John Steinbecks East of Eden - Confused Notions of Good and Evil :: East Eden Essays

Confused Notions of level-headed and Evil in East of heaven   East of Eden is an heroic novel active individual ethics - whether men and women have the major power to choose between good and evil.   East of Eden, to be polite, it is non Steinbecks scoop up novel. Not by a long shot. Steinbeck had wrestled with a moral suspicion and lost. It was as though he had been thinking about life, but not too deeply. East of Eden was a third-rate best seller, the spirit level of two American families over three generations, seven decades from the Civil state of war to World War I, told in a book that confuses us with contradictions, that lacks pretended concentration and that wanders in and around too many themes. Clifton Fadiman once tell it was wrong to describe Steinbeck as a hard boiled writer. Well, if a comparison with eggs is necessary, East of Eden is an overdone omelet. Steinbeck himself worried about its weaknesses. In a letter to his editor, he said, Its kind of a marshy sounding book, but its not sloppy, really. Well, it was sloppy. Begging the forgiveness of the people who gave Steinbeck the Pulitizer and the Nobel Prizes for Literature, there are portions of East of Eden that sound like something out of starter motor Composition I. Some of the syntax seems like scrambled eggs - on the whole around the main subject the brothers beat. - The wrinkles around them (his eyes) were drawn in stellate lines inward by laughter. - In human affairs of danger and thin success, conclusion is sharply limited by hurry. All of which sounds a bit like Charlie Chan explaining life to No. 1 son. Steinbecks East of Eden straight off has been adapted for television by ABC, an eight-hour presentation beginning tonight (Channel 5, 8 to 11), tomorrow (9 to 11) and Wednesday (8 to 11). This is no cheapie. Ten years in the making, East of Eden was shot on location at a cost of $11.2 million, with Savannah, Ga. stand up in for Connecticut scene s and Salinas, Cal. for itself. ABC boasts in a press waive that the 1955 film starring James Dean covered only a small portion of East of Eden, while the 1981 film attempts to depict the perfect novel. Ironically, by the way, today (Sunday) is the 50th anniversary of Deans birth.