10. East Of Eden: Steinbeck, Sin, and Redemption

Why did Steinbeck consider East of Eden his magnum opus? What does the novel reveal about human nature? How did Steinbeck interrogate early 20th century American society? Join Dominic Sandbrook and Tabitha Syrett as they delve into the fascinating story behind the writing of East Of Eden, the world it was born of, and the novel itself. Email us: ⁠⁠[email protected]⁠⁠ Instagram: ⁠⁠@bookclubpodhq⁠⁠ TikTok: ⁠⁠@thebookclubpodhq⁠⁠ X: ⁠⁠@bookclubpodhq⁠⁠ YouTube: ⁠⁠@TheBookClubPodHQ⁠⁠ Senior Producer: Nicole Maslen Assistant Producer: Alfie Norris Social Producer: Harry Balden Video Editor: Joe Pettit Executive Producer: Dom Johnson Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Now, more than ever, we need someone on our side. But Rob Whitman? Whitman's votes drove up costs, cut Medicaid, and risked 350,000 Virginians' healthcare to pay for tax breaks for himself and his donors. He's not on our side. Shannon Taylor will fight corruption, cut taxes, and bring down costs. This November, vote for Shannon Taylor. She's for us. Paid for by HMP, the HouseMajorityPac.com. Not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee.

• 0:40Dominic Sandbrook?

  Her voice came from so near that he jerked his head back. He heard richness in her voice.

• 0:45Speaker 02

  Dear.

• 0:46Dominic Sandbrook?

  She said softly.

• 0:47Speaker 02

  I didn't know you would take it so. I'm sorry, Adam.

• 0:50Dominic Sandbrook?

  His breath burst hoarsely out of his throat. His hand trembled, trying to turn the key. He pushed the door open. She stood three feet away. In her right hand, she held his Colt, and the black hole in the barrel pointed at him. He took a step toward her, saw that the hammer was back. She shot him. The heavy slug struck him in the shoulder and flattened and tore out a piece of his shoulder blade. The flash and roar smothered him, and he staggered back and fell to the floor. She moved slowly toward him, cautiously as she might toward a wounded animal. He stared up into her eyes, which inspected him impersonally. She tossed the pistol on the floor beside him and walked out of the house.

• 1:36Dominic Sandbrook?

  So that is probably the most melodramatic and violent of many melodramatic and violent confrontations in John Steinbeck's novel East of Eden, which he published in 1952. It's a family saga set in the Salinas Valley of California, where Steinbeck grew up. But it's much more than that. Steinbeck, of course, is seen as the great champion of the downtrodden in America, of Californian workers, the Dust Bowl, Depression, America, of mice and men, and the rapes of wrath, his most famous books, high school standards, aren't they?

• 2:08Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:08Dominic Sandbrook?

  But Tabby, this is the book that Steinbeck regarded as his absolute masterpiece, the book by which he thought he'd be judged. And there's a lot going on in East of Eden, isn't there?

• 2:19Speaker 02

  It's a very complex, surprisingly dramatic book, I think.

• 2:22Dominic Sandbrook?

  It's a kind of massive retelling of the story of the opening chapters of Genesis in the Bible, particularly the story of Cain and Abel and a little bit of Adam and Eve in there as well. It's a book about good and evil, about free will and destiny. How much are we trapped by heredity or by sort of cycles that repeat down the generations? And above all, I guess, from Steinbeck's point of view, he wrote it as a message to his two young sons. And basically what he was telling them was, you're not bound by the past. You're not trapped by history. You can choose your own fate and be whatever you want. And you're not tainted by original sin or anything like that.

• 3:01Speaker 02

  I mean, that all seems fairly kind of straightforward, but it was very controversial at the time. A lot of critics absolutely hated it. And I keep, I'm struck by the fact that a lot of the books we've done so far on the book club have been hated by critics upon their publication. So there's something in that, but it's obviously been enduringly popular. So there was this very, very famous film in 1955 starring James Dean of only the second part of the book, an Elia Kazan film. And then Oprah Winfrey's book club, Oprah's book club, championed it in 2003 unexpectedly. And then that sent it back up to number two on the bestseller list. And she described it as maybe the best book she'd ever read.

