see the sort of the battle within every soul.

[D]

And love is blinding. Love makes you less able to see than ever.

[B]

So Adam is blinded by his love. He thinks she's absolutely wonderful. All he sees is the golden hair. And so he ends up marrying her. Although Charles actually ends up sleeping with her and is possibly the father of her twins. It's never really spelled out. Now, here's the thing. People who have not read the book and who've listened to our description may well say, I think that what we're describing is not necessarily a real person, but a pantomime villain. A bit of a caricature. So when Steinbeck says some people are monsters, she's just evil. I kind of think in a more sophisticated book, the characters would be more rounded than that. You wouldn't just say, here's a Dickensian villain and who ends up, you know, she corrupts men. You might. You might well say this is actually quite a misogynist kind of take on a female character. That the big female character of the book is just using her beauty and her sexuality to bewitch men and then to betray them and to, you know, kill them or to steal all their stuff or whatever she does. I mean, she ends. She is a murderous.

[D]

Yeah, I actually totally disagree because, first of all, in the real world, there are psychopaths. You know, they don't feel as other people feel. And there are murderesses. Like, these people exist. They don't exist just in books. Also, I think she is far more than a Dickensian villain because, first of all, there's no chaos to her. She is patient, she's observant, she's socially intelligent. She's also fascinating because she, the character, is kind of skeptical of human goodness. Like, she embodies that. She is an experiment in finding the darkness and the weakness in the heart of every person and manipul. And there's a power in that which challenges the book's otherwise fairly simplistic moral thesis. And it prevents it from becoming just a book about simple moral optimism. But also, the other thing that makes her far more interesting is that when her son Aaron comes to see her, she is appalled by how appalled he is to find her as his mother. She's not necessarily guilty, but she is appalled and horrified by his horror of her. It actually frightens her. And that's another thing. She has vulnerabilities that make her three dimensional. She experiences fear. She loses control. She's forced to confront growing older and, like, losing the facade that allowed her to be manipulative. So she realizes there are limits to what she can achieve. She's kind of, nevertheless, admirably, kind of irreducible. And she doesn't have this thing that a lot of pantomime villains have, which is kind of an Unrealistic goal. There's no moral, flimsy, moral justification to her. She's just kind of an animal, as I think some psychopaths are. Her desires are animalistic. It's money, it's comfort. It's, you know, basic things like that. And in terms of, like Steinbeck's women are often quite sexist. Like, they're, they're often defined by what they do in society. So they're either kind of prostitutes or wives and mothers.

[B]

Yeah. And literally they're a mother or whore. Yeah, mother or whore, to use the old kind of cliche. I mean, that's what she. She rejects one and embraces the other.

[D]

But. But I think that's still a little bit dismissive. I, I agree. His women are kind of defined in terms of their potential or otherwise for sexuality and motherhood. Like Liza Hamilton is your ultimate, like, domestic mother. She's virtuous, she's strict. Kathy is pretty attractive. She's a temptress, she's depraved. But I would say that the mothers and prostitutes themselves, while they may be those things, they're far from one dimensional and they have kind of iron wills. And there's actually this line, I believe a strong woman may be stronger than a man, particularly if she happens to have love in her heart. I guess a loving woman is indestructible. And it's almost like through Kathy, Steinbeck acknowledges that women do often fall into these two categories because Kathy sees the way that women, that women are defined by men, and she uses it against them. You know, she knows that Adam sees her as like a perfect, motherly, beautiful, kind woman. You know, the other men who see her as a whore and a prostitute, she uses that against them and she takes their money. You know, she. She charts her own course throughout. So in a way, she's a critique of stunt, standard notions of femininity.

[B]

Okay, fair enough. I'll take that. I'll take that point. But so the key moment, the. The sort of pivotal moment, we started with it, she basically exposes her true nature to Adam. She's had these two boys. She doesn't want to really be their mother. She doesn't want to be his wife. She. She says to him, I'm going. He tries to stop her. She shoots him. That's what we began with. And then she walks out. He then brings up the two boys, the Cain and Abel, Cal and Aaron, on. On his own. And the question that hangs over the second half, are they ever going to find out the truth about her? And I guess is the Cain and Abel pattern going to recur with these two boys as well? Which brings us to the two boys, Cal and Aaron.

