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Raise a Glass to East of Eden by John Steinbeck Part 4
12 Plays7 days ago
The fourth and final episode of East of Eden by John Steinbeck! Eric and Hunter bring it home (finally). We hope you have enjoyed this read through!
https://www.abebooks.com/9780142004234/East-Eden-John-Steinbeck-Centennial-0142004235/plp
A dissertation about the word "Timshel:" https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5325/steinbeckreview.12.2.0190?read-now=1&seq=4
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Transcript
The Timeless Tale of Good vs Evil
00:00:13
Speaker
A child may ask, what is the world's story about? And a grown man or woman may wonder, what way will the world go? How does it end? And while we're at it, what's the story about?
00:00:28
Speaker
I believe that there is one story in the world and only one that has frightened and inspired us, so that we live in a pearl-white serial of continuing thought and wonder.
00:00:39
Speaker
Humans are caught in their lives, in their thoughts, in their hungers and ambitions, in their avarice and cruelty, and in their kindness and generosity too, in a net of good and evil.
00:00:54
Speaker
I think this is the only story we have, and that it occurs on all levels of feeling and intelligence. Virtue and vice were warp and woof of our first consciousness, and they will be the fabric of our last.
00:01:09
Speaker
And this, despite any changes we may impose on field and river and mountain, on economy and manners, there is no other story. A man, after he has brushed off the dust and chips of his life, will have left only the hard, clean questions.
00:01:26
Speaker
Was it good, or was it evil? Have I done well, or ill?
Meet the Hosts: Eric & Hunter
00:01:41
Speaker
Hello and welcome to Raise a Glass, the podcast where we talk about the stories and storytellers that shape us. My name is Eric Lintola. And I am Hunter Danson.
00:01:52
Speaker
And just now you heard the beginning two paragraphs of part four of East of Eden by John Steinbeck. I'm sure we're going to get more into what you what you read, Hunter, and another many other gems and pieces from this part later. But before we do, I got to know, what's in your glass? ah I have some throat coat tea, um because at this stage the week in the evening, if I had alcohol, I think it would not be as good of a podcast.
00:02:29
Speaker
um And we're getting over some sicknesses in the Danson household. So throat coat is
00:02:40
Speaker
yeah medicine. How about you, Eric? Well, per usual, we went in very different directions. um Since this is the story that you're bringing to us and have more deep things to say, um i I made what I am now i'm'm calling this the Sam Hamilton.
00:02:59
Speaker
Um, it is a combination of, I only had bourbon, but I wish it was whiskey with just ah with an EY. Cause that would be an Irish whiskey. Um, but it's, it's a bourbon and you know, he was, he was an American, yeah um, with some grapefruit, thinking Salinas Valley, thinking California, citrus and some honey.
00:03:21
Speaker
um Because you got to know among the many things Sam Hamilton did, you know did it probably off screen, right? He had to have been an apiary, an apist, apiist, apiariist.
00:03:33
Speaker
A beekeeper. The honey is actually from A&A Acres. Okay. um And so friends of ours have their own hives.
00:03:44
Speaker
And it's very nice. Grapefruit, it's it's it's freshly squeezed from but from a grapefruit. Mm-hmm. grapefruit is a very like, it's got a ah very distinct flavor, but it's also pretty watery. Right. Ultimately.
00:03:56
Speaker
Um, and so it actually creates a nice sweet, sour, like depth, the depth flavor. That's not overwhelming. Um, I thought it was when I was going to, when started making it, I thought it was going to be, and I think if I'd done grapefruit juice, like from a bottle, it would have been a little bit more pungent than it is, but I'm quite enjoying it. And, uh,
00:04:21
Speaker
yeah So nice's again, what I'm calling affectionately calling the the Sam Hamilton. It's its own kind of medicine. Well,
00:04:33
Speaker
Hunter, what are you raising and pouring one out for? yeah Well, I'm pouring one out for stomach viruses and this season with young kids and I actually had the stomach virus two weeks ago and then they got it this past, everyone else in my family got it this past week.
Technology, Sports, and Shared Experiences
00:04:57
Speaker
Not for me somehow, but just, it is a particularly brutal one. It just makes you feel like you're dead. Like you're just vomiting up your insides.
00:05:13
Speaker
And, um,
00:05:16
Speaker
at at least in adults and then the kids, they were vomiting and then diarrhea too. It's just like, oh it's like at one hand, I'm glad it's not the flu. Cause you know, the flu is, can be serious. But on the other hand,
00:05:30
Speaker
There's a lot more cleaning that you have to do. now Yeah. bed Particularly bed sheets and things in the middle of the night. What are you raising one for? Anyway.
00:05:45
Speaker
That is tough. That is tough. I'm raising a glass to um
00:05:54
Speaker
a book called Technopoly by Neil Postman. uh, which I read, i guess a few weeks ago, i finished it, but I've just been thinking about it a lot.
00:06:06
Speaker
And it was written in the nineties, I think in 97 or something. And it articulates this sort of theory about how we almost worship technology, um, and how we interact with technology.
00:06:24
Speaker
um I think it might be its own podcast at this point, but it's just gotten me to think so much about how I interact with technology and ultimately whether I want the technology to use me ah or whether whether i want to use the technology or whether...
00:06:48
Speaker
You know, I'm letting it use me. um Yeah. And I think it's very relevant for all of the stuff that we, all the progress that we quote unquote progress, you know, it's like, what is asked, you know, we should ask what, what is real progress look like, you know?
00:07:11
Speaker
um And I don't think it's necessarily technological progress. progress that we need. Um, but how about you, Eric? Uh, yeah. Um, I've thought long and hard over the last day of what was to raise one and pour one out for Hunter. Cause there's, it's been a while since we've, we've done our last podcast and it's been some really cool things and tough things going through. Um, but I'm gonna, uh, be more,
00:07:41
Speaker
Lean into a part of myself that to some people might sound super super ah superficial, but matters deeply to me. And so my my raising and pouring are deeply related. And I'm going to raise a glass to Sean McDermott, who was up until this past week, the head coach of the Buffalo Bills.
00:08:02
Speaker
Sean McDermott took the Buffalo Bills franchise from a perennially losing franchise um for the entirety of my bills fandom history um you know about 17 years of losing um to a perennial um playoff team most wins since 2020 like just one of the best teams in the league with one of the greatest characters among the team members um characteristics and you a franchise that is a is a bills fan like
00:08:37
Speaker
Not only like was it fun to see the team win, obvious but it was obviously, but it was really fun the way they were winning and the type of team we were cheering for. um and he was he was fired last week, which that didn't necessarily surprise me because he didn't get us to the big game. um and I think there are some challenges he had as a head coach in times of in terms of like game time decisions. um And i could I could dive deep into that, but I'm not going to.
00:09:06
Speaker
um But my expectation for how that process went um was full of a lot of grace and a lot of expectation of like planning.
00:09:21
Speaker
And there was a press conference with the owner and the GM of the Bills. The GM was not fired for whatever reason. um that made it very clear that it was not a planned decision um and it was not done with
00:09:40
Speaker
the players in mind. um and And actually in the interview, in the press conference, the GM, who is now the president of the team, threw players under the bus oh and threw coaching staff under the bus and It was just a really, and so my been pouring went out for yeah the current state of leadership in the Buffalo Bills franchise. I was like reading an article yesterday that said, think it was titled, How to Lose a Fanbase in 24 Hours.
00:10:10
Speaker
um Which is you know maybe a little bit aggressive, but as as Bills fans, like there's a lot of uproar right now. First, about the but the big game the Bills lost, which was ridiculous. And there was a completed catch that was called an interception that makes no sense, and it lost us the game.
00:10:29
Speaker
But primarily about the way that um our head coach um was was treated. Um, and I will forever be a Sean McDermott fan and really hope he does not end up on an AFC East team.
00:10:41
Speaker
But even if he does, I still might root for that team as it relates to Sean McDermott. He's just one of the highest moral standard, like, like Christian kind, intense, um, building, building up of leaders, like character dudes.
00:11:00
Speaker
Um, and so, um, i'm I'm really disappointed and frustrated at the way our our leadership of our team handled it. I wish him the best, and I was so grateful. that It's been so much fun being a Bills fan.
00:11:15
Speaker
um And I expect it to continue to be. um i really do, and because of the team we have. um But it's going to take... take a lot of work from the leadership to rebuild my trust in, in our organization, which is a surprise to me. It would not, that's not what I would have said last week.
00:11:35
Speaker
So it's my little bit longer raising for, um, and know, other people might hear this say, it's just football. just a sport. And I get that. It is a sport. It's a game.
00:11:46
Speaker
Um, but there's something really cool about being part of a fan base that, It's just, it's an encapsulating thing that, I mean, I've built relationships with people and and just had connections with people across the country, like Chicago, LA, you know, because of i because I'm a Bills fan. Like, how cool is that?
00:12:13
Speaker
So that's what I
Deep Dive into 'East of Eden'
00:12:15
Speaker
got. Okay.
00:12:25
Speaker
Again, other people might laugh and find it silly, but... Hey, you got to have your... You got to have a thing. i think the thing i would relate is actually Halo, oddly enough, because the Halo fan base is quite passionate, and the development company and the you know Microsoft as well, who owns the IP...
