November 5, 2024 • 31 mins
Are people more cruel or simply the passing of time itself?
'East Of Eden' by John Steinbeck is straight up one of the best books I've ever read. We follow various families across the generations as they live & die in 19/20th century America. It's uplifting in some sections and then will follow up with a brutality that brings you to your knees. Easily some of the best written characters and dialogue that I've encountered in all my reading.
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Timeline:
(00:00:00) Intro
(00:05:49) Themes/Questions
(00:18:41) Author & Extras
(00:26:19) Summary
(00:28:46) Value 4 Value
(00:30:08) Join Live!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Kyrin Down (00:00):
Which is more cruel, people or the simple passing of time itself?
Welcome, everyone, to another episode of the mere mortals book reviews. You do have your host here, Kyrin, coming in live on the 6th November
(00:21):
2024.
And as you might, this is the podcast where I revere my inner
psychopathic tendencies.
No. I won't be doing that today at the very least. But
I will be talking about some psychopaths and some cruelty and things like this that we encounter in this book here, East of Eden by John Steinbeck.
(00:43):
So this book was published in 1952,
714
pages. It's a big thick one.
Probably took me about 12 hours reading, I think, to to get through in total. And I know this is a section where I summarize it right at the start, but cod down, this
is one of the best books I've ever read, probably
top 10 Top Top 15, something like that. It's, it's a very, very good book. So get that out of the way. And because it's so good, I'm probably going to do a bit of a long episode this one. So hold tight, boy hold tight.
(01:13):
So let's get into I guess the summary.
So we follow various families across the generations as they live and die in 19th slash 20th century,
United States of America.
We mostly follow this guy called Adam Trask, who the book
begins and ends with. It's mostly centered around him and the characters
(01:35):
are related
to him. Although they do have this kind of own separate sections and chapters where they're doing their own thing. And it can just divert for like 3 chapters into another random character, but then it'll eventually find its way back to him.
And he's a rather sensitive man surrounded
by brutal and wonderful people
who buffet his life to and fro. He is rather a
(01:58):
I don't know, he's not a forceful character. And so
his kind of just living allows other people to to do stuff around him and, and,
interact with him. And yeah, that's probably the best description I can get. What we'll find in the book is long descriptions of the Salinas Valley in particular.
John Steinbeck is pretty renowned for these these
(02:20):
descriptions of of the waves, the oceans, the things, the actual environment,
weaving interactions between the characters and their families, and even a bit of philosophy chucked in. So he's not afraid to put in philosophy, even some stuff that's kind of like poetry. So while it's a rather standard narrative, it does have these just little side jaunts that go off here and there.
So let's jump into the main themes and questions to try and keep this this, this book review to a a normal length. And
(02:47):
this is gonna be a little bit of a spoiler because
it is to, you know, 700 and something pages. So I do wanna add a bit of extra
details to the plot of this. So if you don't wanna know the plot, skip over the next 2 minutes.
I guess let's, let's start with with Adam and just follow his life. So he grew up with a a tyrant father, a sociopathic
(03:09):
brother,
and a really uncaring stepmother. So not a great start for a child in life.
And they they were on, I believe, the east side of America and some somewhere. I can't remember where exactly they were.
And basically, like, he grows up in in kind of fear, but he was also smart and attentive and had some skills as well. He's a pretty good sharp suitor.
(03:32):
And he joins the army because his father basically demanded of him, hates violence and stays there for 5 years before he comes back and kind of, you know, he kind of has his father's love. His his brother loves him as well.
But they they just unable to express it in very good ways. And typically, it's actually in in ways that are not helpful for for Adam himself.
(03:55):
And his an uncaring stepmother dies as his stepmother did, has his actual mother did, long before before he knew her. He falls in love with this psychopath called Kate,
who,
he who
basically like is almost dead, dies on their doorstep,
and he nurses her back to health.
And because of this weak position, he takes her for a wife. And we knew from a backstory of her why she was in this condition of why she's a psychopath,
(04:24):
and what is kind of in store for him. So it's already like, oh, watch out, my friend. Watch out. He moves to Salinas, and this is where we've got this little lovely little photo of the valley, this kind of idyllic place in his mind where he's set up a utopia and he's like, okay, I'm gonna move there with with my loving wife
loving in quotation marks. And,
(04:45):
he has these dreams of creating this,
paradise there, which is actually the title of the book and kind of edenic valley that he wants to create, who he'll do with the help of this man called Sam Hamilton,
and with his kind of servant slash butler slash
guide slash soothsayer slash
(05:05):
wise
mentor, Lee,
a Chinese man.
And basically has 2 twins in this place before his life gets totally altered. And his wife Kate deserts him by shooting him in the shoulder.
Ouch.
And she goes and runs off and runs a whole house of all things.
(05:26):
Eventually, he breaks free of this,
depression,
becomes a better father before,
kind of encountering difficulties raising his children. But, you know, seems to be going on a good path,
has a stroke and is confronted with a, you know, a final a challenge in his life. I guess we'll we'll pause put it that way. So there's many other characters. I I will be touching upon them soon, but let's jump into the theme, the actual theme that I wanna talk about, which is cruelty.
(05:53):
The intentional act of causing suffering, or
the deliberate inaction to alleviate it.
And
what we just see is that there's a whole lot of cruelty in this book, and I'll I'll touch upon them. A lot of things happen in this book. It's weird, because they, they appear to be cruel, but I don't think actually fit in this category
(06:14):
of intentional,
at least in in one sort of sense. So it's it's cruel, but it's not. Let me let me give some examples.
So Charles, his violent
psychopathic,
sociopathic brother, I should say, he doesn't want to kill or hurt his brother.
Because we see how he loves him. We see how he's dependent on him. He's a very lonely man. Without his brother, you You know, he's actually a pretty good brother when he's not near him. He sends him
(06:41):
long letters wants to know about him, how he's going,
shows care for him. It gives him news, all this sort of stuff.
But when they're together, he just can't overcome this kind of inner violence that he has in him.
So
is that cruelty?
It kind of hard to say, Kate, she's just straight up indifferent to whether she hurts people or not. She just wants comfort and independence and to do her own thing. So there's only a couple of examples in the book where I would say she was intentionally being cruel.
(07:13):
And the other examples are she just she just doesn't care. So there was no intent
in her actions, which is kind of it's the intentional act of causing suffering.