[D]

Horrid Henry and perfect Peter. That's what I kept thinking of.

[B]

Yeah, completely. What Steinbeck does is he. He makes it absolutely obvious to you. I mean nobody could ever accuse him of excessive subtlety. Even with the, even with the names. This bloke is gonna be Cain, this bloke is gonna be Abel. The bloke who was Cain has got dark hair. The bloke who is able is blonde and very good looking and all this kind of thing.

[D]

All the kains have got some sort of scar or disfigurement.

[B]

So do you think that these two characters are a bit one dimensional? Surely you do.

[D]

I, I do think. I have to say I think Aaron is massively one dimensional. He's a bit tiresome, bit of a character caricature. He's blonde, he's beautiful, he becomes obsessed with passionate purity. I actually, when I came to rereading it this time, I could barely remember anything about him because there's nothing very memorable about him. But there's a bit more to Cal, his twin brother.

[B]

Yeah, actually you're right about that. Cal is much more layered.

[D]

Probably the most complex character in the book really because he knows that there is darkness and evil in him. And he spends all the whole course of the book trying to fight it and struggle with it.

[B]

He's tormented by his own self knowledge, isn't he? Because Cal is aware of the. This thing about can you see yourself and other people clearly? Cal really can. He can see that there is darkness in his soul and it really troubles him. He can be very manipulative and very cruel and yet at the same time, we're told he longs for his brother

[D]

to love him and his father.

[B]

And as Father Adam and unusually in the book, one of very few such moments, he prays to God to help him overcome the evil in his soul. Dear Lord, let me be like Aaron. Don't make me mean. I don't want to be.

[D]

Yeah.

[B]

If you will make everybody like me, why, I'll give you anything in the world. And if I haven't got it, I'll go and get it. I don't want to be mean. I don't want to be lonely for Jesus's sake. Amen. It's quite a moving moment actually.

[D]

Really moving.

[B]

And it's one of the few moments I would say in the book where somebody sees themselves clearly and they wrestle with their Nature. Because Kathy never wrestles with her own nature. She accepts it. She just basically says, I'm an evil person, I'm going to be evil.

[D]

She uses it.

[B]

Yes. And the other person, I guess, that they live with, which we should talk about, is this guy called Lee. So Lee is. He's the sort of servant of Adam. He's a perhaps a slightly dodgy character.

[D]

Yeah.

[B]

So he is Chinese American. He speaks in this kind of pigeon English, which we discover is put on because he's playing a part that people want him to play.

[D]

It's what Americans expect him to be.

[B]

Yes. And then once he's sort of unmasked, actually you can speak very good English. What are you doing speaking this pigeon English? He then assumes his natural guise, which is of a sort of stereotypical mystical man of the east who dispenses Chinese wisdom at regular moments during the book. And, you know, I don't know, some people, readers may find that powerful and moving. I found Lee's Chinese wisdom a little bit annoying, to be honest with you. It's a bit like a succession of fortune cookies.

[D]

I found it quite powerful because he's like. He's the only ballast in these boys lives. And I like the conversations that he has with their girlfriend. Abra. Abra.

[B]

I don't know who is Abra, but I did.

[D]

Yeah, I agree. I got a little bit sick of his sections after a while like that. Vast portions of the book are given over to just conversations between him and Adam.

[B]

But they're sort of. Philosophizing.

[D]

Yeah, philosophizing.

[B]

It's. Though Steinbeck has slightly included the literary criticism about the book in the book, I think.

[D]

Yeah.

[B]

So this narrative will stop and people will. Then characters will have a conversation and they'll sort of say, well, what does this story all mean? And they'll. That's what Lee is there for. Right.

[D]

But you have other books where that happens. I mean, that happens in 1984, doesn't it?