• 3:39Dominic Sandbrook?

  Wow, no lesser critic than Oprah Winfrey.

• 3:42Speaker 02

  No lesser critic, I know. We're following in some lofty footsteps there. But then part of the reason that we were drawn back to it, or I certainly was, was because there's a Netflix adaptation coming out this year starring Florence Pugh as Cathy, who we'll be getting onto because she is surely one of the most genuinely evil characters in all literature.

• 4:02Dominic Sandbrook?

  Or she just misunderstood, Tabby.

• 4:03Speaker 02

  Or she misunderstood, yeah. So let's get into the plot a little bit and be warned, there will be spoilers. But this isn't, I think, a book in which the plot is really the point. Spoilers won't ruin reading it for you. So obviously, as you said, it's kind of a massive window into America during a period of flux. So the novel's set in California, Selina's Valley, and it chronicles the lives of these two interwoven families, the Trask's and the Hamiltons, between the start of the 20th century. And then the end of the First World War. Um, and we start with the kind of the well intentioned Adam Trask. And he leaves his violent brother, Charles, to settle in this kind of Eden like valley, the Salinas Valley.

• 4:48Speaker 02

  And he brings with him his mysterious but blatantly evil wife Cathy. And she, before coming to the Trasks, she turned up on their doorstep kind of half dead. She had burnt her parents alive, burnt down their house.

• 5:03Dominic Sandbrook?

  When she was a teenager, proper teenage rebellion.

• 5:05Speaker 02

  Exactly. And we'll explain all that later on, but she had worked as a prostitute before becoming a mistress to a horrible pimp.

• 5:13Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah.

• 5:14Speaker 02

  Anyway, she's pregnant, possibly with Charles's baby, but Adam believes it's his. And then after they move, she's not happy in Salinas Valley and she gives birth. She ends up shooting Adam and running away. And that's the opening reading. Anyway, Cathy goes off, she becomes this sadistic brothel owner.

• 5:29Dominic Sandbrook?

  She's running the worst brothel in the town, right? That everyone speaks of in hushed tones.

• 5:33Speaker 02

  Exactly. Famously sadistic. She kind of, it's famed for using the kind of dark, toxic desires of, of powerful and rich men against them.

• 5:42Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yes.

• 5:43Speaker 02

  Anyway, so meanwhile, a kind of broken hearted Adam raises his two sons who Cathy has given birth to. Caleb and Aaron, Cal and Aaron, with the help of his Chinese American servant, Lee. And their neighbours, the Hamiltons, who I mentioned in the beginning, who, that's Samuel Hamilton. He's an Irish immigrant. He's well loved and his family of endless children. I can't remember their names, but let's just.

• 6:05Dominic Sandbrook?

  They're all called Tom, Dick and Harry.

• 6:06Speaker 02

  Tom, Dick and Harry. Yeah, they might as well be.

• 6:08Dominic Sandbrook?

  I mean, basically no one, a massive spoiler, no one really cares that much about the Hamiltons. They, they take up.

• 6:14Speaker 02

  I do.

• 6:15Dominic Sandbrook?

  Do you?

• 6:15Speaker 02

  Yeah, I do.

• 6:16Dominic Sandbrook?

  Totally. Well.

• 6:17Speaker 02

  I love the Hamilton passages.

• 6:18Dominic Sandbrook?

  Oh my, oh my God, I was tempted to skip those.

• 6:21Speaker 02

  I think they bring so much needed jollity to what is otherwise quite a dark, but you know, ultimately important story. Anyway.

• 6:27Dominic Sandbrook?

  Wow.

• 6:28Speaker 02

  So the twins grow up and they kind of grow into. Polar opposites, like emblems of good and evil, maybe. Aaron is kind of good, kind, virtuous. Cal is kind of more troubled.