Sam Hamilton, who's one of the the good guys in the book, he hurts Adam, you know, punches him in the face, has to be cruel towards him. But it's only to to save the twins and Adam himself of this depression he gets into once
(07:36):
he
he realizes that his wife didn't actually love him and, you know, his whole world breaks apart.
We could quibble over this intent or intention
aspect,
but I take it as the end purpose is suffering rather than a side effect of other
actions. So
yeah, if I'm using that definition, I'd say there's not a lot of cruelty in this book, but there certainly is a lot of suffering and
(08:02):
the God damn is there a lot of suffering.
And then there is all the advice of unnecessary pain like Aaron has to deal with his one of his sons, his twins,
when
he's in in this New Valley, I think it's called Kings or Kings King City. And his father makes a big financial mistake, looks like an idiot, and so everyone's calling his son lettuce head. Lettuces being the the mistake he was trying to ship them across the country.
(08:30):
The only one with with kind of what I would describe is actual cruelty is kind of one of my favorite characters, actually, which is Aaron's brother, Kal, who's a much more conflicted character. Aaron is this god
godlike creature. He's beautiful,
innocent,
kind of, I wouldn't say curious, but he has a
(08:52):
there's a
protection is needed of him because he is so innocent. He is kind of this childlike figure.
And Cal actually has a bit of a demon in him and will intentionally trick his brother be cruel to him because he gets all the love that he himself never never could get because he's kind of, you know, he's got these sinister eyes. He's always squinting. He's always
(09:13):
thinking ahead
and trying to think, you know, why he wants the love, but he can't get it. And so
with all of this being said,
let's let's jump on to like, I guess, who lives the best life with the least suffering because,
you know, but I think that's something to contemplate. No one really wants to go through life with suffering.
(09:33):
I think the actual act of suffering, the pain of suffering
is not a good thing in of itself.
A lot of people will argue, Oh, but you need pain and suffering to to move forward in life, to progress, to understand limitations,
to
eventually find the good things. You need to know the bad to know the good.
(09:54):
I'm I'm not a particular believer of that philosophy.
And I would say certainly in the case, like there's a lot of unnecessary pain and suffering in life,
which
could and should be eliminated if possible. And that's kind of the cruelty aspect of it. Like if you can
eliminate unnecessary suffering, that's 100 percent A good thing. And so
(10:15):
who lives the best life in this book with the least suffering? Well,
no one really,
there's a we'll start with this. The good characters
seem to get through the the life life the best. So even though they have probably an equal amount of suffering, so I'm talking about ones like Sam Hamilton
and Lee, the the China man, they they have this equanimity that prevails that in spite of the hardships,
(10:41):
not because they avoided the pain and suffering, but in spite of them, they were able to mentally go like, okay,
you know, this is part of life. This is, you know, they just had a bit of wisdom in them
and probably had the wisdom to also avoid people who caused
trouble and suffering
and to not really
(11:01):
deal with them and only had to deal with their own grief and trauma. So we see that Lee doesn't, you know, isn't hurt by Kate because he's one of the few people who can kind of see through her
and her manipulations.
Sam Hamilton,
similar sort of deal. They he he avoids people who
have these tendencies to to really hurt him other than his own children who he loves kind of unconditionally.
(11:27):
So these are the ones who who you go, okay, they probably led the best life
for free of the most suffering,
and and probably free of the the cruelty as well. The bad characters, they also suffer, but it's mostly because they end up lonely, not because
they had
more suffering
imposed upon them in their lives per se. And so
(11:50):
we see that, you know, for example, they they actually tend to do financially well. So this being,
Cyrus, who is Adam's father,
he does very financially well, he's a bit of a manipulative liar.
And people and and like I said, a tyrant, but his his lies, he works hard at the same time, gets through life, gets to a position where, you know, the Secretary of State and Secretary of War is depending on him for his advice about war, even though he he was basically a shit shoulder soldier and only served for like 2 months or something like really short period.
(12:26):
And,
but he does financially well,
Charles on his farm. This is Adam's brother, who's the kind of the one violent tendencies.
He runs a really successful farm and
and ends up leaving a lot of money to Charles and Kate when when he passes away.
Kate herself, she knows how to run a whorehouse.
(12:46):
She
finds herself in various times and positions of actually
great wealth, perhaps not, but certainly enough to to
be
be wealthy and independent. And that which is what she wants.
And
but but you know, Cyrus ends up in the capital all on his lonesome dies dies there with
(13:09):
certainly a lot of accolades, but no one who loves him. Charles on his farm, no one loves him. So he couldn't find a wife. He dies alone on his farm. Kate
ends up in her gray room. She's surrounded by, you know, people,
whores and prostitutes and and,
and enforcers and things like this. But she eventually commits suicide in her own room. And so it's like, okay, well, these these characters,
(13:33):
they they had a lot of suffering, but their most suffering seems to probably be their loneliness,
which is caused by
them being
cruel
or doing mean things to other people, even though it's kind of not cruelty because it they didn't have the intent per se.
The conflicted characters in this book are probably the ones that intrigued me the most related to suffering because
(13:57):
they're most reflective of the population
of in general, I think of of life. And so they have goodness inside of them, but also a self destructive side as well. So if we if we look at some of these, we have Tom, who is one of Sam Hamilton's children. He has these aspirations
and the highs and lows. And so he will he has greatness in him. Everyone says they have great he has greatness in him. They can see that he could be a great person,
(14:25):
but they're just not sure if he's going to because he will he'll be ecstatic over an invention. He'll do these paintings.
Smart, smart guy. And then if something goes wrong
and something does go very wrong in his life,
then we see the self destructive side come out of him and the abuse towards himself,
the the doubting, the hatred of his of his own weakness.
(14:48):
We see this with Adam and Aaron,
that they've got this purity yet selfishness
and delusions of other people's realities,
which ends up causing a lot of suffering in their life because they don't see,
oh, okay. You know, they don't understand how things could change, how
this woman that they've they've basically nursed and captured into being his wife
(15:10):
actually doesn't love him how
the this brother or his this imagination of what his mom used to be. And even though there's all these warning signs, yeah, she's actually still alive and is a whore and is a psychopath at that.
And which just ruins him when he learns about it.
And my favorite character, which I talked about is Cal is this kind of steadfastness.