[B]

When they're reading from the Goldstein's manifesto? A little bit. But I feel a massive. I'm giving myself away here. But I think Orwell is a much better writer than John Steinbeck anyway. I mean, let's talk about actually what the book does mean. So Steinbeck wrote it for his sons. This is a huge element of the book. And actually the relationship between fathers and sons runs through it. So you've got. You start off with Cyrus, who's the fake war hero, and his sons. And then you have Adam's sons, Cal and Aaron, and so on. And this idea that the Cain and Abel story, in particular, the love of one son being rejected by his father and that makes him embittered and he takes it out on his brother that. That just repeats down the generations. Did you like it? Do you think it was well done?

[D]

I thought it was quite well done with the first set with Adam and Charles when they're young and their father, Cyrus. Because that is basically what drives Charles, you know, that's what fills his heart with darkness, in a sense is his jealousy over the fact that Cyrus says to Adam at one point and he suspects this, I love you better. And actually there's this moment when, I mean, before he calls him dog turd. A dog turd. There's this moment where Cyrus takes Adam out and says, you know, I need you to enlist him. Just so you know, I love you better. And I actually, I was very moved by that. I was almost found myself weeping. Something about these hard men of 20th century America saying soft, loving words. It really. It was very tender.

[B]

See, I think what something that you really like, there's no question about this, you like basically very spare, hard boiled prose written by a man in which, as you say, hard men are struggling with steep, sentimental emotions. Exactly.

[D]

I do.

[B]

That really speaks to you.

[D]

It does speak to me. Yeah. Yeah. Sometimes it's hard for those of us with, you know, wills of steel and hearts of stone.

[B]

Right. Of course.

[D]

It's tough out there.

[B]

Yeah.

[D]

So I was moved by that and I thought it was a great motivator for Charles's as evil. I was kind of less convinced by the second generation. So this is Adam and his two sons. I thought the point there was kind of cal. Yes, he feels rejected by Adam, but I suppose Adam doesn't. It doesn't feel like he necessarily prefers one to the other. It just feels like he's broken hearted by Kathy's betrayal. And also it is interesting that fathers and sons are such a major theme in the book because obviously Steinbeck had a very strained relationship with his own sons, but he also had a very strained relationship with his own father. He was also kind of a man of sunken ambitions. He owned a business that went bar and, you know, he turned into that kind of father himself. So this must have been very therapeutic for him writing all this.

[B]

I mean, Steinbeck's not terribly interested. We already mentioned he's not terribly interested in motherhood. So either you're a stereotypical mother, like the Hamilton's mother, Liza, who's this sort of. She's like a Mother from a kind of Little House on the Prairie or something. But let's get to the real sort of struggle at the heart of the book, which isn't necessarily father sons or mother's sons or whatever. It's actually good versus evil. This is what Steinbeck always said was the point of the book. And I quote, I believe that there is one story in the world and only one. Humans are caught in their lives and their thoughts and hungers and ambitions, blah, blah, blah, blah, in a net of good and evil. There is no other story. A man after he's brushed off that. This is so kind of American Prose in the 1950s. A man after he's brushed off the dust and chips of his life will have left only the hard, clean questions. Was it good or was it evil? Have I done well or ill? Now, I, I may sound like I'm mocking that, and I slightly am, because I don't think that is the only story you can tell. And I don't think that's the only subject of all literature, of course, but

[D]

it's, it is a massive one. Yeah, I mean, the big Russian authors like Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, all those guys, they're. They're constantly grappling with the question of, you know, the evil in every human heart and how to live a good life and stuff like that. And never. No one ever criticizes them for this.

[B]

I know you think I know you. I could, I, I could see what you've written in your notes. I know you think I got double standards on this, that I'm.

[D]

Double standards. But also, I mean, the thing is. Yeah, it may not be the only question. I don't think it is the only question. But just because it's kind of takes on this, like, mythical, greater than life quality in the book, it doesn't mean that, you know, in the day to day, in people's like, lives going about their daily business, it isn't something that everyone grapples with to some degree. It's just that you are, I think, too cynical. Like in this way you don't think ideas govern, you know, human lives or the course of human history. Your. You think it's stuff like, you know, how much food people need or how the economy is doing and stuff. So this, this idea wouldn't chime with you very well, but I actually think I, I like it. I think, I think just because it may be a bit cliched, it doesn't mean it's not valid or true.