00:12:50
Speaker
have made many questionable decisions over the years yeah with the management of the franchise. It's not a sports team, but, you know, kind of similar feelings. Yeah.
00:13:02
Speaker
It's a fun show. It's a fun game. and i think we'll do an episode at some point. a lot of it together. We'll talk about it at some point. um So, East of Eden. East Eden. Hey, Hunter, I just looked, and our first podcast on part one of East of Eden dropped on May 8th of 2024.
00:13:22
Speaker
We have made Yeah. we have made it Yeah. um I know that I have slowed us down in the process. um Wow. This is a very different book than I expected when I picked up the first pages of it.
00:13:39
Speaker
don't know, two years ago. um i was expecting Grapes of Wrath. I was expecting Of Mice and Men. Yeah. My other experience with John Steinbeck was Travels with Charlie, which I was definitely not expecting in this book. um And this book wasn't any of those things. It had pieces of all of them.
00:14:01
Speaker
But one of the things that I found so captivating about this book is the depth of character development. and relationships that are built throughout it.
00:14:16
Speaker
in In many ways,
00:14:22
Speaker
it feels like a... This isn't the greatest example, but it feel it feels like um like a TV show where you spend seasons diving into the relationships between characters. Mm-hmm.
00:14:40
Speaker
um I didn't watch it, but like Downton Abbey type vibe. like and and And what I mean by that is in written form, Steinbeck gets to the depth of characters and the ways they interact and like builds...
00:14:59
Speaker
whole characters. He doesn't build like half characters, even the characters that are like ancillary joe to the story. And, uh, you know, yeah like, you know, um, but the characters that are, and paramount to it, like, it's just, as you read it,
00:15:17
Speaker
And as i was reading, i was like, oh man, that's terrible. But also, yeah, that's exactly what that person would do in that situation. And this other person wouldn't do that. And I wouldn't be worried about that because i feel like I know this person and I don't like that person, but I understand so much of, you know, who they are and why they make their decisions and how that ah interaction is impacted the way this character then, you know, makes their decisions. Yeah. I mean, it does all of this within the frame of of a title, right?
00:15:47
Speaker
and East of Eden that kind of gives away
00:15:53
Speaker
the ending or a large part of the ending. um if you've, if you've read the a story of Cain and Abel and the story of Eden um from the beginning and yet isn't superficial or weak because of that.
00:16:13
Speaker
Those are some of my quick thoughts on this. um I wanted to to throw them out there ah to see if if any of those connect with kind of why you brought that this to us and how it shaped you. Yeah. um But also as a way to to open up the conversation um on part four and then also on on the the book as it in its entirety.
00:16:34
Speaker
um o
00:16:41
Speaker
Thanks, Eric. There's many different directions we could go, I think. um let's Let's start with, if you have any response to, you know, within two minutes of the book as a whole. Yeah. um And then let's talk about part four and then come back.
00:17:03
Speaker
Yeah. To the inspiration and the impact of the book. I would say
00:17:10
Speaker
east of Eden to me is...
00:17:15
Speaker
a bright and shining example of a great novel. And by great, I don't mean that it'll go down in history or, you know, that it's the best now best book in the world or whatever.
00:17:30
Speaker
You know, I just mean that it's very well written that Steinbeck set out to tell this story of his family and the story of good and evil in this way.
00:17:48
Speaker
He had this vision and he achieved it and he did it and he, and it's, it's funny reading it again because I can look closer and like read slower and, you know, reading over two years, um,
00:18:08
Speaker
gives some time, at least, i did it's not like I did some heavy study of it, but just subconsciously, you know, thinking about it and letting it marinate. Because the first time I read it, I just kind of blew through it because I couldn't put it down.
00:18:21
Speaker
Just couldn't stop reading it. um And this time around, I can, and I was also reading Steinbeck's East of Eden letters, the letters that he wrote to his editor every day but before he started working on East of Eden and the drafting process, um the journal of a novel.
00:18:42
Speaker
And I was sort of tried to read it like chronologically as he was writing each parts. And so I was trying to get into the process because I am also a writer and um yeah it's, it's really just astonishing that,
00:18:59
Speaker
how well it's written and how he's able to achieve his goals. And i think the simplicity of the language tricks you into not noticing like how many techniques and creative uses of like creative devices that he uses throughout, especially for like characterizations.
00:19:21
Speaker
Like when he he's characterizing Joe, who's the, um, Kate's bouncer. Um, so yeah. You know, just the way that Joe thinks and it's not like Seinbeck will put it in italics and say, Joe thought this.
00:19:40
Speaker
Um, yes it's that the the whole style of narration changes. um and there's, there's no punctuation to delineate to like a thought or not. It's just sort of like, so now we're in Joe's head and it's all so elegant. And yeah.
00:20:04
Speaker
yeah And, and the whole, the whole book is, is full of that. And, and Steinbeck's, you know, said himself, well, it's just a book. I'm just using my tools, you know? And I think that's, kind of the hallmark of an artist who has realized the height of their powers and what they're capable of is that, you know, they're not, um, they're just saying, you know, ah these are my tools and this is the best I can do. Um,
00:20:36
Speaker
and I think I personally East of Eden, I will always remember the ending and,
00:20:47
Speaker
and i think And we'll get into the ending. I think we'll save that for later in the podcast. but um Spoilers. Spoilers, obviously. We're part four. i don't I don't know if we need much of a summary at this point because part four is really just...
00:21:04
Speaker
You know, he's tying up all of the... Everything that he has set in motion to this point is coming together now. And you see the the, you know, the conflict between Cal and Aaron and all of these things that have been under the surface and all that tension sort of breaks. and um And you see the resolution of that and how that works out for for cal and Kate and...
00:21:35
Speaker
Aaron, Lee and Adam.
00:21:49
Speaker
You, you use a phrase talked about it being a great book. Um, and I have a definition of what makes something a great book that I I've,
00:22:00
Speaker
I've built over just having lots of book studies, conversations about books. um And for me, and I might've said this in a previous episode, a great book is a book that becomes richer through conversation.
00:22:19
Speaker
When you discuss it with somebody else, first of all, you want to discuss with somebody else, but when you do your thoughts on the book, don't just change.
00:22:31
Speaker
but they they develop and they they get deeper and the book transforms as you discuss it. Whereas, and sometimes those are also very fun books, um but not necessarily. Whereas ah just a ah fun book um is a book that you can discuss for a little bit and it doesn't really...
00:23:00
Speaker
You might change your opinion on it, but it doesn't lead you somewhere deeper. Yeah. And so as, as, as two examples of that, um, and then we can dive into part four, i would call
00:23:19
Speaker
ready player one, a fun book, but it's not a great book. Um, it's a book that, you know big cultural moment. We have an entire episode on it. You can, and listen to it if you want to be offended if you love Ready Player One.
00:23:31
Speaker
um But for me, when I talk with people about that book, that the the conversation kind of ends pretty quickly. um You kind of talk about some things and you're like, oh, it's a lot of cool references. There's some really cool ideas in the book. It's really cool like to see and kind of a the search and the MacGuffin. Very fun. um But it doesn't lead to a better discussion.
00:23:56
Speaker
Or a deep discussion or a conversation that makes you want to go back to the book and read it more and, and and you know, spend time in the nooks and crannies. in the Yeah. um Whereas a book like Man in the High Castle, um I would consider a great book.
00:24:12
Speaker
Not because I like it, necessarily, but because i remember distinctly remember having a conversation with ah with a group group about it. And all of us went into the into the conversation were yeah, this was a fine book.
00:24:25
Speaker
By the time we'd finished talking two hours or more later, we're like, oh my goodness, there is so much that this book did. How did it do all those things? I still don't necessarily like...
00:24:36
Speaker
the story it's telling, but wow, like i I, want to go back and reread it to better understand this. and like, that's what a great book, a great book does.
00:24:49
Speaker
Um, for me, that is, that's what, what leads me to call something a great book. And I think this book, um, as now justified by six hours of content, um, between you and me can help speak to that. Yeah.
00:25:11
Speaker
So, Andre, you named that this book, part four, brings together the tension that's just under the surface on so many of these characters. um and And you see characters interact or you hear about characters and interacting for the first time. Yeah.
00:25:24
Speaker
And we're kind of really introduced to Joe in a deep way for the first time in this part. um Which of those relationships um do you want to dive into
Cal's Struggles and Family Dynamics
00:25:37
Speaker
first? Or is there a particular story arc or a particular scene um that we need to talk to talk about just to open this part of the conversation?
00:25:47
Speaker
woof I don't know. i have a couple notes. um I was thinking... I have things that I remember for my first read that that stuck in my head.
00:26:02
Speaker
And then I have some things that impacted me more the second time around. So I guess I'll start with the first read. And to respond to your question, I'd say that Lee was probably stuck in my head the most. Sam Hamilton and Lee on the first and the first read. Sam Hamilton is not here in part four, although he is here in spirit.