• 6:40Dominic Sandbrook?

  And jealous, isn't he?

• 6:41Speaker 02

  He's jealous. He's jealous of his father's love. He's afflicted by guilt over the fact that he knows he has a real strain of evil inside him. Aaron becomes a priest, becomes obsessed with being virtuous. And then Cal wins back the family fortune, which Adam had lost in an ill-advised refrigerated lettuce business.

• 7:00Dominic Sandbrook?

  You'll never read a book that has more about refrigeration.

• 7:03Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 7:05Speaker 02

  And frankly, it adds to the story, in my opinion. But and they both seek the affection of the same girl, Abra. Finally, this tragic conflict breaks up between Cal and Aaron because Cal offers his father his, you know, recently won fortune. Adam rejects it and says, you should be more like Aaron. In a fit of jealousy and kind of revenge, Cal takes Aaron, who he's discovered the true identity of his mother, Cathy, who's been living as this madam all these years, and takes Aaron to meet her and show him.

• 7:38Dominic Sandbrook?

  Shows him the brothel.

• 7:39Speaker 02

  Yeah, shows him the brothel and shows him like who he's born of, what's inside him. And Aaron is so appalled and repulsed by this that he enlists in the First World War and he dies during the battle. Cathy is also affected by this encounter. Adam's heartbroken, he has a stroke and on his deathbed, he forgives Cal and gives his blessing with this very particular ancient Hebrew word. But what it is, what it all means, we'll be revealing after the break. Before that, I know, Dominic, you absolutely love this book. So for a moment or two, I'll indulge your, your, your passion for it. Tell me what you thought of East of Eden.

• 8:17Dominic Sandbrook?

  So I had never read this before. I had read Steinbeck, obviously, but not this one. Put off partly by the fact that it's quite long. And you have been waxing lyrical about it, about what a brilliant book it was. I have to say, I was a tiny bit suspicious.

• 8:33Speaker 02

  What?

• 8:35Dominic Sandbrook?

  I was a bit skeptical because the last massive book that you recommended to me, Phineas Finn, by Anthony Trollope. Consumed a giant part of my life and I wasn't even doing the podcast then, I was reading that for pleasure.

• 8:45Speaker 02

  This is basically what I do. I seek to entrap you in long tedious novels to slowly rob you of the desire to live.

• 8:52Dominic Sandbrook?

  I know you love it, so I don't want to rain on your parade. What do you love about it so much? Because you've always, you read this a long time ago, did you?

• 9:00Speaker 02

  I actually read it for the first time two years ago, so not ages. And like, right, right from the beginning, I was pretty captivated by it. I thought, and I hate, it slightly pains me to use this word because it's a bit vague and it's a bit sort of obvious, but I genuinely found it to be powerful. But not just powerful, also enjoyable. It felt as though it kind of encompassed everything that that matters and is best and worst about being human. I love the way that Steinbeck writes. I have a real weakness for books like this, quite masculine prose, set in the, you know, West or Midwest America. And I love the way that even though it's just kind of plain masculine voice, he manages to have very ornate and

• 9:41Speaker 02

  delicate descriptions interwoven throughout. I loved his descriptions of the land, Salinas Valley. I thought the characters were vivid. Yeah, the biblical stuff's a bit blatant, but it doesn't really bother me. Like, all stories are derivative of other stories and the Bible is surely.

• 9:54Dominic Sandbrook?

  The biggest of all, yeah.

• 9:56Speaker 02

  The source of some of the greatest stories of all time. So I absolutely loved it and I did this time as well.

• 10:02Dominic Sandbrook?

  Well, let's kick off by talking about Steinbeck himself. So Steinbeck's a really interesting character. He's born in the Salinas Valley in California in 1902.

• 10:11Speaker 02

  Yeah, this is almost autobiographical, isn't it?

• 10:13Dominic Sandbrook?

  There's a lot of his family history and there's a lot of kind of therapy, I would say, in the writing of this book.

• 10:19Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 10:20Dominic Sandbrook?