[B]

Okay, fair enough. So we've already said that whether you can see good and evil clearly is a big theme. Like basically, characters who are rewarded, who are successful, are those who can see both the beauty and the ugliness in people. So actually, even Adam, who has deluded most of the book because he can only see the beauty, there is a moment when he goes to see his ex wife at her brothel. It's a very forgotten about that. It's a, it's actually quite a powerful scene. And he says to her, you, you know, you think you're so great because you just see the evil in people and you have cynical and all of this. You're the Dominic Sambre of brothel owners.

[D]

So that casts us in our true roles on the show. You are the Kathy of this podcast and I am the eternally kind and optimistic Adam Trask.

[B]

Well, Adam says to Kathy, you know, you know about the ugliness in people, but you don't know about the rest. You see only one side and you think more than that. You're sure that that's all there is. There is a part of you missing. And I suppose by Starbeck's own lights, he's quite right that he and Kathy are polar opposites. And each of them only sees one side of human nature and the clarity with which somebody like Cal, Adam's son, can see the complexity of human nature. And he wrestles with his own demons. That elevates him. It makes him more successful as a character because he is alive to both the good and the evil in human nature. He wrestles with this darkness within himself. And he's frightened, isn't he, that he will be trapped by his own nature. That, you know, that he basically sees the Cain and Abel pattern. He thinks, gosh, I'm Cain and I'm doomed to evil and doomed.

[D]

I'm trapped by my nature.

[B]

Yeah. And do you think that's, do you think people really think that's about themselves, maybe?

[D]

Well, I, I think that is genuinely something that people battle with. I think some people go through life terrified of, of there being something inside them that isn't. That has bad impulses. So I, I think that is true to life. And I, that's why Cal is such a relatable character. I think for anyone. You're lying if you think that you're good all the time. You're definitely not being honest if you say that you don't wrestle from time to time. But then the thing is, the other wonderful, hopeful part of this novel is that basically the crux of it all, this secret Hebrew word we've been alluding to throughout, it's all about freedom. It's about how we are, in fact, free to choose not to be the darkness inside us, but rather the good side of us. And this is basically encapsulated by this word, Tim Shell.

[B]

It comes from a key line in Genesis when God is talking to Cain. And God says to Cain, if thou doest well. This is the King James version. Shalt thou be accepted, and if thou doest not, well, sin lith at the door, and unto thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt rule over him. Thou shalt rule over him is basically, if you're good, you will rule over sin, and if you're. You're not, you won't. And basically, the three characters, Samuel Hamilton, Lee, the Chinese American guy who's basically a bit of a caricature, and Adam. They sit around for hours, don't they, talking about these. About Cain and Abel and about this sort of. What does it all mean? Mean?

[D]

Biblical interpretations.

[B]

Yeah, interpretation. It's like your. Your divinity degree at Edinburgh Tabby.

[D]

Yeah, I was born for this.

[B]

So Lee, the Chinese bloke, he says to the others, right, I've taken this. I've taken this bit of the Bible to my Chinese elders and they've consulted some sort of rabbinical authorities and they've studied. They spent two years studying the meaning of the Cain and Abel story. So they can report back. And basically, the key word here, here is Tim Shell, which the King James translation says is thou shalt, but in reality it should be thou mayest. And as Lee says to the other characters, that gives you a choice. It might be the most important word in the world that says, the way is open. Thou mayest. Why, that makes a man great, that gives him stature with the gods. For in his weakness and his filth and his murder of his brother, he still has the great choice. He can choose his course and fight through and win in. And Lee basically says. So Lee is given the role of the sort of dispenser of wisdom, prophet, almost. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And he says, this is what separates us from animals. We have the choice of good and evil. We're not trapped, we're not predestined. You might think you're going to be Cain, but actually you. Thou mayest means this word. Tim Shell means you could choose to be a good person. You're not defined by your heredity or by the. The. The. The role that you feel like you've been given. And this is amazingly exciting.

