{"id":7611,"date":"2022-02-09T07:13:49","date_gmt":"2022-02-09T15:13:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/?p=7611"},"modified":"2022-02-09T07:13:50","modified_gmt":"2022-02-09T15:13:50","slug":"rereading-east-of-eden","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/meditations\/rereading-east-of-eden\/","title":{"rendered":"Rereading East of Eden"},"content":{"rendered":"<!--themify_builder_content-->\n<div id=\"themify_builder_content-7611\" data-postid=\"7611\" class=\"themify_builder_content themify_builder_content-7611 themify_builder tf_clear\">\n    <\/div>\n<!--\/themify_builder_content-->\n\n\n<p>I recently reread <em>East of Eden<\/em> by John Steinbeck. I recalled nothing of my first reading, which I believe took place in the mid 80s. I have never seen the movie. I was familiar with the story of Cain and Abel from <em>Genesis,<\/em> the inspiration for the novel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I really don&#8217;t know why I am sharing these thoughts about the novel. It certainly doesn&#8217;t hold up like <em>Grapes of Wrath<\/em>. It&#8217;s a sprawling, digressive, often brutally misogynistic mess in places, with Steinbeck&#8217;s trademark bursts of philosophy showing up here and there and completely unrelated to the narrative.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But still, <em>East of Eden<\/em>, published in 1952, strangely haunts me. As I read it, I tried finding something that I could apply to my life and country and I could not, unlike I did with <em>Grapes of Wrath<\/em> almost every chapter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I credit Steinbeck for employing a gigantic scope in <em>East of Eden<\/em>. He&#8217;s going for nothing less than the nature of good and evil, love and death and using the story of Cain Abel as the template.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Never in my writing life have I attempted to write a book with a gigantic narrative scope of humanity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I do have one idea that I&#8217;ve mentioned a few times over the years, about attempting a novel called <em>The Watershed<\/em> that would unfold with vast, sweeping range. But it&#8217;s not really about humanity. It&#8217;s about what humanity has done to nature and how nature responds. And no, its not about a virus, unless capitalism is considered a virus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I think it would take me years to write it. I need to conduct considerable research that could take years to complete.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Perhaps that&#8217;s the reason I am writing about <em>East of Eden<\/em>, to remind myself of the need to aim big, truly gargantuan, with this project.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I wonder if I&#8217;ll ever write it.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I recently reread East of Eden by John Steinbeck. I recalled nothing of my first reading, which I believe took place in the mid 80s. I have never seen the movie. I was familiar with the story of Cain and Abel from Genesis, the inspiration for the novel. I really don&#8217;t know why I am [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7612,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,28],"tags":[1166,881],"class_list":["post-7611","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-meditations","category-writing","tag-east-of-eden","tag-john-steinbeck","has-post-title","has-post-date","has-post-category","has-post-tag","has-post-comment","has-post-author",""],"builder_content":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7611","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7611"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7611\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7614,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7611\/revisions\/7614"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7612"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7611"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7611"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7611"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}