  So he grew up in this sort of frontier valley. It's about 25 miles inland from the Pacific. His father called John Ernst Steinbeck and he was a local government official and his mother, Olive, was a teacher. And she appears in the book, doesn't she?

• 10:32Speaker 02

  She does, yeah. Olive Hamilton.

• 10:34Dominic Sandbrook?

  I mean, actually, I'm quite, because I'm quite slow. It took me quite a long time to work out that this was Steinbeck's own family, the Hamiltons, 300 pages in or something. And then I started to realise the narrator was John Steinbeck. And actually, we'll talk about this a bit later, about whether Steinbeck is effective in his use of the narrative voice. Anyway. So as a teenager, he worked on farms and ranches and he was struck at the time by the terrible conditions of the migrant workers, which is something that obviously he was to write about in the 1930s. In the 1920s, he studied English at Stanford. He would travel to New York and tried to become a writer and failed. He came home, back to California. Pizzarly, he tried to make a name for himself as a manufacturer of plaster mannequins.

• 11:16Dominic Sandbrook?

  Then he ended up sponging off his parents for a bit and he went back to writing. Then he had a real breakthrough in 1935 with a book called Tortilla Flat, which is about a group of mates who are home in Monterey, California, from the First World War. And they're kind of getting up to japes with girls and drinking and stuff like that. And two years after that, Of Mice and Men, a novella. And then The Great Sir Roth, 1939, that makes him a massive name. So it's the bestselling book of 1939. It won the Pulitzer Prize. There was a film made by John Ford starring Henry Fonda. And then there was a massive backlash against it because The Great Sir Roth is really about the plight of the Okies, the people who have moved west during the Great Depression to flee the Dust Bowl. And people on the right, like conservatives, business owners and stuff,

• 11:59Dominic Sandbrook?

  but also lots of people in California, were outraged by it and tried to ban it. So, you know, at the end of the 1930s, Steinbeck is simultaneously very successful. He's very well known. He is a kind of touchstone for, it's kind of New Deal, Depression, America, kind of very polarised between left and right. But at the same time, he's very controversial. He's getting an awful lot of flak, not least in his native California.

• 12:24Speaker 02

  Yeah, and this all had quite a big impact on his personal life, which was getting very, very messy by this point. So he'd been married to a woman called Carol Henning in 1930. But by the end of the 1930s, their marriage was really fraying, like in part because of all the pressure from the backlash to Grapes of Wrath. So then he starts an affair with a 19-year-old singer called Gwyn Conga. This is just horribly, it's a horribly toxic back and forth. You know, the two women are fighting for Steinbeck. They both claim to be pregnant. Carol is lying. Gwyn then has an abortion. Finally. Steinbeck ends up divorcing his first wife Carol. He pays her $100,000, which is a massive sum of money at this point.

• 13:08Speaker 02

  And he marries Gwyn and by this point he's 41 and she's 23. So it's a significant age gap. And he was always afflicted after all this by massive guilt and actually self loathing. And you can see this in East of Eden. You can see it in characters like Cal, to some extent, maybe Adam. And the themes of the novel, you know, love turning to hatred, women who lie and manipulate men, you know, people who love and are therefore betrayed by that love. It's a huge factor in the book and you can see why therefore it is, as you said, kind of therapeutic, his writing it.

• 13:42Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah. So amidst all this, he goes off to Europe as a war correspondent for the New York Herald Tribune when America joined the war. But he was never really the same afterwards. So he was hit by shrapnel in the head during the Allied landings at Salerno in Italy. And he almost lost his hearing and then he came home basically scarred by the war. He was drinking a heck of a lot. I mean, this, he's absolutely one of those mid-century American writers like F. Scott Fitzgerald, who we talked about in our Great Gatsby episode, or Ernest Hemingway, another of your favourites. These people are basically, the first they do when they get up in the morning is drink a bottle of whiskey or something. Steinbeck is cut from that cloth.

• 14:19Speaker 02

  Hemingway's great kind of maxim was right drunk and it's sober, so.

