![]() ![]() That would be an intriguing stylistic choice if there seemed to be some motivation, some larger meaning driving it, but I could find none. I could never figure out why parts of the book are told from the third person point of view and parts are in first person. Steinbeck is off his game, that much is clear. ![]() I don’t regret reading it, but I’m not terribly glad about it, either. Opportunities come along for Ethan to correct this, all of them asking him to compromise his morals in order to regain his lost position in the world. They are outwardly kind and loving to Ethan, but he knows they are unhappy and they know he knows. His wife, though a very pleasant, devoted woman, is disappointed in this turn of events, and his children seethe and resent their lower place on the social ladder. He once owned the grocery store and many other things, but hard financial times means he is now the clerk at the store, and an Italian man owns it. ![]() Did anyone know that?)Ī quick rundown: Ethan Hawley is a Long Islander who comes from a long line of once great men, whalers and men of commerce and banking and business. ![]() (I also discovered his younger son - the only surviving one - is a published writer. I had to look at his picture in the back to make sure it was the John Steinbeck. I had never heard of it before I discovered it when rifling through the bargain bins at Half Price Books. This was Steinbeck’s last complete novel, published in 1961. ![]()
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