Of Mice and Men — John Steinbeck — Recommend with salt

 

This is one of Steinbeck's classics, I think partially because its about a 2-hour read, compared to east of Eden or grapes of wrath (~15),. It's not all that hard to get through or even make a movie about.

There are several themes in this book worth exploring, as well as plenty of allusions that will keep you on your toes. Just as a teaser, the opening sean is of Lenny and George drinking water from a pond. Lenny slurps it from the water, George scoops with his hands, sound familiar? (Judges 7:6)

The first theme, that I found deeply compelling was heaven. Throughout the story Steinbeck describes a kind of heaven , the details vary, but it's generally owning your own parcel of land and working it with loved ones. (compare to Candide conclusions). This vision does motivate them, but it also makes the present bearable, it's an idea of hope, something to daydream about and distract from the loneliness and pain of the moment. I really enjoyed this theme in the book.

The other theme was distasteful and not entirely convincing, but still worth mulling over. Killing out of love. In case you aren't familiar with the book yet, I won't spoil it, but suffice it to say, it's gut-wrenching stuff. The biggest problem is Lenny, his unrealistic strength leaves him in an unrealistic situation.

Bottom line, it's worth a read, but do so with open eyes.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The righteous mind — Jonathan Haidt — Recommend with salt

Image
  The book in a nutshell is captured by the subheading "why good people are divided by politics and religion". The book can be roughly divided into thirds. The first half of the book is about the origins of morality. Where did it come from? Haidt touches on some philosophical works and debates and ultimately concludes that morality provides evolutionary advantages, and it supersedes reason. He uses an elephant and a rider analogy, morality, roughly equated to emotion, is the elephant. He also uses a president and press secretary metaphor, which I found helpful, reason's primary function is to rationalize the conclusions of the subconscious. I'm not sure this story fully explains morality. I think it could explain some of it, and it provides some satisfying guidance but tas far as I can tell it does not obviate the need for extra-human deliberate construction of morality. Second, he outlines what morality is and isn't. He rejects utilitarianism and deontology as to
Read more

The Sum of All Fears-- Tom Clancy

Image
The Sum of all fears  It’s classic Clancy. This one is particularly interesting in terms of the breadth of the problem and players. It’s very human and the technical details are as compelling as always. It also highlights the potential danger of MAD (mutually assured destruction) policy in a very penetrating way.  Check out my general Clancy post for a broader take on this series. Verdict Recommend
Read more

Foundation -- Isaac Asimov -- Lukewarm

Image
I read this because people I admire talked about it (Elon musk, Orson Scott Card, Ben Shapiro). It's classic science fiction in an ancient context. It was published in the 50s, 15 years before the earliest start trek, 25 years before star wars, and 35 years before Enders game, all of which are ancient history. In many ways, it belongs to the era of   Edgar Rice Burroughs'  Prince of Mars or even H.G. Well's War of the Worlds more than it does modern science fiction. That being said, there are some truly brilliant ideas explored in the text. First, the book doesn't follow a protagonist, which means no character development and no human story. Instead, Asimov overtly follows humanities' story, jumping from viewpoint to viewpoint and century to century in galactic civilization. In some ways, it reads more like a collection of short stories in Sanderson's Cosmere or perhaps even something from the MCU, but the novel still manages to drive a narrative crafted aro
Read more