• 14:22Dominic Sandbrook?

  Right, yeah. There's a bit of that with Steinbeck, I think. He suspects his wife Gwyn of being unfaithful while he's been away. He's a very troubled and unhappy man. They have two sons in the 1940s called Thomas and John, John Steinbeck IV.

• 14:40Speaker 02

  Which is just mental. Why do Americans do that? No offence to our American listeners.

• 14:44Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah, American listeners, if they exist, please direct your complaints to Tabby and not to me on this issue.

• 14:49Speaker 02

  Sorry.

• 14:52Dominic Sandbrook?

  He's a terrible father. I mean, the irony is that East of Eden is in part a book about fathers and sons.

• 14:57Speaker 02

  And also dedicated to his sons.

• 14:59Dominic Sandbrook?

  Right. And the mad thing is, you know, he went to all the distress of writing a book for his sons, dedicating it to them. And yet, he was, he'd by all accounts, I mean, just to give you a couple of examples, when John the Fourth was three years old, there was an accident with a dog when he let this dog into the apartment and the dog relieved itself on the floor. And Steinbeck discovered this and he rubbed his son's face in the dog mess on the floor.

• 15:25Speaker 02

  I was so sad to discover this about him.

• 15:27Dominic Sandbrook?

  To teach him a lesson. Or, this, this, I think is, badly, I think this is worse. When he was tiny, Steinbeck would encourage him to jump from his high chair into his arms. And he'd do it again and again. And the boy was always laughing and he trusted his dad and stuff. And then one day, you know, Steinbeck was doing this so he could teach his son a lesson. People will betray you. You know, you can't rely on anybody. And one day, he basically pulled his hands back at the last minute. So his son fell on the floor with a huge bump. And as John the Fourth said later, "The great epiphany of my childhood was realising that my father was an asshole."

• 16:01Speaker 02

  But you know, this is actually massively reflected in East of Eden itself, because there's this little passage about how that moment when children realise that their parents are flawed and fallible and how it shatters you. I just think it's, it's very poignant. "When a child first catches adults out, when it first walks into his grave little head that adults do not have divine intelligence, that their judgements are not always wise, their thinking true, their sentences just, his world falls into panic desolation. The gods are fallen and all safety gone. And there is one sure thing about the fall of gods. They do not fall a little. They crash and shatter or sink deeply into green muck. And the child's world is never quite whole again." I mean, it's so interesting that he can understand these concepts and he can see that

• 16:43Speaker 02

  he, you know, it's his fault and that he's done wrong, but he can't change his behaviour. I think that's often the case with serially guilty people.

• 16:52Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah, I think that's probably true. By the end of the 1940s, you know, his life really isn't a mess because his marriage is disintegrating to Gwyn. He's now drinking very heavily. They've fallen out because he wants to move to the countryside out of New York and she doesn't. And amid all this, he decides he wants to write a history of his family. And you can see that I think there's an element of nostalgia, nostalgic escapism in this almost. His own family life is a terrible mess. He's basically, you know, extremely distant at best, if violent at worst to his own sons. His wife, Gwyn, ends up asking him for a divorce. So you can see why he would

• 17:34Dominic Sandbrook?

  want to look backwards, I guess, and to this sort of idealized paradise of his own boyhood. And to sort of want to tease out lessons from that, that he can pass on to his own sons. But he doesn't write anything until in 1949, he meets his third wife, who's called Elaine Scott. She works in theatre, they meet at a party, and she is your classic, you know, mid-century male American writer's long-suffering wife. So she basically says, I will take care of the house, I'll take care of the paperwork, I'll do all the accounts, I'll do everything, I'll organise the cleaner and the man who sweeps up the leaves, you are free to write and so crack on. So in 1951,

• 18:17Dominic Sandbrook?

  he starts on East of Eden and he writes to his editor, who's called Pascal Covici, and he says, basically, you know, this is it now. I either write the book or I do not, there can be no excuses. The writing will be spare and lean, the concept's hard, the philosophy old and yet newborn. It may destroy everything for me, but it has to be done.

