Ben's Reviews > Cannery Row

I first read this many years ago. Riddled with ADD, frozen by nervousness, and thrown-off by wack-ass hormones, I had trouble reading anything at the time, and this was no exception. A parable of my formerly wasted time on earth, I read it and got nothing out of it. Hell, I didn’t even remember I had read it until I started it (again) 10 days ago.

But oh did I appreciate it this go-round. Steinbeck got me to like the kind of people that, at first judgment, I would deem ignorant, annoying, or maybe even dangerous. The kind of people with brains attuned to a totally different frequency than my own; people so different from myself, that I’d probably be pretty freaking uncomfortable if I met them. I’d maybe even feel threatened by them. This, of course, is not because Mack-and-his-motley-crew are actually bad guys. Sure they’re slick and they’ll take you for a ride if they can; but they almost always mean well, and they are not bad people.

Mack and the boys aren’t enclosed by the excesses and goal-driven constructs that trap most of the population. They live in the moment and are free from most worries. They are content, and are therefore happy. The Doctor –- a very memorable character, and a hero of sorts to the people of Cannery Row -– says it best:

"Look at them. There are your true philosophers. I think that Mack and the boys know everything that has ever happened in the world and possibly everything that will happen. I think they survive in this particular world better than other people. In a time when people tear themselves to pieces with ambition and nervousness and covetousness, they are relaxed. All of our so-called successful men are sick men, with bad stomachs, and bad souls, but Mack and the boys are healthy and curiously clean. They can do what they want. They can satisfy their appetites without calling them something else."

Cannery Row was written and ordered expertly, with each chapter short but packing a punch. And while the characters for the most part remain pretty freakin’ lovable, Steinbeck -- true to life -- hits us with dark surprises throughout. People seem to have memories and favorite scenes from this novel that they recall years later: the dead girl, Henri the “painter,” the beer milkshake, the ice skater, to name a few. My favorite and most memorable scene was a full chapter, only a few pages long, in which Steinbeck takes one of his brilliantly dark detours from the main narrative, to tell us about a gopher -– yes, a gopher. In a vacant lot on Cannery Row, the gopher finds the perfect spot for a burrow. Through strategy, hard work, and passion, the gopher makes himself his ideal home. He loads up food for his future offspring, and enjoys his nice view and rich soil: he is set for life. But as time moves on, no female appears: he remains alone. The gopher gives up on his perfect home, and decides to move where he can find a mate.......and ends up choosing a spot in a nearby garden that is full of gopher traps.

I started reading heavily a little over a year ago. Since then, I’ve had dashes of great love for humanity which have taken place more often, and have been more piercing, than those that took place before I was a hardcore bookster. Oh, I’m still secretly more of a hater than a lover, and ignorance still typically ticks me off. But thanks to reading novels like this, I understand and love my fellow human beings a little more.

And if I could keep within me, all the time, those aforementioned dashes of pure, radiating love in my heart, I think I’d be perpetually happy. But you know, life is flighty. And these moments are few and far between.

Then again, I’ll take what I can get.