(15:33):
He's quick on his feet. He's he has a way of being blunt with the truth and speaking his mind.
Yet there is this iron edge to him where he,
like I said, he can be cruel. And typically this cruelty is, is to his brother because his brother is loved and he's not. So we can understand that. But it's also to himself.
(15:55):
This is where I would say there's actual cruelty. Like he is cruel with the intent of being cruel. There's no other reason for it.
And that cruelty can be self destructive at times. So
I put myself with them personally.
And these are the characters I kind of connected with the most
because I I feel I'm them, you know, I feel the highs and the lows. And probably,
(16:16):
I would describe these characters like myself, which is the lows are much worse than the highs. So
you're you're kind of you're kind of bounded in some ways, but not in a not in a good way. And the questioning of oneself and your worth the self destructive leanings every now and then.
It's very hard to,
to, to look at these characters and, and not feel some of myself in them or vice versa.
(16:41):
You know, maybe they would feel that I'm in them.
So,
look, there's not too much to take in a pragmatic sense from from reading this book, themes wise around cruelty and suffering.
And that's okay, because this book is it. But it's like entertainment, it's learning, but you don't have to take things away from it necessarily. You can can take ideas. And I'll probably talk about this book with other people at some point.
(17:04):
What I would say is, you know, Adam dreams of this Eden, which is is never fulfilled. And I think life is like this. He's got this
idea of he's gonna turn this valley into this green,
green pasture with running water, with windmills, with alfalfa
growing on the grass and,
you know, the winds coming down over the over the the ridges and and, you know, just being able to sit there and bask in what he's created.
(17:31):
And
I think life is like that you'll have an idea at some point of how your life is going to be. And you'll probably have a fixed idea,
at some point of like, this would be the ideal life for myself. And
it's not going to turn out that way.
Life does not does not give you good things all the time. And, you know, maybe 1 in a 1000000 people will get this, but not not many.
(17:54):
So
what can you do to make life better for yourself and reduce suffering and,
and definitely cruelty? Well, you know, surrounding yourself with good people
who won't add needless suffering, whether whether they intentionally do it or not, so whether they're cruel or not, you know, there's people who just go through life and
I kind of train wrecks.
(18:15):
And, you know, if you touch touch them and get swept up in their their dramas, like, it doesn't matter if they mean to or not, it can hurt you. And this is things like emotional vampires, for example.
And and if you can find those rare individuals
such as
Sam Hamilton and Lee in this book, who are wise and sure of their wise, you know, of their wisdom
(18:38):
is probably the best advice this book has to offer,
which actually jumps on to our
author and some extra details. So
I've talked a lot about John Steinbeck before, so I'm going to gloss over his full life. Instead, some extra content, I think,
related to this book.
He considered this his best work rather than Grapes of Wrath, which is kind of it's up there. A lot of people would probably say Grapes of Wrath is better.
(19:05):
And he wrote this book after his friend Ricketts died.
Ed Ricketts died suddenly in 1948.
And I was just reading the back story of this guy, Ed Ricketts,
and he is kind of the Sam Hamilton,
the,
the
the the Lee of
of John Steinbeck's life. And it seems like a lot of people had this opinion of him who he was a he was a guy who had this kind of calm,
(19:30):
composed nature and a surety of what he was there to do.
A joy, a gay city to himself,
you know, equanimity. All of these words probably
relate to this guy, Ed Ricketts, and he died in a
train crash.
So many of the books
prior to this, he had used Ed Ricketts as inspiration, this being, doc
(19:54):
in,
ones like Sweet Thursday,
as well as,
there was one of the characters in Grapes of Wrath. The name escapes me at the moment,
as well as a couple of other characters in the book. And so you can kind of see how this one person in this life had such an influence on his writing as well. And apparently, his writing went rather downhill after his his friend passed away.
(20:18):
And he himself had some hard times related to the breakup of a marriage,
depression,
you know,
the hard times in this period for himself.
And probably this reflects what I'm gonna say in this next bit here, which is,
I titled this, the characters are to die for. And I meant this as a bit of a wordplay because I actually really love the characters in this book. The the
(20:43):
this is probably my favorite thing about this book.
I I loved the just individual personalities that he managed to craft and create and how they interacted with each other as well as the dialogue. His his writing is so good. There was this one point I just remembered where, you know, he's got a discussion between Lee and Adam. And at some point, Lee just stops him and is like, I need to go to the
(21:05):
kitchen and get the copy. And it's just so rare to find a book where it's like, yeah, that would be an actual interruption that would happen in everyday life for a 100%.
And he added into the book, and it gave it this flavor of an actual real conversation.
Yet you can see that the way the characters interact, they're not they're not just having these,
(21:26):
you know, fluffy
conversations that we have in real life. Oh, the weather was nice today, wasn't it? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, etcetera, etcetera. We're talking about in a in stuff that's not going to be useful to the plot. So he does this great job of just writing this where
the things that need to be included are included with these extra touches, which you might deem unnecessary, but I think give some some value to adding to this this narrative and
(21:51):
the depth of the characters.
So,
you know,
the wordplay getting back to the wordplay,
because while I do love them,
man, do these characters die off suddenly. We've got suicide, we've got pneumonia, we've got stroke, we've got appendicitis, we've got arson,
more death by arson, we've got poisoning, we've got old age, we've got war.
(22:13):
They
there's so many in here, but he managed to cull them down. And there's always only like a cast of 6 or 7 at any given time because
old ones die off new ones die off suddenly.
Yeah, reading this, it's like, I'm not sure about midway through I realized I'm not sure who's gonna make it.
(22:33):
And
not only the ones you might feel less affinity for, but the ones you're starting to admire or root for as well.
They just get capped at the knees
don't sked and
a special shout out to chapter 34.
After Tom's death is is powerful.
And and Tom was this character who I,
I quite enjoyed.
(22:55):
And
here, I could I've got a little section here.
I'll read it out.
And this is coming towards the end of this This, it's very small chapter. It's only 3 pages, 2 and a half pages.
And
what's a good part to read? I'll do this one. In uncertainty, I am certain that underneath the topmost layers of frailty, men want to be good and want to be loved. Indeed, most of their vices are attempted shortcuts to love. When a man comes to die, no matter what his talents and influence and genius, if he dies unloved, his life must be a failure to him and his dying a cold horror. It seems to me that if you or I must choose between 2 courses of thought or action, we should remember our dying and try it so to live that our death brings no pleasure to the world.