00:26:29
Speaker
Um, yes. Oh, Lee's conversation about Sam Hamilton when Sam Hamilton died. Yes. Is one of the best parts of this part. Yeah. But please go for it. It's funny because there is like a, a particular line that I just thought about. I'm going to recur to me a lot over the years after the first time I read East of Eden.
00:26:51
Speaker
Um, And that was a line about ah
00:26:59
Speaker
Lee's conversational therapy. um i meet Let me find the... Oh, that's... Lee is so cool.
00:27:10
Speaker
I found it. It's ah page 587.
00:27:16
Speaker
if you are following along with us which thank you very much for your long-suffering patience um we're using the centennial edition of east of eden you can find them used on most online bookstores or thrift books or whatever beautiful copy of the book but um
00:27:42
Speaker
and And just to note again about the way that Steinbeck writes is i what I love is that he uses the medium to the fullest extent in that he can do really deep characterization and cross spans of time very quickly.
00:28:02
Speaker
um And Steinbeck is really good at pacing. So, like, the end of the story, kind of, the time kind of clips along pretty quick. Like, you go through months in a couple pages and stuff like that, um which I think is really a,
Kate's Complexity and Demise
00:28:19
Speaker
you know, is a limitation of television. It's much harder to do that kind of thing.
00:28:23
Speaker
But in a novel, you can narrate it. Anyway... anyway And he does it by linking you to what's happening historically. Yes, he does that, yeah. Often. And so, as a reader, you're like, oh, I'm like understanding history. Or or if you're are familiar with that time of history, it feels even, it it regrounds the story in like a nonfiction, in a reality, in the reality of this world in a particular time.
00:28:51
Speaker
And then actually the the second time around the stuff with Mr. Fenschel, who's the German who lives in Salinas, I found really, that hit me a lot harder this time around. Right. Um, but, um,
00:29:10
Speaker
and this is just, I just, I just love Lee. This is what this is about. Um,
00:29:18
Speaker
Lee nodded and was glad. He had gone to San Francisco for the books he needed and had written for a number of separates. He knew about as much as was known about the anatomy of the brain and the symptoms and severities of lesion and thrombus. He had studied and asked questions with the same unwavering intensity as when he had trapped and pelted and cured a Hebrew verb.
00:29:40
Speaker
Dr. H.C. Murphy had got to know Lee very well and had gone from a professional impatience with a Chinese servant to a genuine admiration for a scholar. Dr. Murphy had even borrowed some of Lee's news separates and reports on diagnosis and practice.
00:29:56
Speaker
He told Dr. Edwards,
00:30:00
Speaker
That s*** knows more about the pathology of cerebral hemorrhage than I do, and I bet as much as you do. He spoke with a kind of affectionate anger that this should be so. The medical profession is unconsciously irritated by lay knowledge.
00:30:14
Speaker
When Lee reported Adam's improvement, he said, "'It does seem to me that the absorption is continuing.'" "'I had a patient,' Dr. Murphy said, and he told a hopeful story. "'I'm always afraid of recurrence,' said Lee. "'That you have to leave with the Almighty,' said Dr. Murphy. "'We can't patch an artery like an inner tube. "'By the way, how do you get him to let you take his blood pressure?' I bet on his and he bets on mine. It's better than horse racing.
00:30:41
Speaker
Who wins? Well, I could, said Lee, but I don't. That would spoil the game and the chart. How do you keep him from getting exciting? It's my own invention, said Lee. I call it conversational therapy.
00:30:54
Speaker
Must take all your time. It does, said Lee.
00:31:04
Speaker
And I couldn't exactly tell you why it stuck in my head for so long. I mean, Lee is a very interesting character because Steinbeck is a white man writing about a Chinese-American.
00:31:19
Speaker
um And yet he's I think he's writing with a great deal of sympathy, even though he has blind spots. And I think that the language that Steinbeck uses, he includes racial slurs when people talk about Lee, which is not unrealistic.
00:31:36
Speaker
um Yeah.
The Philosophical Core of 'Timshel'
00:31:39
Speaker
And Lee is just so noble and bears it so well. um And one could say he is maybe be idealized to a certain extent.
00:31:54
Speaker
But I think we like talked last time in the part three podcast about how sometimes it's a good thing to have characters who are noble, who can sort of be a pillar yeah um for us to aspire to.
00:32:13
Speaker
And i think the thing that... ah
00:32:19
Speaker
became more clear to me this time is that Lee developed such a deep relationship with Adam and a relationship based on love.
00:32:31
Speaker
Um, and it's not necessarily like Lee definitely does so much more for Adam than Adam deserves. Um, and yet that is the def that's really the definition of love. Um,
00:32:47
Speaker
And this time around, in this quote in particular, he talks about conversational therapy. And I have observed situations in my life at this point um where of elder care, of what happens when people can't take care of themselves as well.
00:33:11
Speaker
And
00:33:15
Speaker
the way that we go about it in America, i and in general, I don't think is that healthy. And like, cause what people really need is relationship and conversational therapy. And I feel like so often when people need care, the people they need are their family, the people are close to them, but the family doesn't, doesn't want to.
00:33:41
Speaker
um Or maybe they do and they feel that they can't because, you know, the realities of ah the financial aspect and all that kind of stuff. It's all very complicated for every situation and every situation is different.
00:33:59
Speaker
But
00:34:03
Speaker
what Lee does is he he cares for Adam and he gives him relationship and the Like we try to solve things with with drugs and um medicine and surgery and all these sorts of things, which are not unimportant, but I think that maybe they wouldn't be so needed.
00:34:29
Speaker
if we just cared for people in a more natural way um and talked, just talked to them, went and saw them, took the time, you know, like loneliness is deadly.
00:34:44
Speaker
um Yeah.
00:34:51
Speaker
In so many ways.
00:34:58
Speaker
There's a a um a scene on page 445. um Cal and Lee are talking together, and Cal's talking about his dad.
00:35:08
Speaker
And he says, I love him, Cal said. I love him too, said Lee. I guess I couldn't have stayed around so long if I hadn't. He is not smart in a worldly sense, but he's a good man.
00:35:21
Speaker
Maybe the best man i have ever known.
00:35:27
Speaker
Lee's character development in this book is very
00:35:33
Speaker
long. Um, and I think that as a reader, I actually think about this, I'm like a little frustrated by that. Like, I feel like he could have been more deeply like brought out.
00:35:44
Speaker
Um, but maybe that's what you're saying, Hunter, is that both Lee and Sam Hamilton, we get the depth of, of who they are and, and, even more so for Lee than Sam Hamilton by the yeah by the end.
00:35:58
Speaker
um But they still seem like impossible characters. They seem fake in a sense because of that virtue or nobility. And yet there are people in life that are are like them.
00:36:17
Speaker
And it's not because they haven't failed and sinned and and messed up and aren't messy themselves. Cause Lee owns that and names that, um and talks about his failures, but
00:36:34
Speaker
they trust in they trust in the human, in the human being. um
00:36:45
Speaker
There's a lot of... I'm not quite where I want to be. I didn't quite land it. I'm not there yet, and maybe it'll come to me a little bit later. But I... Well, I'm not sure if this is directly related, but I want to point out that we get a lot of the most, I guess, interesting to me, like, philosophy and deep thinking...
00:37:11
Speaker
And interesting ideas come through Lee's thoughts and ruminations in the book. um
00:37:21
Speaker
And I think it,
00:37:28
Speaker
I think it makes sense because Lee is a servant um and in societies with servants and people,
00:37:40
Speaker
like the servants know the people that they're serving better than the, the masters do, I think. Um, and
00:37:55
Speaker
like, just because you're getting paid to be a servant doesn't mean that dynamic changes. I think that's still possible today. Um, but, you know, Lee in a way is like positioned almost perfectly to comment on, um,
00:38:12
Speaker
the American way of life, um especially at white, well-to-do American. um Yeah. And there's this one part um
00:38:27
Speaker
that is some of Lee's philosophizing that I just really enjoyed. um
00:38:36
Speaker
It comes on page 580. Yeah. There was a quiet rising joy in Lee. It was the joy of change. Time's drawing down for Adam, he thought.
00:38:46
Speaker
Time must be drawing down for me, but I don't feel it. I feel immortal. Once, when I was very young, I felt mortal, but not anymore. Death has receded.
00:38:57
Speaker
He wondered if this were a normal way to feel. And he wondered what Adam meant, saying his father was a thief. Part of the dream, maybe. And then Lee's mind played on the way it often did.
00:39:09
Speaker
Suppose it were true. Adam, the most rigidly honest man it was possible to find, living all his life on stolen money. Lee laughed to himself.
00:39:19
Speaker
Now this second will, and Aaron, whose purity was a little on the self-indulgent side, living all his life on the profits from a whorehouse. Was this some kind of joke, or did things balance so that if one went too far in one direction, an automatic slide moved on the scale and the balance was re-established?
00:39:41
Speaker
He thought of Sam Hamilton. He had knocked on so many doors. He had the most schemes and plans, and no one would give him any money. But of course, he had so much.
00:39:52
Speaker
He was so rich. You couldn't give him any more. Riches seem to come to the poor in spirit, the poor in interest and joy.
00:40:04
Speaker
To put it straight, the very rich are a poor bunch of bastards. He wondered if that were true. They acted that way sometimes.
