Cannery Row (Book 22 of 52)

I just finished reading Cannery Row by John Steinbeck. Before I get to a couple of reasons why I like Steinbeck's writing, here is one of my favorite passages, on page 104...

He thought it would be nice to take a very long walk. He put on a little knapsack and he walked through Indiana and Kentucky and North Carolina and Georgia clear to Florida. He walked among farmers and mountain people, among the swamp people and fisherman. And everywhere people asked him why he was walking through the country.

Because he loved true things, he tried to explain. He said he was nervous and besides he wanted to see the country, smell the ground and look at grass and birds and trees, to savor the country, and there was no other way to do it save on foot. And people didn't like him for telling the truth. They scowled, or shook and tapped their heads, they laughed as though they knew it was a lie and they appreciated a liar. And some, afraid for their daughters or their pigs, told him to move on, to get going, just not to stop near their place if he knew what was good for him.

And so he stopped trying to tell the truth. He said he was doing it on a bet - that he stood to win a hundred dollars. Everyone liked him then and believed him. They asked him in to dinner and gave him a bed and they put lunches up for him and wished him good luck and thought he was a hell of a fine fellow. Doc still loved true things but he knew it was not a general love and it could be a very dangerous mistress.

One of the reasons I like Steinbeck is his genuine affection for his characters. When he writes about Doc (as in the previous passage) or Lee Chong or Dora or Mack and the boys, one senses he truly cares about them and revels in their good qualities and flaws, in their habits and their lives. The way he describes them makes me wish I could meet some of them, although I'd have to watch myself around Mack lest I be boondoggled into giving him a quart of whiskey.

I also love the way Steinbeck writes about Monterey and Cannery Row. It would be wonderful to visit the places he describes - the Palace Flophouse and Grill, Western Biological, and Henri the Painter's boat. Henri, by the way, is a French painter who is neither a painter nor French. Every chapter is a snapshot of the Row and the people that live there. If the chapters were actual digital photos, one could simply stitch them together to create a magnificent panorama of the seaside community.

I brought this wonderful book along on the backpacking trip because of its size and weight. I also had a feeling it would be the perfect book to read outdoors and I was right.