(23:39):
Man, I don't know what it was about this. I think it was because it was right after the death of Tom
And his his suicide, which
was was just
it, it hit me super, super hard. And it actually made me remember my mom's recent passing.
She passed away
5, 6 months ago now.
(24:00):
And it probably been a couple of months since I'd really reflected on her passing and certainly since I cried.
And
the pain just hit me hard in this, which was,
you know, at least for my mom,
she was loved when she she died.
But the brutality in this book reminded me of just how much suffering there is in life and in particular for her ending, which was
(24:28):
hard, it was really hard for herself and then also for for me and my immediate family and, you know,
our non immediate family as well.
And,
you know, if we want to get spiritual or moralistic about it,
I think her she had an undeserved and unnecessary suffering
(24:49):
towards the end of her life. And this book, I think it's just a little bit of a primer on either how cruel life it is, is itself or how much suffering there is.
Which is, I guess, my non answer to the question I asked right at the start, you know, which
are people or is life itself
more cruel?
And
(25:10):
I think either or both can be cruel. I don't I don't think you're gonna get through life without having some, some suffering and cruelty,
probably even a lot of suffering and cruelty.
And it just depends on your luck of the drawers to whether you know, people are causing that upon you, such as we see with Adam,
whose
start of his life was certainly that was those kind of cruelty from these these characters once again,
(25:35):
depending on the if you're defining intent,
as
it being the end goal or it being a side effect.
And
then you have others who
perhaps like Caleb, who isn't surrounded, or Aaron probably is a better example.
Aaron, very similar to Adam, who
is this kind of naive
yet pure person,
(25:56):
yet he experiences a whole lot of suffering.
And at the same time, even though the characters that he interacts with his immediately family aren't as psychopathic, sociopathic or tyrannical as as Adams were. So it's like luck of the draw, man. But even then, it's it's gonna be you're probably gonna have a bit of hardness going on in your life.
(26:18):
So
final summary, it's uplifting in subsections
and then, yeah, just brutal, brutal, cruel things that will make you kinda just be like, no. Oh, no. Not not to Tom, not to Aaron, not to Desi, not to Adam, not to not to Lee, not to Sam, not to yeah. It it just
even to just minor characters, you're like, shit, man. I wish that didn't happen.
(26:42):
And, you know, it but it it's very reflective of what life is.
Easily some of the best written characters and dialogue that I've encountered across all of my reading
was captivated. I got through this 12 hours very quickly because I was reading
a lot
of this book. It was very hard to put down.
It's diverse enough that I think there's probably a character for everyone in here.
(27:05):
The main characters are men, so I could understand
this this not being,
you know, particularly
available suited for women, but
because especially because Kate is is probably the other the the main woman character. There's another one,
have Alba is her name who kind of falls in love with Aaron and then subsequently
(27:29):
Cal Gossip.
But
she she's she's still rather a minor character. She's only introduced
right towards the end, basically. And so,
yeah, it's I I feel I feel there's a lot perhaps for men in particular in this book, but, you know, cruelty, life and suffering,
that applies to everyone.
(27:50):
A book that brought a lot of emotions to the surface for me made me ponder a lot. Very
superb. 8 and a half out of 10,
John Steinbeck's East of Eden.
The only unfortunate thing is, like, a lot of it was bad emotions.
It didn't. There's there's some uplifting stuff. But yeah,
when it when it makes you cry, it's it's not it's not the best feeling in the world.
(28:12):
So
other recommendations well, you know, Grapes of Wrath is
is hard to go past in terms of recommendations because that book will also is also very sad,
but sad in a different way. It's not I don't think it's more about the atmosphere rather than the characters themselves. And so I will do a video sometime comparing all of John Steinbeck's books, but I need to read a couple more,
(28:36):
especially The Pearl. I haven't read that one yet. And yep. So I would recommend that one. Definitely Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck. Check it out.
Alright, we've gone on a fair bit here. Let's jump into the final sections value for value. I would love if you could share this book
review with someone,
someone who's perhaps thinking of this who perhaps has a book assignment, perhaps who wants to know what other people think of their favorite character, who who are the best characters or cruelty or life or suffering, all these sorts of things. So, yep, sharing that with someone would be awesome. I also want to know your book recommendations. Do you have any for me? What would you like me to review next on this channel?
(29:14):
Assuming that you've kind of got a feel for the types of books that I like to read. And,
I'll also finally, there's PayPal PayPal
link down below if you want to help support the show financially,
because both Juan and I put a fair bit of effort into doing these.
I just noted the other day to my brother, like, I really love doing it. I'll I will spend I probably spent a solid hour on the notes for this as in addition to the, you know, 12 hours of reading the book.
(29:42):
And
I loved it, man. I love I love doing these things. I love talking about books. So much fun. But it does cost money to host the audio, does cost time and energy. You know, I've got lights, got cameras, got all microphones, all sorts of things. So
they will need replacing at some point. They did need buying at some point. So,
supporting financially would be very much appreciated, and I definitely do call out anyone who who does that on
(30:06):
subsequent episodes.
That's final thing, live. I am live here. I'm trying to go
11 AM Australian Eastern Standard Time every Wednesday if you want to join me in live here.
Juan will put out his book reviews usually on a Saturday
at just a random time that he feels I think in the morning.
(30:27):
And,
Yeah. He so he doesn't do his books live, but he adds in one every now and then, which we are very much appreciative of. I know he's got one related to fashion and Versace coming up and hint. I don't think he enjoyed it.
So,
I've also got some
ones coming up. I will be doing The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood. I will be doing A Calendar of Wisdom by Leo Tolstoy.
(30:52):
I probably will be doing
the For Whom the Bell Tolls by,
what's his name?
Ernest Hemingway.
I do am reading Memorias Postumas de Bras Cubas
by Marcelo de Sis.
And I do have a translation
of well, not a translation, the original in Portuguese
(31:14):
or the Alchemist, which is one of my favorite books, and I will read that at some point. And I'll probably do a book review related to like,
the differences between translations, which I hinted at a while ago and said I would do, but I have not done yet.
And why the art of translating is actually rather hard. So we'll be doing that. That'll kind of be like, not a filler episode, but not a book review at some point. So sure.