00:40:17
Speaker
He thought of Cal burning the money to punish himself, and the punishment hadn't hurt him as badly as the crime. Lee said to himself, if there should happen to be a place where one day I'll come up with Sam Hamilton, I'll have a lot of good stories to tell him.
00:40:31
Speaker
And his mind went on. But so will he.
00:40:48
Speaker
Lee is the paternal character in this story. um Or it takes it over from Sam Hamilton.
00:41:00
Speaker
um and Sam Hamilton works as like a surrogate father in many ways for Adam. um Lee is the father of Kel and Aaron, um especially for the first portion of their lives. And and then even as
00:41:19
Speaker
um Adam like steps into his role.
00:41:24
Speaker
Lee remains a father figure and then becomes a caregiver for for Adam. and And in many ways, I still think of, I think i think he's a kind of paternal towards Adam. But that this also might be, also thinking about what you were sharing about the the remembering in this particular society that he was a servant.
00:41:46
Speaker
Like, lives with this, with this family 24 seven. And at one point leaves to go open his bookstore, which he'd been wanting to do for years and years and years, and then shows back up in the kitchen one day.
00:42:02
Speaker
Cause for many reasons, but its bri yeah his he he he's with he needs to be with his family. um And there is a a interaction there that ah you see portrayed in movies and there's a lot of views on and a lot of thoughts on and and I have some of my own.
00:42:19
Speaker
um
00:42:23
Speaker
And then we also get to see this really cool moment with Abra, who is um Aaron's girlfriend in this story.
00:42:34
Speaker
um at least begins that way. And she's much more interesting than Aaron is, um, much more interesting character. I think, um, and there's a scene where right before the quote you shared, um, um, Adam and, and, and, and Lee are talking and, and Adam says, Oh sure. Abra, she's a nice girl. And and Lee responds.
00:43:01
Speaker
Um, he says, I love her. um And not in a no weird sense. um And then he interacts with Abra just a few pages later. 5, 80, 82.
00:43:17
Speaker
um It's just Lee and Abra a scene, which um
00:43:28
Speaker
ah it's just lee and abber in a scene which that's a scene that, yeah. What a cool thing that we were offered that.
00:43:39
Speaker
um Yeah. There's, how did we get offered this scene? How, how is this a scene that ah exists? um Page 582.
00:43:51
Speaker
So Abra, Abra is interacting with Lee for the first time in a while. um um And, and,
00:44:00
Speaker
Lee's given her a tart and some yummy things. Um... Abra said gaily, but you wish for something now. What is it, Lee? He blurted out, I wish you were my daughter.
00:44:14
Speaker
He was shocked at himself. He went to the stove and turned out out the gas under the tea kettle, then lighted it again. She said softly, i wish you were my father. He gans quickly glanced quickly at her and away.
00:44:27
Speaker
you do? Yes, I do. Why? Because I love you. Lee went quickly out of the kitchen.
00:44:38
Speaker
He sat in his room, gripping his hands tightly together until he stopped choking. He got up and took a small carved ebony box from the top of his bureau. A dragon climbed toward heaven on the box. He carried the box to the kitchen and laid it on the table between Abra's hands.
00:44:54
Speaker
This is for you, he said, and his tone had no inflection. She looks at it and he said, Lisa, this was my mother's only ornament. Abra got up and put her arm around him arms around him and kissed him on the cheek.
00:45:09
Speaker
And it was the only time such a thing had ever happened in his whole life.
00:45:23
Speaker
that This is primarily a story that follows the Trask family. the biological Trask family, um you know, and people married into it. And, and in one sense of that, neither lead nor Abra should, should quote unquote count to that family, family arc.
00:45:47
Speaker
um And yet as, as readers and, and as we understand the family, they're both absolutely integral members of the family. And,
00:45:58
Speaker
by the end of the story, they make up two thirds of the Trask family. And they are in many one ways, like carrying the Trask legacy on and, and keeping Cal the task. Yeah.
00:46:16
Speaker
With his nature. And it's, it's just such a, it's such a powerful scene that, that particular scene. And,
00:46:28
Speaker
It is also, and i'm I'm realizing this now, the external processor in me is like, this is opening us up to what what the next part in this book would be if it continued on through Cal's story.
00:46:43
Speaker
In the ah journal of a novel, in the letters, he talked about doing a volume two. it like Towards the end of it, he's like, I'm glad that I thought of doing a volume two because I don't, I've enjoyed being with these characters so much that I don't want to leave them after the book is over.
00:47:04
Speaker
I don't think he ever did a volume two though.
00:47:07
Speaker
I think some of the best stories are told with the idea of a second story in mind. And sometimes the strength is that the second story is never told Yeah. And I think a a big theme of East of Eden is,
00:47:22
Speaker
what we pass on to generations. um And I think that's why this book ages so well, because it's really just a story that keeps on going. It's about, you know, the sins of our fathers and
00:47:49
Speaker
and mothers. More about the fathers in this one, but, you know, it's Steinbeck. yes ah Did you pay attention to Kate's story? Oh, yeah, that's true. that's true no That's true, no. We haven't talked too much about Kate's story in parts one, two, three, and and we haven't talked too much about it in part four.
00:48:09
Speaker
um I'm not exactly sure if there are full reasons behind it. For me, i just, like, it's, like, terrifying. It's, like, a crazy secondary piece. But, sorry, you keep Yeah.
00:48:21
Speaker
What I meant was that most of the P to point of view characters are men, um which yes, accurate that is accurate, which, you know, it's Steinbeck and it's the 1960s and, you know, like, I think that as much as it is important to criticize and call out the blind spots of,
00:48:48
Speaker
writers or artists or especially political leaders and things. um It's also important when you're thinking about art, not to totally write off the rest of what is there because um just because Steinbeck had some thought mostly about men because he was a man and what it means to be a good man or not. And,
00:49:13
Speaker
It doesn't mean that all of that thought is is worthless because he had these other blind spots and mistakes in his thinking. And I think he was aware of that, if he was even if he wasn't particularly consciously aware of his blind spots. He knew that he had foibles.
00:49:32
Speaker
Anyway, besides the point,
00:49:36
Speaker
um East of Eden is a book about generations and and what we pass on to the next generation. and how the next generation deals with what we pass on.
00:49:49
Speaker
um And like what Lee is passing on to Abra and passing on his mother's ornament, which to Lee is, you know, we've heard the story about Lee's mother and what happened to her and... um Talk about a strong woman.
00:50:08
Speaker
Right. Right. But Lee lee recognizes that that he is not going to live for forever ever and that he is going to pass something on, you know.
00:50:20
Speaker
And so he's sort of passing it forward to Abra. And I think it's very ah American, really, to have this kind of mixing of cultures. And um because, you know, that...
00:50:38
Speaker
That's America, whether we want to admit it or not. um I think there is something particular about this land that so many people have come to um and are part of. and we yeah We are all brothers and sisters, whether we believe it or not.
00:51:08
Speaker
I'm realizing, I'm just like wishing there were more people in this conversation right now, Hunter. Not that because more people always make a conversation better, but because there's so many different angles and pieces you can talk about from this book yeah that with more people in the conversation, we would just hit more of them and dive like a little bit deeper into different parts of it.
00:51:28
Speaker
like That's the type of thing this book that both like what this book can do. And if we were to redo these four parts, Like it would be a different conversation. um
00:51:42
Speaker
So I have, I guess a couple tidbits I could mention, but I think there's one big one that we have to talk about, which is Cal.
00:51:53
Speaker
Yes. And one we've got to talk about the last word. Right. um And then we should probably name, name at least a little bit of Kate's story too.
00:52:06
Speaker
Um, which, um, like even just her Alice in Wonderland piece. Um, I don't know, but should we start with Cal?
00:52:18
Speaker
Cause Cal kind of leads us to Kate or should we start with Kate? Um, I feel like Cal's is so central, like, cause he is kind of the, the main character.
00:52:31
Speaker
Yeah. No, but yeah. Of part four.
00:52:38
Speaker
It's true. The main character of this book changes between the parts, right? Yeah. Like like who who has the primary narrative and like, cause so many characters die throughout this story because you're talking about generations and and impacts and, and you're talking at each point, not just about It's no, it's never just about one person, but it's, it's almost about like who's carrying the family on at the moment.
00:53:06
Speaker
Yeah. Or what relationships are key to the story. And like, we've moved from Aaron to Cal, you know, and we'd moved from Adam to, to Aaron in many ways. Um,
00:53:21
Speaker
and, and, and, but not even just that, right. Cause Adam's always central the story. Kate's always major your part of the story, but, um,
00:53:33
Speaker
and Now i'm just talking myself in a circle. So, yeah, let's dive into Cal. Cal.
00:53:42
Speaker
Okay.
00:53:45
Speaker
So I guess on the second read-through, was just very attentive. I cared a lot about Cal and his struggle to be good.
00:53:58
Speaker
Cause I think that's like the central struggle for, for Cal and for me i guess it's like reading about, you know, like I want to be good, like help me keep be good. Like when he's praying, help me be good. Um,
00:54:26
Speaker
Cal is so longs to do that. And, and he's,
00:54:33
Speaker
i think part of Cal story is he both thinks he's more important and smarter and better and than everybody else and thinks he's nothing like anybody else because he's got these urges to do mean things.