• 18:39Speaker 02

  The way that he wrote this is just mental. It's extraordinary, actually. And we know this because there's a really nice essay online about it by a guy called David Christinger, who, of Chicago University. He writes the whole thing in pencil in a notebook. He writes the story on the right-hand pages, on the left-hand pages, he writes a series of letters to his editor. Pascal Kavichi and every day he kind of gets into the writing by writing a letter to Pascal. And it's kind of like brainstorming. It's basically more therapy. His thoughts about the book, his anxieties, his ideas for characters, even just news about himself and his home life. And then he leaps across and continues the story on the right hand page.

• 19:23Speaker 02

  But it's quite a slow starter for about two weeks. Progress isn't, he's not getting very far with it. And then on the fourteenth of February, he goes to visit his sons. And he's shocked because they're very, very distant with him. They're very cold with him. I mean, understandably.

• 19:37Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah.

• 19:37Speaker 02

  Chucking them out of high chairs and rubbing their face in dog poo. Anyway. And but he's still very, very upset by this. And as I say, shocked. And then that night. He just pours himself into writing and becomes totally absorbed by it for the rest of the year. He writes the whole book over the next two hundred and seventy six days. There's a massive, massive intensity to it. And he says again and again that it has to be this masterpiece, puts himself under such pressure. And he even stops drinking during

• 20:08Dominic Sandbrook?

  Unheard of.

• 20:08Speaker 02

  The week, which for him, he's a heavy, heavy drinker. Yeah. Where does this intensity come from? You know, why does it have to be kind of so powerful to him? And I think it's because it's this central redemptive idea that comes to him and just animates the entire book. And it's a secret wrapped up in the translation of a single Hebrew word, which I mentioned when I was kind of explaining the plot. From the book of Genesis, and this for him holds the key to the entire story. And we will be unlocking that mystery in the second half.

• 20:40Dominic Sandbrook?

  So he finishes the book in November nineteen fifty one. He tells his friends it's his masterpiece. The longest and surely the most difficult work I've ever done, he says to his sister Mary and to a Swedish artist friend. These very celebrated lines he writes. I've put all the things I've wanted to write all my life. This is the book. If it's not good, I have fooled myself all the time. Always I had this book waiting to be written. And then he spends four months cutting it, which is hard to believe when you discover that. The edition that I bought, Tabby told me this was quite a short book and very Readable. It's 714 pages long, quite small print, the edition I have. So it's almost as long as one of my own books. So he cut it down. And then in September 1952, Viking

• 21:23Dominic Sandbrook?

  released the book and they basically went to town on it. They said this is going to be a major event. He's a, you know, one of America's best known writers. And this is the magnum opus.

• 21:33Speaker 02

  But nevertheless, the reception is pretty mixed. So it does reach, I mean, it's popular with kind of the reading public at large. It reaches number one on the New York Times Fiction Bestseller list in November 1952, and it holds it for five weeks. But a lot of critics say that it's far too moralistic, it's too clunky. The good versus evil is, you know, simplistic and a bit sensationalized. The New York Times said that it was clumsy in structure and defaced by excessive melodramatics and much cheap sensationalism. And then the Christian Science Monitor Steinbeck's obsession with naked animality, brute violence, and the dark wickedness of the human mind remains so overriding that what there is of beauty and understanding is subordinated and almost extinguished. So pretty harsh. Yeah.

• 22:18Dominic Sandbrook?

  But he did win the Nobel Prize 10 years later.

• 22:22Speaker 02

  So there's hope for you.

• 22:23Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah, exactly. Although then the New York Times kicked him again and said, why have the Nobel Committee given an award to a writer whose limited talent is in his best books, watered down by 10th rate philosophizing?

• 22:34Speaker 02

  Ooh, savage.

• 22:35Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah. I mean, you don't want to be reading those reviews. So whether we agree, you know, there are two schools of thought, clearly.