(31:38):
No, not too bad. Half an hour gotten through all this. I'm pretty proud of myself. So we're gonna end it here today. Everyone, thank you so much for joining in, for listening in, and I really do who, hope you have a fantastic day wherever you are in the world. Chat for now. Karen out.
Which is more cruel, people or the simple passing of time itself?
Welcome, everyone, to another episode of the mere mortals book reviews. You do have your host here, Kyrin, coming in live on the 6th November
(00:21):
2024.
And as you might, this is the podcast where I revere my inner
psychopathic tendencies.
No. I won't be doing that today at the very least. But
I will be talking about some psychopaths and some cruelty and things like this that we encounter in this book here, East of Eden by John Steinbeck.
(00:43):
So this book was published in 1952,
714
pages. It's a big thick one.
Probably took me about 12 hours reading, I think, to to get through in total. And I know this is a section where I summarize it right at the start, but cod down, this
is one of the best books I've ever read, probably
top 10 Top Top 15, something like that. It's, it's a very, very good book. So get that out of the way. And because it's so good, I'm probably going to do a bit of a long episode this one. So hold tight, boy hold tight.
(01:13):
So let's get into I guess the summary.
So we follow various families across the generations as they live and die in 19th slash 20th century,
United States of America.
We mostly follow this guy called Adam Trask, who the book
begins and ends with. It's mostly centered around him and the characters
(01:35):
are related
to him. Although they do have this kind of own separate sections and chapters where they're doing their own thing. And it can just divert for like 3 chapters into another random character, but then it'll eventually find its way back to him.
And he's a rather sensitive man surrounded
by brutal and wonderful people
who buffet his life to and fro. He is rather a
(01:58):
I don't know, he's not a forceful character. And so
his kind of just living allows other people to to do stuff around him and, and,
interact with him. And yeah, that's probably the best description I can get. What we'll find in the book is long descriptions of the Salinas Valley in particular.
John Steinbeck is pretty renowned for these these
(02:20):
descriptions of of the waves, the oceans, the things, the actual environment,
weaving interactions between the characters and their families, and even a bit of philosophy chucked in. So he's not afraid to put in philosophy, even some stuff that's kind of like poetry. So while it's a rather standard narrative, it does have these just little side jaunts that go off here and there.
So let's jump into the main themes and questions to try and keep this this, this book review to a a normal length. And
(02:47):
this is gonna be a little bit of a spoiler because
it is to, you know, 700 and something pages. So I do wanna add a bit of extra
details to the plot of this. So if you don't wanna know the plot, skip over the next 2 minutes.
I guess let's, let's start with with Adam and just follow his life. So he grew up with a a tyrant father, a sociopathic
(03:09):
brother,
and a really uncaring stepmother. So not a great start for a child in life.
And they they were on, I believe, the east side of America and some somewhere. I can't remember where exactly they were.
And basically, like, he grows up in in kind of fear, but he was also smart and attentive and had some skills as well. He's a pretty good sharp suitor.
(03:32):
And he joins the army because his father basically demanded of him, hates violence and stays there for 5 years before he comes back and kind of, you know, he kind of has his father's love. His his brother loves him as well.
But they they just unable to express it in very good ways. And typically, it's actually in in ways that are not helpful for for Adam himself.
(03:55):
And his an uncaring stepmother dies as his stepmother did, has his actual mother did, long before before he knew her. He falls in love with this psychopath called Kate,
who,
he who
basically like is almost dead, dies on their doorstep,
and he nurses her back to health.
And because of this weak position, he takes her for a wife. And we knew from a backstory of her why she was in this condition of why she's a psychopath,
(04:24):
and what is kind of in store for him. So it's already like, oh, watch out, my friend. Watch out. He moves to Salinas, and this is where we've got this little lovely little photo of the valley, this kind of idyllic place in his mind where he's set up a utopia and he's like, okay, I'm gonna move there with with my loving wife
loving in quotation marks. And,
(04:45):
he has these dreams of creating this,
paradise there, which is actually the title of the book and kind of edenic valley that he wants to create, who he'll do with the help of this man called Sam Hamilton,
and with his kind of servant slash butler slash
guide slash soothsayer slash
(05:05):
wise
mentor, Lee,
a Chinese man.
And basically has 2 twins in this place before his life gets totally altered. And his wife Kate deserts him by shooting him in the shoulder.
Ouch.
And she goes and runs off and runs a whole house of all things.
(05:26):
Eventually, he breaks free of this,
depression,
becomes a better father before,
kind of encountering difficulties raising his children. But, you know, seems to be going on a good path,
has a stroke and is confronted with a, you know, a final a challenge in his life. I guess we'll we'll pause put it that way. So there's many other characters. I I will be touching upon them soon, but let's jump into the theme, the actual theme that I wanna talk about, which is cruelty.
(05:53):
The intentional act of causing suffering, or
the deliberate inaction to alleviate it.
And
what we just see is that there's a whole lot of cruelty in this book, and I'll I'll touch upon them. A lot of things happen in this book. It's weird, because they, they appear to be cruel, but I don't think actually fit in this category
(06:14):
of intentional,
at least in in one sort of sense. So it's it's cruel, but it's not. Let me let me give some examples.
So Charles, his violent
psychopathic,
sociopathic brother, I should say, he doesn't want to kill or hurt his brother.
Because we see how he loves him. We see how he's dependent on him. He's a very lonely man. Without his brother, you You know, he's actually a pretty good brother when he's not near him. He sends him
(06:41):
long letters wants to know about him, how he's going,
shows care for him. It gives him news, all this sort of stuff.
But when they're together, he just can't overcome this kind of inner violence that he has in him.
So
is that cruelty?
It kind of hard to say, Kate, she's just straight up indifferent to whether she hurts people or not. She just wants comfort and independence and to do her own thing. So there's only a couple of examples in the book where I would say she was intentionally being cruel.
(07:13):
And the other examples are she just she just doesn't care. So there was no intent
in her actions, which is kind of it's the intentional act of causing suffering.
Sam Hamilton, who's one of the the good guys in the book, he hurts Adam, you know, punches him in the face, has to be cruel towards him. But it's only to to save the twins and Adam himself of this depression he gets into once
(07:36):
he
he realizes that his wife didn't actually love him and, you know, his whole world breaks apart.