00:54:52
Speaker
And And yet he so so strongly desires not to. And it's not until the very end of the story that both Lee and Abra are like, yo, you're not the only messed up person in this world. Like, get over yourself.
00:55:09
Speaker
And that's like a big point of learning for him. I really think it is. This is this is like what Lee says on page 598. Cal. to cal Maybe you'll come to know that every man in every generation is re-fired.
00:55:27
Speaker
Oh, that was one of my super quotes. Sorry. it's It's one of the best quotes in the book. it there it's It's one of those, i mean, there's so many different moments to to to talk about. like you know and and Abra, is her version of that is,
00:55:44
Speaker
you know yeah you you um Your mom was you know owned a whorehouse. My dad's a liar.
00:55:57
Speaker
Don't think more highly of yourself or less highly of yourself. I don't i don't know if it's that he thinks highly of himself. It's just that he he has, from Kathy, I think, he has the ability to see through people and to manipulate them.
00:56:18
Speaker
And like he, which I guess if you wanted to put that quality in a positive light, it's just the ability to see through the BS, I guess, that people give. Like the scene with Will Hamilton, um I thought was really interesting um
00:56:43
Speaker
when he goes to get the money. When he goes to talk to Will Hamilton. This podcast episode is going to make no sense to anybody who has not read these defeated.
00:56:55
Speaker
Well, that's the point, isn't it? I mean, yeah, but we are jumping around a lot. Yes, i agreed. and And I know I just kind of threw us to the end of it and you're bringing us back earlier in the part, which which is probably the better place to start when you're talking about a character's arc.
00:57:11
Speaker
i guess I guess what i mean is that I don't think the central conflict to Cal is that he thinks that he's better or that his struggles are more important, but that he wants the love of his father.
00:57:27
Speaker
Because it's very clear that Adam loves Aaron more. Yeah. Yeah. And the way that he talks about Aaron. It's very clear that everybody loves Aaron more.
00:57:40
Speaker
But the relationship that matters most to Cal, you're right, is his father. Sorry, you go for it.
00:57:52
Speaker
And, i mean, that goes back to the story of Cain and Abel and how God favored Abel's offering. more than Cain's.
00:58:04
Speaker
Um, and it doesn't actually say why really doesn't say why God favored one or the other. Um, but this idea of like wanting to do well and bring a good offering and really caring,
00:58:26
Speaker
um And yet you try so hard to do something and yet it doesn't, it doesn't, it falls on its face. Um, and the scene of the Thanksgiving dinner, when Aaron presents his gift to his father was like, like absolutely heartbreaking for me. Um, do you want to set up the scene for us or do want me
00:58:54
Speaker
I can do it. Um,
00:58:59
Speaker
Unless you want to. Why don't I set it up? Because you're about to read the quote. but So we're at Thanksgiving dinner. um Aaron has just come home from college.
00:59:13
Speaker
He's been at college for the last the for his first semester. um And Cal, over that same semester, had worked with Will Hamilton to buy peas or at low price from local farmers, and then to resell them at a higher price to British buyers.
00:59:37
Speaker
Because of the war, Will Hamilton had set up this whole thing, hey, this is how you can make money. The entire premise and reason why Cal had done this was to raise get enough money to pay his father back or to ah for the $15,000 that his father had lost when he was trying to invest in shipping lettuce from California to New York City in the middle of the winter um due to a series of unfortunate situations, none of which were Adam's fault.
01:00:15
Speaker
The lettuce had all gone bad. by the time it got there and he'd lost all that money. And Cal explicitly trying to buy his father's love.
01:00:29
Speaker
um And I say explicitly because Lee talks with him about that. And he also talks with Will Hamilton about it. ah Like they name it. um And Cal is incredibly nervous, but he comes to the, the, the dinner table and um tries to share this gift with his father.
01:00:54
Speaker
Adam touched the new bills so that their edges came together, folded the tissue over them and turned the ends up. He looked helplessly at Lee. Cal caught a feeling, a feeling of calamity, of destruction in the air, and a weight of sickness overwhelmed him.
01:01:10
Speaker
He heard his father say, you'll have to give it back.
01:01:15
Speaker
Almost as remotely, his own voice said, "'Give it back? Give it back to who?' "'To the people you got it from. The British Purchasing Agency. They can't take it back.
01:01:25
Speaker
They're paying twelve and a half cents for beans all over the country.' "'Then give it to the farmers you robbed.' "'Robbed?' Cal cried. "'Why, we paid them two cents a pound over the market. We didn't rob them.' Cal felt suspended in space, and time seemed very slow." His father took a long time to answer.
01:01:43
Speaker
There seemed to be long spaces between his words. "'I send boys out,' he said. "'I sign my name and they go out. And some will die and some will lie helpless without arms and legs. Not one will come back untorn. "'Son, do you think I could take a profit on that?' "'I did it for you,' Cal said. "'I wanted you to have the money to make up your loss.' I don't want the money, Cal.
01:02:08
Speaker
And the lettuce. I don't think I did that for profit. It was a kind of game to see if I could get the lettuce there and I lost. I don't want the money.
01:02:21
Speaker
I think it's so heartbreaking because there's like so much miscommunication on so many sides. And before this, Cal seems to be like growing closer to his father. um Almost.
01:02:49
Speaker
Like the morning that his, Adam goes to get Cal out of jail. um i think Cal goes out and meet when he, Cal meets Kate. mean, he like reacts pretty strongly and he ends up in jail and then,
01:03:06
Speaker
Adam comes to get him out and they have like a very honest and open conversation. And Adam even tells Cal, I trust you.
01:03:17
Speaker
And there's a line, I think it's in that scene where Steinbeck says, it is true that many men have never looked into their father's eyes.
01:03:32
Speaker
Um, and Cal looked into his father's eyes then. And I think it just speaks to something kind of eternal about the relationships between father and son and how it's so easy to get lost, um, either, you know, through faults with the father or, um,
01:04:01
Speaker
circumstances of life
01:04:07
Speaker
and um i also think it speaks to our desire to be known by by god or this desire to to look into your father's eyes as someone who who made you okay who is responsible for you and have them be able to tell you, like, I trust you.
01:04:35
Speaker
You are good. You know? um And I think Cal, he doesn't, he sees that his father loves Aaron and Cal knows that he can't be like Aaron, whatever Aaron has, sort of like purity or whatever. He just doesn't have it.
01:04:56
Speaker
And i think that's also the issue that, like, when he meets Will Hamilton, they sort of understand each other because Will just didn't – couldn't be like his father. He didn't have the magic that Sam Hamilton had, you know. um Yeah.
01:05:14
Speaker
And –
01:05:17
Speaker
you know, what Cal has, he can be smart, I guess, in a worldly way. And that's what Will has too. um And so they sort of try to reach their family.
01:05:31
Speaker
um But that's not what their family wants, you know? Yeah. um And so it's this like failure to connect um that I think is unfortunately tragically like often happens in a lot of families.
01:05:51
Speaker
Yeah.
01:05:58
Speaker
An inability to relate to what the
01:06:04
Speaker
family values most.
01:06:08
Speaker
Which is often relationship.
01:06:13
Speaker
And and i i if if you don't mind me doing this, I'd i'd like want to jump from there to talk a little bit about Kate. Okay. um
01:06:27
Speaker
There was... i mean, there's a lot we could talk about with Kate. um Her first story is very...
01:06:35
Speaker
me...
01:06:40
Speaker
for for me
01:06:45
Speaker
The most human and relatable piece of her story is the ending of it.
01:06:56
Speaker
Page 548 and 549.
01:07:03
Speaker
Then she remembered. She was a very small girl with a face as lovely and fresh as her son's face. A very small girl. Most of the time she knew she was smarter and prettier than anyone else.
01:07:16
Speaker
But now and then a lonely fear would fall upon her so that she seemed surrounded by a tree-tall forest of enemies. Then every thought and word and look was aimed to hurt her and she had no place to run and no place to hide and she would cry and pan in panic because there was no escape and no sanctuary.
01:07:38
Speaker
Then one day she was reading a book She could read when she was five years old. She remembered the book, brown a silver title, and the cloth was broken and the boards thick.
01:07:53
Speaker
It was Alice in Wonderland. Kate moved her hands slowly and lifted her weight a little from her arms, and she could see the drawings. Alice with long, straight hair, but it was the bottle which said, drink me, that had changed her life.
01:08:09
Speaker
Alice had taught her that.
01:08:13
Speaker
And that that drink me part of Alice in Wonderland is when she drinks it in a bottle and becomes smaller and smaller and smaller. and And Kate talks about her experience with doing that and becoming so small to protect herself from her enemies because she could hide behind a leaf and nobody could find her, the production mechanism. And that she always knew that if she drank the whole bottle, that she would just simply disappear.
01:08:44
Speaker
so much of this book Kate comes across and, and, and is, and is written as, and it's named and it's purposeful. Um, and it's something she wrestles with as a an inhuman character.