[D]

And he says, this to Cal, basically, to say that you're not trapped. You're not. You don't have to follow in the footsteps of Cain just because your name is Cal and you've got, you know, wickedness in your family. You can choose to be a good man, and this kind of liberates him. And obviously, Stein, you can see the appeal of a concept like this to someone like Steinbeck. You know, a man that had made mistakes throughout his life. He'd had a, you know, toxic and tumultuous personal life. He had had a negative relationship with his father and then had a negative relationship with his sons. You can see how emancipating and liberating this would be for a man like that. And then, you know, he's writing this for his sons. So to be able to tell them, you don't have to have the same relationship with your sons. You don't have to make the mistakes that I made. God, like, you can see how liberating it is, how liberating that would be. Yeah, Yeah, I find it liberating.

[B]

But, you know, the irony, Tabby, I hate to be the person who's constantly raining on your parade. I mean, I don't really, but I'm pretending I hate purposes of pleasing. Pleasing the listeners. Stein was wrong. Like, that word is not. It doesn't even exist. It's not even a word. Tim Shell. The word is actually Tim Shol. And I read an article about this in the Jewish Review of Books by Sheila Tuller Kaiter. And she said, you know, actually the original version was right and that Lee and Steinbeck are quite wrong.

[D]

You know, oh, ye of little faith. Do not think that I have not contemplated your every single tricksy little argument. You'd have to destroy this book. It's intentional. He's doing it intentionally. He's not like, rewriting biblical interpretation. He's just. He's creating a philosophy and an idea in his book. You know, it's more than a word. He's creating a magical word in a way. A way to reshape the way that we see human nature and give. Put some more positive spin on things. I think he intended it to be mistranslated.

[B]

Okay, so when we get to the very last scene in the book, so.

[D]

Which is basically, I actually cried the first time I read this.

[B]

Oh, Tabby. I'm gonna have to really dial down what I was gonna say now.

[D]

No, no. Let loose, let rip.

[B]

No, I. Well, Adam is dying, isn't he? And Cal comes in. So Cal, who basically has conspired or colluded in Aaron's death. He. He. By. By forcing Aaron to confront the truth about his mother, he effectively drove him to enlist in the army in the Great War. Aaron has been killed. That sort of telegram has arrived. Adam has had a stroke. He's lying in bed. He's dying. Lee brings in Cal, the bad guy, basically, and says, help him, Adam. Help him. Give him his chance. Let him be free. That's what a man has over the beast. Free him. Bless him. And Adam does bless him. He whispers that word, Tim shell thou mayest. Meaning. Yeah, you're not trapped by, you know, by. By fate. You can choose to be a good person, set yourself free and be a good person. I forgive you all of this. And, well, clearly, I was about to say, do you find it moving? But clearly, if you were crying, you weren't crying at the. At the pros. You were crying at the.

[D]

The message.

[B]

The message, yeah. So you did. So you do find this moving?

[D]

I do find it moving, firstly, because, you know, the idea of forgiveness is always moving, whether that's like in War and Peace or whatever, when Natasha's forgiven on the deathbed or anything like that. And then, you know, it's a father dying heartbroken and then finding some degree of kind of hope and redemption in his wayward prodigal son. So I do find that moving. But also, he's not actually being massively moralizing here, Steinbeck. I mean, he is, but he doesn't say, here's the moral question. Believe it. It's a story. It's a conversation. It's actually a debate that runs throughout, like, oh, are humans good or are they wicked? Does good get you anywhere in life? And the emotional reality of the book, you know, the death of a father whispering goodbye to his son, I think it outweighs the allegory or the symbolism of the idea of, you know, free will. And I do think it is preachy. His voice is full of thought and doubt. It's intimate. And, you know, you love the Chronicles of Narnia, which has a big message at the heart of it. And this message is. No. Is no bigger. And is just as subtly done, I think, and just as powerful. See, I use that word again.