We could quibble over this intent or intention
aspect,
but I take it as the end purpose is suffering rather than a side effect of other
actions. So
yeah, if I'm using that definition, I'd say there's not a lot of cruelty in this book, but there certainly is a lot of suffering and
(08:02):
the God damn is there a lot of suffering.
And then there is all the advice of unnecessary pain like Aaron has to deal with his one of his sons, his twins,
when
he's in in this New Valley, I think it's called Kings or Kings King City. And his father makes a big financial mistake, looks like an idiot, and so everyone's calling his son lettuce head. Lettuces being the the mistake he was trying to ship them across the country.
(08:30):
The only one with with kind of what I would describe is actual cruelty is kind of one of my favorite characters, actually, which is Aaron's brother, Kal, who's a much more conflicted character. Aaron is this god
godlike creature. He's beautiful,
innocent,
kind of, I wouldn't say curious, but he has a
(08:52):
there's a
protection is needed of him because he is so innocent. He is kind of this childlike figure.
And Cal actually has a bit of a demon in him and will intentionally trick his brother be cruel to him because he gets all the love that he himself never never could get because he's kind of, you know, he's got these sinister eyes. He's always squinting. He's always
(09:13):
thinking ahead
and trying to think, you know, why he wants the love, but he can't get it. And so
with all of this being said,
let's let's jump on to like, I guess, who lives the best life with the least suffering because,
you know, but I think that's something to contemplate. No one really wants to go through life with suffering.
(09:33):
I think the actual act of suffering, the pain of suffering
is not a good thing in of itself.
A lot of people will argue, Oh, but you need pain and suffering to to move forward in life, to progress, to understand limitations,
to
eventually find the good things. You need to know the bad to know the good.
(09:54):
I'm I'm not a particular believer of that philosophy.
And I would say certainly in the case, like there's a lot of unnecessary pain and suffering in life,
which
could and should be eliminated if possible. And that's kind of the cruelty aspect of it. Like if you can
eliminate unnecessary suffering, that's 100 percent A good thing. And so
(10:15):
who lives the best life in this book with the least suffering? Well,
no one really,
there's a we'll start with this. The good characters
seem to get through the the life life the best. So even though they have probably an equal amount of suffering, so I'm talking about ones like Sam Hamilton
and Lee, the the China man, they they have this equanimity that prevails that in spite of the hardships,
(10:41):
not because they avoided the pain and suffering, but in spite of them, they were able to mentally go like, okay,
you know, this is part of life. This is, you know, they just had a bit of wisdom in them
and probably had the wisdom to also avoid people who caused
trouble and suffering
and to not really
(11:01):
deal with them and only had to deal with their own grief and trauma. So we see that Lee doesn't, you know, isn't hurt by Kate because he's one of the few people who can kind of see through her
and her manipulations.
Sam Hamilton,
similar sort of deal. They he he avoids people who
have these tendencies to to really hurt him other than his own children who he loves kind of unconditionally.
(11:27):
So these are the ones who who you go, okay, they probably led the best life
for free of the most suffering,
and and probably free of the the cruelty as well. The bad characters, they also suffer, but it's mostly because they end up lonely, not because
they had
more suffering
imposed upon them in their lives per se. And so
(11:50):
we see that, you know, for example, they they actually tend to do financially well. So this being,
Cyrus, who is Adam's father,
he does very financially well, he's a bit of a manipulative liar.
And people and and like I said, a tyrant, but his his lies, he works hard at the same time, gets through life, gets to a position where, you know, the Secretary of State and Secretary of War is depending on him for his advice about war, even though he he was basically a shit shoulder soldier and only served for like 2 months or something like really short period.
(12:26):
And,
but he does financially well,
Charles on his farm. This is Adam's brother, who's the kind of the one violent tendencies.
He runs a really successful farm and
and ends up leaving a lot of money to Charles and Kate when when he passes away.
Kate herself, she knows how to run a whorehouse.
(12:46):
She
finds herself in various times and positions of actually
great wealth, perhaps not, but certainly enough to to
be
be wealthy and independent. And that which is what she wants.
And
but but you know, Cyrus ends up in the capital all on his lonesome dies dies there with
(13:09):
certainly a lot of accolades, but no one who loves him. Charles on his farm, no one loves him. So he couldn't find a wife. He dies alone on his farm. Kate
ends up in her gray room. She's surrounded by, you know, people,
whores and prostitutes and and,
and enforcers and things like this. But she eventually commits suicide in her own room. And so it's like, okay, well, these these characters,
(13:33):
they they had a lot of suffering, but their most suffering seems to probably be their loneliness,
which is caused by
them being
cruel
or doing mean things to other people, even though it's kind of not cruelty because it they didn't have the intent per se.
The conflicted characters in this book are probably the ones that intrigued me the most related to suffering because
(13:57):
they're most reflective of the population
of in general, I think of of life. And so they have goodness inside of them, but also a self destructive side as well. So if we if we look at some of these, we have Tom, who is one of Sam Hamilton's children. He has these aspirations
and the highs and lows. And so he will he has greatness in him. Everyone says they have great he has greatness in him. They can see that he could be a great person,
(14:25):
but they're just not sure if he's going to because he will he'll be ecstatic over an invention. He'll do these paintings.
Smart, smart guy. And then if something goes wrong
and something does go very wrong in his life,
then we see the self destructive side come out of him and the abuse towards himself,
the the doubting, the hatred of his of his own weakness.
(14:48):
We see this with Adam and Aaron,
that they've got this purity yet selfishness
and delusions of other people's realities,
which ends up causing a lot of suffering in their life because they don't see,
oh, okay. You know, they don't understand how things could change, how
this woman that they've they've basically nursed and captured into being his wife
(15:10):
actually doesn't love him how
the this brother or his this imagination of what his mom used to be. And even though there's all these warning signs, yeah, she's actually still alive and is a whore and is a psychopath at that.
And which just ruins him when he learns about it.
And my favorite character, which I talked about is Cal is this kind of steadfastness.
(15:33):
He's quick on his feet. He's he has a way of being blunt with the truth and speaking his mind.
Yet there is this iron edge to him where he,
like I said, he can be cruel. And typically this cruelty is, is to his brother because his brother is loved and he's not. So we can understand that. But it's also to himself.