01:09:00
Speaker
Um, and, and she's not, and she is.
01:09:07
Speaker
And this, this, this part of it kind of, for me, it gives a a glimpse into her backstory that was much more encouraging to me, or maybe not encouraging, but relatable to me than the previous glimpse into her backstory with school and all the the things she would do. Um, but it's also inextricably tied now to her death. And then she ends up, um, dying of suicide, um, shortly afterwards. Um,
01:09:45
Speaker
There is something in her that realizes throughout that who she wants to be or who who she maybe should be is not who she's able to be.
01:10:03
Speaker
Which is something that to a certain extent is true in all of us. yeah Reading from a guy named Paul, he's writing about that. He the very things I want to do, I do not do.
01:10:15
Speaker
But what I don't want to do is what I do. He says that in the book of Romans.
01:10:34
Speaker
It's just amazing how all of the characters... feel pretty real, like they could have existed.
01:10:49
Speaker
And yet they are also ah living parables, almost. Yeah. Which is a phrase from his East of Eden letters.
01:11:03
Speaker
And he says... I have noticed so many of the reviews of my work show a fear and a hatred of ideas and speculations.
01:11:15
Speaker
It seems to be true that people can only take parables fully clothed with flesh. Any attempt to correlate in terms of thought is frightening, and if that is so, East of Eden is going to take a bad beating because it is full of such things.
01:11:32
Speaker
can you Can you either read that again or explain that what he's saying there?
01:11:40
Speaker
I have noticed so many of the reviews of my work show a fear and a hatred of ideas and speculations. It seems to be true that people can only take parables fully clothed with flesh.
01:11:51
Speaker
Any attempt to correlate in terms of thought is frightening. And if that is so, East of Eden is going to take a bad beating because it is full of such things.
01:12:10
Speaker
I think people can only take parables fully clothed in which with flesh, any thought, any use of thought to correlate.
01:12:23
Speaker
Any attempt to correlate in terms of thought is frightening. Okay. What, what is that saying? He's saying he's addressing, i think some of the criticisms that he receives, uh,
01:12:39
Speaker
which is that he fills his work with lots of opinions and ideas and speculations, which there's certainly a lot of in East of Eden, um which we have through Lee and Sam Hamilton and even just through the narrator. There's whole chapters where he just talks about something.
01:12:58
Speaker
um And those are some of my favorite chapters. um Oh, yeah. And...
01:13:06
Speaker
what he's saying is that people criticize that because, you know, it takes them out of the experience or breaks the fourth wall or, you know, it's, they, ah they want to be a pure novel because in, and I can see criticisms of that. Like, you know, there's lots of sections in ready player one where I'm just like, I just, I, you really think a lot of your opinions are in his client and I don't want to hear any more of it, but, um,
01:13:36
Speaker
That's sort of the nature of the medium, I think, is that like you're interacting with a person and ideas and thoughts and the stuff of living. um And there's going to be things you love and there's going to be things you hate.
01:13:52
Speaker
um i would i would I would say that Steinbeck is worth listening to, I think. Definitely more worth listening to than... I don't need to throw shade anything. Anyway. um But
01:14:09
Speaker
I'm sorry. um Shouldn't have named it. It's my fault. Yeah. um
01:14:21
Speaker
So he's he's addressing that criticism. um Okay.
01:14:30
Speaker
And I guess I'm sort of taking the idea of parables clothed with flesh kind of running with it because um
01:14:41
Speaker
his characters are kind of like that. Like Cal and Aaron represent two sides of
01:14:51
Speaker
um boyhood, I guess. two sides of you know two different Two sides of personalities and ways of approaching the world.
01:15:02
Speaker
um
01:15:05
Speaker
And, you know, you have Charles and Adam in the beginning who are like that. And Kate is sort of parable of of vice and cruelty um and this sort of
01:15:23
Speaker
seeing only the negative in the world and um manipulating it for yourself. because that's all there is to do. um
01:15:39
Speaker
And yet they're also like living people. um It's just, it's a real, it's an amazing trick. It's, it's really, he's a good writer. The,
01:15:57
Speaker
the
01:16:01
Speaker
I mean, I know a lot of writing process is trying to embody a character as you're writing them, or like you you you meet the character, experience a character, live as a character as you're writing, or in different writers are different ways.
01:16:14
Speaker
i
01:16:17
Speaker
It feels like
01:16:20
Speaker
um Steinbeck is is able to embody more characters and more disparate characters than it feels like he has any right to be able to. Yeah.
01:16:33
Speaker
He must have had some very dark days as he was writing this book. He did. He's, you know, there's several days where he's just like, I just can't, I can't do it today. I can't, I don't have it. I'm just full of discouragement and evil and you know, takes a break and then he comes back to it. and
01:17:00
Speaker
Hunter, is there anything else we need to talk about before we talk about Timschel?
01:17:11
Speaker
I have a little tidbit that might be kind of a little lighter thing. This was one thing that struck me while I was reading it the second time. um It was Aaron's ideas about ah college. Okay.
01:17:33
Speaker
Aaron lived in a furnished room in Palo Alto, and he walked the mile to and from the campus every day. He was miserable. What he had expected to find at the university had been vague and beautiful.
01:17:46
Speaker
His picture, never really inspected, had been of clean-eyed young men and immaculate girls, all in academic robes and converging on a white temple on the crown of a wooded hill in the evening.
01:17:58
Speaker
Their faces were shining and dedicated, and their voices rose in chorus, and it was never any time but evening. He had no idea where he had got his picture of academic life, perhaps from the Doré illustrations of Dante's Inferno with its massed and radiant angels.
01:18:15
Speaker
Leland Stanford University was not like that. A formal square of brown sandstone blocks set down in a hayfield, a church with an Italian mosaic front, classrooms of varnished pine, and the great world of struggle and anger reenacted in the rise and fall of fraternities.
01:18:33
Speaker
And those bright angels were youths in dirty corduroy trousers, some study-rattled and some learning the small vices of their fathers.
01:18:46
Speaker
uh, I guess I could relate to the way that Aaron builds these, like built this picture this ideal in his mind of what he thought it would be like, you know, um,
01:19:08
Speaker
at the way that we dream dreams to ourselves. Um,
01:19:16
Speaker
and how
01:19:20
Speaker
how off those dreams would be.
01:19:28
Speaker
Think about your ideal day or some of your favorite days at Hamilton and tell me, do they relate to what, are they more like what Cal envisioned college would be or more like how he experienced it?
01:19:44
Speaker
ah
01:19:51
Speaker
No, they weren't like that. I mean,
01:19:56
Speaker
there's definitely a spirit of like learning. you know There's a spirit of
01:20:03
Speaker
inquiring and thinking, and but there's also a lot of other things that...
01:20:13
Speaker
don't help sometimes. Yeah. But when I think back to some of my favorite moments in college, like I'm seeing myself in fall or in early spring playing can jam on the quad, you know, hanging out with friends, debating or really discussing. I didn't like debating, discussing a book in class, you know, hanging out on the third floor of the chapel, ah chilling out and KJ by the water feature.
01:20:44
Speaker
maybe eating food at the pub yeah for lunch. you know i And so I think in many ways that false like narrative like still exists. And there's something true about it. It's not entirely false. like You get those moments, but it's also not what most of life is.
01:21:06
Speaker
like Most of life is not the idyllic moments, but the idyllic moments are what make life. it's the everyday moments that make life.
01:21:20
Speaker
And in many ways, they're more beautiful because of it.
01:21:25
Speaker
ah ah Life is, is full because of those. It's pretty shallow if it's just the other,
01:21:34
Speaker
but we shouldn't also hate on the other thing. We talked at one point about, um,
01:21:43
Speaker
ah the movie about time. h One of my favorite movies still is. um And of all the different days that, that the father and son could relive in that movie, they relive an idyllic day, right? They,
01:22:05
Speaker
this beautiful sound, like a song playing, music playing in the background, and they're running down the steps to the beach, and they're running the beach, and they're running out, and they're playing together all day. And it's like, man, I'm excited for those moments. And i have had some of those with my son and then with my daughter, and I'm excited for those to be more.
01:22:22
Speaker
And yet the days that make us who we are in our fullness are the everyday situations.
01:22:36
Speaker
that's just That's what I'm thinking about as I think about how this you know yeah how does a book shape you or how does an approach it shape you. It's not necessarily related exactly to the scene, even though I also had some false narratives in my mind of what college would look like.
01:22:52
Speaker
um And the way I think about it is is false to what the full experience was like like. It works on both sides of it. But it's the time there that in many ways made me large parts of who I am or or who I was and, you know, or who I am becoming maybe.
01:23:16
Speaker
I think it also relates to the medium of a novel. Like the, in another place in the letters, he says, you know, a lot of these situations are very preposterous, but isn't, he asked, he asked the question, isn't all great literature preposterous?
01:23:35
Speaker
Um, And i think that's partly like... that's I think it is in a certain sense because he's trying to to realize a vision of these people.
01:23:55
Speaker
And you think about these situations in real life, they would be very awkward and embarrassing. Like the the scene with Abra and Lee, when Lee gives her the... the um his mother's ornament, like,
01:24:13
Speaker
you know, it's it's ah kind of a preposterous scene and this this young girl telling this old Chinese man, you know, I love you.
