In Books, the California Promise and a Century of Reinvention
‘Cannery Row’ by John Steinbeck
John Steinbeck is the novelist of early California. His canonical works, namely Of Mice and Men and the epics East of Eden and The Grapes of Wrath, all contain characters searching for something better in the midst of hardships. But Steinbeck’s 1945 novel Cannery Row—a short, ambiguous, often hilarious, quietly tragic book—best evokes a sense of place and the way space can reflect the contradictions of human nature. The opening line of the book suggests these multitudes: “Cannery Row in Monterey in California is a poem, a stink, a grating noise, a quality of light, a tone, a habit, a nostalgia, a dream.”
There is no plot as such. Rather, the book follows a cast of misfits and outsiders trying to live in Cannery Row: Doc, the lovable marine biologist; Mack, a mischievous schemer; Henri, the painter who loves boats but is afraid of the ocean. It’s a funny book—”Two generations of Americans knew more about the Ford coil than the clitoris”—but also, this being Steinbeck, one filled with pathos, a story “where men hungering for love destroy everything lovable about them” and where death is always entwined with living.
Read also: Sweet Thursday, The Pastures of Heaven, East of Eden, The Grapes of Wrath, Of Mice and Men, The Red Pony