[B]

It's that good. It's as good as the Chronicles of Narnia. I mean, that is good. All right, so I think listeners can tell that we probably don't quite agree on whether this book is a great book or not.

[D]

This book has created the tension at the heart of the Book club. We've never disagreed so much.

[B]

No. So Tabby stands with Oprah and Winfrey.

[D]

I do.

[B]

And I. I stand with the New York Times, as always. So we're gonna mark this. What are we gonna mark? We. We always. As part of our own commitment to subtlety.

[D]

Yeah. Sophistication.

[B]

We mark these books out of ten.

[D]

Yeah.

[B]

So I'm gonna appall you by giving it five out of ten.

[D]

Oh, it's the lowest mark we've ever had.

[B]

So the critics in 1952, what they didn't like about it, the highbrow critics, they said they did not like the Hamilton family. They found them redundant, which I do do. They found Kathy unbelievable. A sort of a psycho, mad, psychopathic prostitute turned madam. They didn't like Lee's profound Eastern wisdom. And they found the Cain and Abel stuff too on the nose. And I agree with all of that. I agree with all of those things. That said, I know a lot of people love this book, and a lot not so not just you. And loads of people do find it moving, and they love the kind of family saga element to it. And I agree with you about this. I think, particularly maybe as a British reader, there is something always very appealing about these books set in kind of California, on the frontier, people hewing out a new life for themselves. So that's why I've managed to find five marks to give it out of ten. Tabby, that's kind.

[D]

That's good of you.

[B]

But I know that you are going to give it a massive score and feel free, you know, be my guest.

[D]

Well, thanks. I'm gonna give it a 9 out of 10, as you said. I love books set in this kind of part of America, set during this time period. I love Steinbeck's writing. It's. It's kind of. It's so simple and spare and plain, and yet it conveys incredible delicacy of thought and incredibly delicate descriptions. And like, this delicacy delivered in this kind of hard, masculine voice, it kind of cuts to the quick. I love the descriptions of the Salinas Valley, you know, moving through the seasons. I like the message at the heart of it. I think it's a hopeful one, the idea that people can change, as you say. I love the family saga element. I actually thought the Hamiltons added a kind of nice domesticity to it that otherwise would make it just a book seen from the bird's eye view, maybe. And I read something that said that it captured the vast confusion of life. And that's how I feel about it. But I'm. I'm deducting a mark because I found Aaron and Lee a bit boring.

[B]

Our first proper disagreement and the first, I hope, of many exciting and by the way, people should, on Instagram, on X or whatever. We'd like to hear your own thoughts,

[D]

express the fact that you agree with me.

[B]

I know they will agree with you. I mean, there's no question they'll agree with you. I've. I mean, I should never have done this show because I'm just open. I've just opened myself up to abuse from Tabby Stans. So what we've got coming up, I think some books that we'll agree on a little bit more. Certainly the first one, the Hound of the Baskervilles, is what we're doing next week. And then we are doing A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas. And we shall probably be discussing the whole genre of romantasy and why it appeals to so many people at the moment. The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins. Beloved by Toni Morrison. Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf. I'm looking forward to that. And after that and another big change tone. The Hunger Games. I don't actually know who wrote the Hunger Games. Who wrote the Hunger Games?

[D]

Suzanne Collins.

[B]

Suzanne Collins. That's an indictment of my literary knowledge that I don't know.

[D]

But I'm looking at you just pretending.

[B]

I was just pretending. It's one of my favorite books. So we're always keen to hear your views. And if there is, by some weird mischance, somebody out there who agrees with me and not Tabby, I'm particularly keen to hear from you. All right, Tabby, thank you very much, and goodbye.

[D]

Bye. Hey, Mama.

[E]

Thanks for making all my favorite recipes.

[D]

Hi, Ma. Thanks for your unfiltered advice.

[B]

Hi, Mom.

[D]

Thanks for always being by the phone. Hey, Mom. Happy Mother's Day.

[E]

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[A]

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[C]

3 month plan equivalent to $15 per month Required intro rate first 3 months only, then full price plan options available, taxes and fees extra. See full [e-mail].