01:24:23
Speaker
and um And yet that's also like, probably one of the most treasured and sweet moments in in the book and probably in Abra's life, you know, and in Lee's life. and um So many of the moments that I think back to are preposterous like that.
01:24:48
Speaker
And they're special because they are, because they're preposterous. Yeah. um
01:24:55
Speaker
And they wouldn't really be miracles if they happened all the time or if or if they were easy create. And they're so often diminished with the word naive.
01:25:08
Speaker
Like, oh, you're just naive then. Or you're kid and you yeah and and that diminishes the beauty of them and the truth and the depth of those moments as well.
01:25:27
Speaker
And yet we're also very good at deceiving ourselves and trying to create false narratives about the past or the future, you know, and it takes a lot of, uh, self knowledge, um, to.
01:25:44
Speaker
Dare I say, know thyself? Know thyself. Yes. To, um, That's Hamilton's motto. Yeah.
01:26:03
Speaker
I know. I know you know. I just, I figured not everybody would know. In fact, most people wouldn't know.
01:26:18
Speaker
So can we land this plane? Let's land it. I'm going to go straight in here. We're going start at 519? The second to last page. The third to last.
01:26:31
Speaker
Fourth to last. 598. Have you looked at though? This is the other space where it's brought up in part four. Okay.
01:26:42
Speaker
So in in part three, I think it's part three, we're introduced to the Hebrew word, Timshel, which... We talked a lot a lot about a lot in part three and and whether or not that in the after years of study with bunch of Chinese grandmasters and and rabbis, like, you know, realize that this, this, this word means thou mayest.
01:27:08
Speaker
um Now there's a lot of debate around that theologically you know, And in terms of the actual Hebrew origin, and and that we discussed in part three. and I linked an article that I found that was like a guy's dissertation, sort of, and he studied the different sources about it. And I think the conclusion is that the meaning is pretty much is pretty is pretty much right, is doubt mayas is basically...
01:27:44
Speaker
In line with with rabbis and the the Hebrew word. The interesting thing is is that I think the pronunciation is actually wrong. It's like tim supposed to be Tim Scholl, I think.
01:27:56
Speaker
um I will relink the article in the show notes if you want to read it. But... um For all intent, for Steinbeck's purposes, is it's totally fair. It works.
01:28:07
Speaker
Yes. And that's the point. Within this story, that's where it is. And regardless of the other, what I'm trying to add to that is, you know, the debate around the definition of the word, while an important conversation, is not relevant to this story.
01:28:26
Speaker
Once... Lee has shared what it means. It's no longer relevant. What else it could mean.
01:28:36
Speaker
Hey, well. really good Interesting. I didn't think you disagree. I do kind of disagree. right. So for me, when I approach a book, when I approach a movie, a TV show, whatever it might be, what is true in the world that I'm in, in that has been created by that author, by that director, producer, whoever it might be, is what is true.
01:28:57
Speaker
Mm-hmm. And i it's one of the reasons why i love watching movies is because I can be legitimately surprised by things that my wife is like, yeah, obviously that was going to happen. I knew that Monday night. And I was like, what? Because i'm not will i if I enter into a thing, I'm not willing to take a step back.
01:29:14
Speaker
I'm going to enter in and experience It's also why I don't like horror movies. Because I'm going to get more scared than most people are because I'm not going to take a step back. And so for me, as I read this book, they have decided that the word Tim Schull means thou mayest.
01:29:30
Speaker
And so for all intents and purposes, that is what that word means. And I can debate it in a conversation around the book, but if I'm going to talk about within the book, like that, the depth of the meaning and and and how that meaning impacts things, like I'm not going to debate what the word actually means.
01:29:53
Speaker
So that's where I'm coming from. Yeah. I guess I...
01:30:00
Speaker
I would agree that when you're interpreting a piece of art, you take the text as the text. I guess for me, I care a lot about the application and what the text says after you leave the world.
01:30:18
Speaker
And Steinbeck uses the meaning of the word to talk a lot about good and evil and what does it mean to be a good man and and have a choice, you know?
01:30:33
Speaker
Um, and those, those themes depend on the, on the meaning of the word. And to me, it, it it does matter whether or not that is the actual word.
01:30:47
Speaker
Um, part of it is cause like,
01:30:54
Speaker
I guess that's that's just our different approaches to reading. And um because Steinbeck is saying so many things about life beyond just what it means for his characters now, and if I'm going to take this story and be shaped by it, I want to make sure that
01:31:20
Speaker
the things that are shaping me are true. You know, um that's my critical, I just have a very critical lens, I guess.
01:31:30
Speaker
Yeah. and And I would say we need to start with how that word and definition shape the characters of the story before we allow it, before we dive into the deep conversation of how it then shapes us from there.
01:31:50
Speaker
Now, obviously, large part of this is not... We are not such systematized individuals that that is is necessarily possible. But we're starting with the words. We're starting with the story.
01:32:06
Speaker
And the word Timshul means something to Adam and Lee and something to Cal, Sam Hamilton, and many other people in the story. And...
01:32:19
Speaker
I would say that's where we need to start. And that's where, from that, we can look at the bigger impact on ourselves.
01:32:37
Speaker
And where I see this first showing up in part four is on page 519. yeah Adam has taken the role of being... and what is official word for it? um Role and responsibility for determining whether um young men are eligible for the military and should be signed over into the military or not.
01:33:06
Speaker
And he's pondering this responsibility. They entered the house, Adam and Lee, and Lee went to the kitchen. In a moment, Adam followed him and sat at the kitchen table.
01:33:18
Speaker
Lee, he said, suppose we send a boy to the army and he is killed. Are we responsible? Go on, said Lee. I would rather have the whole thing at once. Well, suppose there's a slight doubt that the boy should be in the army and we send him and he gets killed.
01:33:34
Speaker
I see. Is it responsibility or blame that bothers you? I don't want blame. Sometimes responsibility is worse. It doesn't carry any pleasant egotism.
01:33:47
Speaker
I was thinking about that time when Sam Hamilton and you and I had a long discussion about a word, said Adam. What was that word? Now I see. The word was Timschel.
01:33:59
Speaker
Timschel? And you said? i said that word carried a man's greatness if he wanted to take advantage of it I remember Sam Hamilton felt good about it.
01:34:12
Speaker
It set him free, said Lee. It gave him the right to be a man separate from every other man. That's lonely. All great and precious things are lonely.
01:34:25
Speaker
What is the word again? Timshel. Thou mayest.
01:34:38
Speaker
I think that sets us up for the very end of this story because it's clearly on Adam's mind throughout this.
01:34:51
Speaker
Yeah. And you have the echoes of Sam Hamilton
01:35:02
Speaker
influencing.
01:35:05
Speaker
Lee and Adam after he's gone. And so we get to the end, and Aaron has died in the army.
01:35:20
Speaker
And ah basically destroys Adam, and he's aging, and he can't see. He's got a nurse. He's had a stroke. He's had stroke, yep.
01:35:31
Speaker
um I believe he has this joke right after he reads the letter, shortly after, about Aaron's death. um
01:35:44
Speaker
And...
01:35:48
Speaker
Cal and Abra come to Lee because i think Cal and Abra realize that they might actually love each other. um And maybe...
01:36:02
Speaker
have always known that they were a better fit for each other than Abra and Aaron. um Or at least Abra has known. Because Aaron sort of drifts, invents this imaginary version of Abra when he's in college and all that. Anyway.
01:36:22
Speaker
Lee...
01:36:26
Speaker
wants to take Cal to get Adam's blessing because Cal, I think Lee knows that Cal needs to believe that he can be good and do good.
01:36:40
Speaker
And I just love, sorry. i was just saying Cal can't believe it himself and and nobody else telling him will do it. Cal needs to hear the words from his father.
01:36:51
Speaker
Yeah. Um,
01:36:57
Speaker
And i guess the final indulgent note I want to make about Steinbeck's writing is throughout East of Eden, what I love about Steinbeck is not just the strong opinions. It's not just the careful plotting and character development. It's the poetry of his words and the way that they flow. Like when you read them out loud, they just sound good.
01:37:27
Speaker
And that is really, to me, another hallmark of great writing and like writing that I love is that it's not just about the content.
01:37:39
Speaker
It's about the um the words themselves and the kind of music that they make together. And Steinbeck has,
01:37:51
Speaker
it's
01:37:54
Speaker
it's lovely. It's really, it's it's sort of,
01:38:01
Speaker
it's a poetry that you can approach that is sort of dirty, um but also just more beautiful because of it. It's just, I love it. Anyway.
01:38:19
Speaker
Lee said, when samuel hamilton died the world went out like a candle i relighted it to see his lovely creations and i saw his children tossed and torn and destroyed as though some vengefulness was at work i had to find out my stupidities for myself these were my stupidities i thought the good are destroyed while the evils survive and prosper I thought that once an angry and disgusted god poured molten fire from a crucible to destroy or to purify his little handiwork of mud.
01:38:54
Speaker
I thought I had inherited both the scars of the fire and the impurities which made the fire necessary. All inherited, I thought. All inherited.