(15:55):
This is where I would say there's actual cruelty. Like he is cruel with the intent of being cruel. There's no other reason for it.
And that cruelty can be self destructive at times. So
I put myself with them personally.
And these are the characters I kind of connected with the most
because I I feel I'm them, you know, I feel the highs and the lows. And probably,
(16:16):
I would describe these characters like myself, which is the lows are much worse than the highs. So
you're you're kind of you're kind of bounded in some ways, but not in a not in a good way. And the questioning of oneself and your worth the self destructive leanings every now and then.
It's very hard to,
to, to look at these characters and, and not feel some of myself in them or vice versa.
(16:41):
You know, maybe they would feel that I'm in them.
So,
look, there's not too much to take in a pragmatic sense from from reading this book, themes wise around cruelty and suffering.
And that's okay, because this book is it. But it's like entertainment, it's learning, but you don't have to take things away from it necessarily. You can can take ideas. And I'll probably talk about this book with other people at some point.
(17:04):
What I would say is, you know, Adam dreams of this Eden, which is is never fulfilled. And I think life is like this. He's got this
idea of he's gonna turn this valley into this green,
green pasture with running water, with windmills, with alfalfa
growing on the grass and,
you know, the winds coming down over the over the the ridges and and, you know, just being able to sit there and bask in what he's created.
(17:31):
And
I think life is like that you'll have an idea at some point of how your life is going to be. And you'll probably have a fixed idea,
at some point of like, this would be the ideal life for myself. And
it's not going to turn out that way.
Life does not does not give you good things all the time. And, you know, maybe 1 in a 1000000 people will get this, but not not many.
(17:54):
So
what can you do to make life better for yourself and reduce suffering and,
and definitely cruelty? Well, you know, surrounding yourself with good people
who won't add needless suffering, whether whether they intentionally do it or not, so whether they're cruel or not, you know, there's people who just go through life and
I kind of train wrecks.
(18:15):
And, you know, if you touch touch them and get swept up in their their dramas, like, it doesn't matter if they mean to or not, it can hurt you. And this is things like emotional vampires, for example.
And and if you can find those rare individuals
such as
Sam Hamilton and Lee in this book, who are wise and sure of their wise, you know, of their wisdom
(18:38):
is probably the best advice this book has to offer,
which actually jumps on to our
author and some extra details. So
I've talked a lot about John Steinbeck before, so I'm going to gloss over his full life. Instead, some extra content, I think,
related to this book.
He considered this his best work rather than Grapes of Wrath, which is kind of it's up there. A lot of people would probably say Grapes of Wrath is better.
(19:05):
And he wrote this book after his friend Ricketts died.
Ed Ricketts died suddenly in 1948.
And I was just reading the back story of this guy, Ed Ricketts,
and he is kind of the Sam Hamilton,
the,
the
the the Lee of
of John Steinbeck's life. And it seems like a lot of people had this opinion of him who he was a he was a guy who had this kind of calm,
(19:30):
composed nature and a surety of what he was there to do.
A joy, a gay city to himself,
you know, equanimity. All of these words probably
relate to this guy, Ed Ricketts, and he died in a
train crash.
So many of the books
prior to this, he had used Ed Ricketts as inspiration, this being, doc
(19:54):
in,
ones like Sweet Thursday,
as well as,
there was one of the characters in Grapes of Wrath. The name escapes me at the moment,
as well as a couple of other characters in the book. And so you can kind of see how this one person in this life had such an influence on his writing as well. And apparently, his writing went rather downhill after his his friend passed away.
(20:18):
And he himself had some hard times related to the breakup of a marriage,
depression,
you know,
the hard times in this period for himself.
And probably this reflects what I'm gonna say in this next bit here, which is,
I titled this, the characters are to die for. And I meant this as a bit of a wordplay because I actually really love the characters in this book. The the
(20:43):
this is probably my favorite thing about this book.
I I loved the just individual personalities that he managed to craft and create and how they interacted with each other as well as the dialogue. His his writing is so good. There was this one point I just remembered where, you know, he's got a discussion between Lee and Adam. And at some point, Lee just stops him and is like, I need to go to the
(21:05):
kitchen and get the copy. And it's just so rare to find a book where it's like, yeah, that would be an actual interruption that would happen in everyday life for a 100%.
And he added into the book, and it gave it this flavor of an actual real conversation.
Yet you can see that the way the characters interact, they're not they're not just having these,
(21:26):
you know, fluffy
conversations that we have in real life. Oh, the weather was nice today, wasn't it? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, etcetera, etcetera. We're talking about in a in stuff that's not going to be useful to the plot. So he does this great job of just writing this where
the things that need to be included are included with these extra touches, which you might deem unnecessary, but I think give some some value to adding to this this narrative and
(21:51):
the depth of the characters.
So,
you know,
the wordplay getting back to the wordplay,
because while I do love them,
man, do these characters die off suddenly. We've got suicide, we've got pneumonia, we've got stroke, we've got appendicitis, we've got arson,
more death by arson, we've got poisoning, we've got old age, we've got war.
(22:13):
They
there's so many in here, but he managed to cull them down. And there's always only like a cast of 6 or 7 at any given time because
old ones die off new ones die off suddenly.
Yeah, reading this, it's like, I'm not sure about midway through I realized I'm not sure who's gonna make it.
(22:33):
And
not only the ones you might feel less affinity for, but the ones you're starting to admire or root for as well.
They just get capped at the knees
don't sked and
a special shout out to chapter 34.
After Tom's death is is powerful.
And and Tom was this character who I,
I quite enjoyed.
(22:55):
And
here, I could I've got a little section here.
I'll read it out.
And this is coming towards the end of this This, it's very small chapter. It's only 3 pages, 2 and a half pages.
And
what's a good part to read? I'll do this one. In uncertainty, I am certain that underneath the topmost layers of frailty, men want to be good and want to be loved. Indeed, most of their vices are attempted shortcuts to love. When a man comes to die, no matter what his talents and influence and genius, if he dies unloved, his life must be a failure to him and his dying a cold horror. It seems to me that if you or I must choose between 2 courses of thought or action, we should remember our dying and try it so to live that our death brings no pleasure to the world.
(23:39):
Man, I don't know what it was about this. I think it was because it was right after the death of Tom
And his his suicide, which
was was just
it, it hit me super, super hard. And it actually made me remember my mom's recent passing.