01:39:05
Speaker
Do you feel that way? i think so, said Cal. I don't know, Abra said. Lee shook his head. That isn't good enough thinking. Maybe.
01:39:17
Speaker
And he was silent. Cal felt the heat of the liquor in his stomach. Maybe what, Lee? Maybe you'll come to know that every man in every generation is re-fired.
01:39:28
Speaker
Does a craftsman, even in his old age, lose his hunger to make a perfect cup, thin, strong, translucent? He held his cup to the light.
01:39:40
Speaker
All impurities burned out and ready for a glorious flux, and for that, more fire, and then either the slag heap or, perhaps, what no one in the world ever quite gives up, perfection.
01:39:54
Speaker
He drained his cup and he said loudly, Cal, listen to me. Can you think that whatever made us would stop trying?
01:40:08
Speaker
And then Lee takes Cal and Abra into the room. And Adam, at this point, and he's at a stroke.
01:40:22
Speaker
Lee doesn't know what is going on, but he exhorts him to to help Cal and to free him.
01:40:39
Speaker
And finally, Adam looked up with sick weariness. His lips parted and failed and tried again. Then his lungs filled. He expelled the air and his lips combed the rushing sigh.
01:40:52
Speaker
His whispered words seemed to hang in the air. Tim Michelle. His eyes closed and he slept.
01:41:11
Speaker
What does that mean in that moment?
01:41:16
Speaker
It means that Cal has a choice.
01:41:22
Speaker
The interesting thing is when I thought about this book years later, I remembered the ending as Adam saying, thou mayest instead of Tim shell, which I guess is the same thing, but I think it speaks to how the message of the book shaped me in that when I thought about what Adam was telling Cal, he's saying, thou mayest, you can do it.
01:41:56
Speaker
Um,
01:42:00
Speaker
you have a choice.
01:42:05
Speaker
And I think that's a message that like every man and woman needs to hear. um i think that in American society,
01:42:20
Speaker
men have an easier time of living in passivity and not choosing, um especially white men.
01:42:32
Speaker
But... i so i I think that it's not just a cultural thing that that this desire to not choose to just sit back and, you know, have your hobbies and and stuff and just sort of as long as you're doing well and your family's okay and everybody's healthy and you got enough money and like everything's fine. It's not really good enough.
01:43:02
Speaker
Um... And I guess maybe I'm talking more about what the novel means to me now and how it's shaped me than what it means to itself. But, um...
01:43:17
Speaker
I think that's really the choice for Cal now, is that, like, what would be the natural thing for him to do would be to become more like Kate and just sort of look out for number one.
01:43:29
Speaker
And, um...
01:43:33
Speaker
be ah be ah be like Joe too, has these little stories that he tells to himself to make himself feel better about being a bastard.
01:43:44
Speaker
um
01:43:47
Speaker
But Adam is saying like, you know, don't listen to those stories. you You can choose your own way. You can choose to be good and be with Abra and have this family and, you know,
01:44:14
Speaker
Thank you. yeah
01:44:21
Speaker
What does it mean to you, Eric? Tim Schell.
01:44:27
Speaker
No, I think you really spoke to what the words of the book are saying. He has the opportunity fully for how to live his life.
01:44:43
Speaker
And there's a lot of strength and beauty in that, especially to a character like Cal who spent a lot of his life trying to earn things that you can't earn that need to be freely given, like the love of a person.
01:45:02
Speaker
And... and
01:45:14
Speaker
and who also sees himself as being driven by his worst desires.
01:45:26
Speaker
He's a character that, right?
01:45:29
Speaker
He doesn't see his thinking and asking for something to change as the change in and of itself or as the good. And so I think it,
01:45:43
Speaker
has the potential to free him up in a similar way to which it freed Sam Hamilton and Lee.
01:46:12
Speaker
Well, Eric, thank you for reading this book with me and doing four pretty long podcasts and listening and, uh,
01:46:28
Speaker
it means a lot.
01:46:31
Speaker
I really enjoyed it. I'm glad you brought this to us. And, uh,
01:46:37
Speaker
I've been thinking about this throughout this episode. It's not just true to this episode. It's true to all of our episodes. I'm not sure our listeners realize just how much of our recording time is spent in silence.
01:46:52
Speaker
Processing, forming thoughts, looking at pages.
01:47:00
Speaker
yeah Or just trying to non-verbally decide who's going to talk next.
01:47:08
Speaker
Yeah. well And that's a large part of our relationship. that's ah yeah
01:47:17
Speaker
I like to leave as much silence in as I can. you know it's
01:47:24
Speaker
I feel like so many podcasts are... quick and digestible and you know that's they're good because that's how they are but um i don't know i want to i just i like to be more honest i guess and we're not trying to be professional
01:47:50
Speaker
that's why we have our own cult following yeah
01:47:56
Speaker
But, you know, they we care about more important things than being professional. It's true. It's true.
01:48:14
Speaker
Well, I have a quote. Yeah. i I don't know. I like to read long quotes just because I think like if I'm going to listen to something, I want to get some i want to get some goodies about it you know um that I might not have found otherwise.
01:48:32
Speaker
So this is a draft of the original, of like a foreword that Steinbeck was going to for East of Eden.
01:48:43
Speaker
um And we're going to read a section of it.
01:48:49
Speaker
And Steinbeck, um the name of Steinbeck's editor is is Pat. And Steinbeck does a little, like, has fun with kind of a almost theatrical, he has parts read. So um it's going to be editor, writer, editor, writer, and back and forth talking about the book. I'll be the writer and Eric is going to be the editor.
Creative Choices and Criticisms
01:49:16
Speaker
so
01:49:22
Speaker
This book is out of balance. The reader expects one thing and you give him something else. You have written two books and stuck them together. The reader will not understand. No, sir, it it goes together.
01:49:35
Speaker
I have written about one family and used stories about another family as well as counterpoint, as rest, as contrast in pace and color. The reader won't understand.
01:49:47
Speaker
What you call counterpoint only slows the book. It has to be slowed, else how would you know when it goes fast?
01:49:57
Speaker
You have stopped the book and gone into discussions of God knows what. Yes, I have. I don't know why, I just wanted to. Perhaps I was wrong. Right in the middle, you throw in a story about your mother and an airplane.
01:50:12
Speaker
Side note, that's one of my favorite stories in this entire book. It's definitely something I'm take away the whole piece of selling so many war bonds that she gets to do it and the pilot thinks she's enjoying herself. I think we recounted it in full in part two because we loved it so much.
01:50:33
Speaker
Right in the middle, you throw in a story about your mother and an airplane. The reader wants to know where
01:50:40
Speaker
This is the first time I'm reading this. The reader wants to know where it ties in and by God, it doesn't tie in at all. That disappoints a reader.
01:50:52
Speaker
Yes, sir. I guess you're right. Shall I cut out the story of my mother in the airplane?
01:51:00
Speaker
The sales department responds, this book's too long. Costs are are up. We'll have to charge $5 for it. People won't pay $5. They won't buy it.
01:51:11
Speaker
My last book was short. You said then that people won't buy a short book. proofreader. The chronology is full of holes. The grammar has no relation to English.
01:51:22
Speaker
On page so-and-so, you have a man looking the world almanac for steamship rates. They aren't there. I checked. You've got Chinese New Year wrong.
01:51:33
Speaker
The characters aren't consistent. You describe li Lisa Hamilton one way and then have her act in a different way. Editor, you make Kathy too black.
01:51:45
Speaker
The readers won't believe her. You make Sam Hamilton too white. The readers won't believe him. No Irishman ever talked like that. My grandfather did. Who'll believe it?
01:51:57
Speaker
Second editor, no children ever talked like that. And then the writer, losing temper as a refuge from despair. God damn it, this is my book. I'll make the children talk any way I want. My book is about good and evil. Maybe the theme got into the execution. Do you want to publish it or not?
01:52:18
Speaker
Let's see if we can't fix it up. It won't be much work. You want it to be good, don't you? For instance, the ending. The reader won't understand it. Do you? Yes, but the reader won't.
01:52:32
Speaker
Proofreader. My God, how you do dangle a participle. Turn to page so-and-so. There you are, Pat. You came in with a box of glory, and there you stand with an armful of damp garbage.
01:52:45
Speaker
And from this meeting, a new character has emerged. He is called the Reader. The Reader. He is so stupid you can't trust him with an idea. He is so clever he will catch you in the least error.
01:52:58
Speaker
He will not buy short books. He will not buy long books. He is part moron, part genius, and part ogre. There is some doubt as to whether he can read.
01:53:09
Speaker
well By God, Pat, he's just like me, no stranger at all. He'll take from my book what he can bring to it. The dull-witted will get dullness, and the brilliant may find things in my book I didn't know were there.
01:53:23
Speaker
And just as he is like me, I hope my book is enough like him so that he may find in it interest and recognition and some beauty as one finds in a friend. Cervantes ends his prologue with a lovely line, I want to use it, Pat, and then i will have done.
01:53:41
Speaker
He says to the reader, May God give you health, and may he be not unmindful of me as well. John Steinbeck. New York, 1952....