She passed away
5, 6 months ago now.
(24:00):
And it probably been a couple of months since I'd really reflected on her passing and certainly since I cried.
And
the pain just hit me hard in this, which was,
you know, at least for my mom,
she was loved when she she died.
But the brutality in this book reminded me of just how much suffering there is in life and in particular for her ending, which was
(24:28):
hard, it was really hard for herself and then also for for me and my immediate family and, you know,
our non immediate family as well.
And,
you know, if we want to get spiritual or moralistic about it,
I think her she had an undeserved and unnecessary suffering
(24:49):
towards the end of her life. And this book, I think it's just a little bit of a primer on either how cruel life it is, is itself or how much suffering there is.
Which is, I guess, my non answer to the question I asked right at the start, you know, which
are people or is life itself
more cruel?
And
(25:10):
I think either or both can be cruel. I don't I don't think you're gonna get through life without having some, some suffering and cruelty,
probably even a lot of suffering and cruelty.
And it just depends on your luck of the drawers to whether you know, people are causing that upon you, such as we see with Adam,
whose
start of his life was certainly that was those kind of cruelty from these these characters once again,
(25:35):
depending on the if you're defining intent,
as
it being the end goal or it being a side effect.
And
then you have others who
perhaps like Caleb, who isn't surrounded, or Aaron probably is a better example.
Aaron, very similar to Adam, who
is this kind of naive
yet pure person,
(25:56):
yet he experiences a whole lot of suffering.
And at the same time, even though the characters that he interacts with his immediately family aren't as psychopathic, sociopathic or tyrannical as as Adams were. So it's like luck of the draw, man. But even then, it's it's gonna be you're probably gonna have a bit of hardness going on in your life.
(26:18):
So
final summary, it's uplifting in subsections
and then, yeah, just brutal, brutal, cruel things that will make you kinda just be like, no. Oh, no. Not not to Tom, not to Aaron, not to Desi, not to Adam, not to not to Lee, not to Sam, not to yeah. It it just
even to just minor characters, you're like, shit, man. I wish that didn't happen.
(26:42):
And, you know, it but it it's very reflective of what life is.
Easily some of the best written characters and dialogue that I've encountered across all of my reading
was captivated. I got through this 12 hours very quickly because I was reading
a lot
of this book. It was very hard to put down.
It's diverse enough that I think there's probably a character for everyone in here.
(27:05):
The main characters are men, so I could understand
this this not being,
you know, particularly
available suited for women, but
because especially because Kate is is probably the other the the main woman character. There's another one,
have Alba is her name who kind of falls in love with Aaron and then subsequently
(27:29):
Cal Gossip.
But
she she's she's still rather a minor character. She's only introduced
right towards the end, basically. And so,
yeah, it's I I feel I feel there's a lot perhaps for men in particular in this book, but, you know, cruelty, life and suffering,
that applies to everyone.
(27:50):
A book that brought a lot of emotions to the surface for me made me ponder a lot. Very
superb. 8 and a half out of 10,
John Steinbeck's East of Eden.
The only unfortunate thing is, like, a lot of it was bad emotions.
It didn't. There's there's some uplifting stuff. But yeah,
when it when it makes you cry, it's it's not it's not the best feeling in the world.
(28:12):
So
other recommendations well, you know, Grapes of Wrath is
is hard to go past in terms of recommendations because that book will also is also very sad,
but sad in a different way. It's not I don't think it's more about the atmosphere rather than the characters themselves. And so I will do a video sometime comparing all of John Steinbeck's books, but I need to read a couple more,
(28:36):
especially The Pearl. I haven't read that one yet. And yep. So I would recommend that one. Definitely Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck. Check it out.
Alright, we've gone on a fair bit here. Let's jump into the final sections value for value. I would love if you could share this book
review with someone,
someone who's perhaps thinking of this who perhaps has a book assignment, perhaps who wants to know what other people think of their favorite character, who who are the best characters or cruelty or life or suffering, all these sorts of things. So, yep, sharing that with someone would be awesome. I also want to know your book recommendations. Do you have any for me? What would you like me to review next on this channel?
(29:14):
Assuming that you've kind of got a feel for the types of books that I like to read. And,
I'll also finally, there's PayPal PayPal
link down below if you want to help support the show financially,
because both Juan and I put a fair bit of effort into doing these.
I just noted the other day to my brother, like, I really love doing it. I'll I will spend I probably spent a solid hour on the notes for this as in addition to the, you know, 12 hours of reading the book.
(29:42):
And
I loved it, man. I love I love doing these things. I love talking about books. So much fun. But it does cost money to host the audio, does cost time and energy. You know, I've got lights, got cameras, got all microphones, all sorts of things. So
they will need replacing at some point. They did need buying at some point. So,
supporting financially would be very much appreciated, and I definitely do call out anyone who who does that on
(30:06):
subsequent episodes.
That's final thing, live. I am live here. I'm trying to go
11 AM Australian Eastern Standard Time every Wednesday if you want to join me in live here.
Juan will put out his book reviews usually on a Saturday
at just a random time that he feels I think in the morning.
(30:27):
And,
Yeah. He so he doesn't do his books live, but he adds in one every now and then, which we are very much appreciative of. I know he's got one related to fashion and Versace coming up and hint. I don't think he enjoyed it.
So,
I've also got some
ones coming up. I will be doing The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood. I will be doing A Calendar of Wisdom by Leo Tolstoy.
(30:52):
I probably will be doing
the For Whom the Bell Tolls by,
what's his name?
Ernest Hemingway.
I do am reading Memorias Postumas de Bras Cubas
by Marcelo de Sis.
And I do have a translation
of well, not a translation, the original in Portuguese
(31:14):
or the Alchemist, which is one of my favorite books, and I will read that at some point. And I'll probably do a book review related to like,
the differences between translations, which I hinted at a while ago and said I would do, but I have not done yet.
And why the art of translating is actually rather hard. So we'll be doing that. That'll kind of be like, not a filler episode, but not a book review at some point. So sure.
(31:38):
No, not too bad. Half an hour gotten through all this. I'm pretty proud of myself. So we're gonna end it here today. Everyone, thank you so much for joining in, for listening in, and I really do who, hope you have a fantastic day wherever you are in the world. Chat for now. Karen out.
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