• 22:41Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 22:42Dominic Sandbrook?

  There is Oprah Winfrey, who speaks for the general public who loved the book, who said, come on, don't sneer at this book. And then there are the stuffy, stuck up, highbrow critics.

• 22:52Speaker 02

  Cynical, heartless, academics.

• 22:55Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah. Whether Tabby and I identify with Oprah Winfrey.

• 22:58Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 22:58Dominic Sandbrook?

  Or with these sneering academic critics.

• 23:01Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 23:01Dominic Sandbrook?

  We shall discover at the end of the episode.

• 23:03Speaker 02

  Before we do that, let's get into the, into the book itself. And to do that, we need to explain a massive central part of it, which is the biblical story of Cain and Abel. And this is taken from Genesis, chapter four, verses 1 to 16. But God, interestingly, is carefully excluded from the plot. God doesn't really have a part to play in any of it. Even the title, East of Eden, was taken from Genesis 416.

• 23:28Dominic Sandbrook?

  Right. So Cain and Abel, basically the two sons of Adam and Eve.

• 23:31Speaker 02

  Cain is a farmer, Abel is a shepherd, and they both bring presents to their father. And Cain's is rejected, Abel's is accepted.

• 23:39Dominic Sandbrook?

  And so Cain is full of bitterness.

• 23:41Speaker 02

  Full of anger and bitterness. He's also marked. He has the mark of Cain on him. It's like a darkness. It's a sign of God's disfavour, basically.

• 23:49Dominic Sandbrook?

  Exactly. Yeah, he ends up being branded as a killer because he's murdered his brother and then he's exiled to the land of Nod on the east of Eden. So Steinbeck basically thought this was the only story in all literature, didn't he?

• 23:59Speaker 02

  He thought it was the first story, the major story, because it's the ultimate confrontation of good and evil from which all stories derive.

• 24:08Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah, all novels, all poetry are built on this never-ending contest, he said. And that basically his idea was that this story, that this taint of sin repeats through the generations and there's no escape from it. Or is there? We shall discover.

• 24:22Speaker 02

  It's kind of original sin, isn't it, that all humans are blighted from the moment of birth because Adam and Eve rebelled?

• 24:28Dominic Sandbrook?

  Exactly. And the idea of East of Eden, I mean, this is the Salinas Valley. And basically, some of these characters are trying to create their own Eden in the valley, you know, paradise. They're trying to start again. So many people did when they moved to America. But they end up just repeating the cycle of betrayal, which is Eve betraying Adam, you know, by messing around with the snake and the apple and whatnot.

• 24:52Speaker 02

  All that.

• 24:52Dominic Sandbrook?

  In the Garden of Eden. All that, exactly. And then Cain murdering Abel. And that these patterns reproduce themselves through down the generations and there's no matter what you do, you know, the implication is that you are trapped by them. I guess the Salinas Valley, I mean, the Salinas Valley itself is a big character in this, right? The landscape is a character in the story.

• 25:12Speaker 02

  It totally is. And you can see how important it is to the book and to Steinbeck. In the alternative titles that he considered before naming it East of Eden, it was going to be called The Salinas Valley or Down to the Valley. I think that was a near miss.

• 25:25Dominic Sandbrook?

  Down to the Valley, yeah, no good.

• 25:27Speaker 02

  Or alternatively, recognising the importance of this biblical element, it was going to be called Cain's Sign. And he wrote to his editor, "I want to describe the Salinas Valley in detail, but in sparse detail, so that there can be a real feeling of it. It should be sights and sounds, smells and colours, but put down with simplicity as though the boys can read the book." That's his son. So his intention was to give kind of an impression of the valley, a sense of it. And I think he does that. Extremely well.

• 25:56Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah.

• 25:56Speaker 02

  The whole opening mini-chapter of the book is a description of the Salinas Valley, and I think that's beautiful. But it's also, it's like a microcosm of good and evil, a microcosm of the world, of maybe the nation of America. And that's why this opening section, it's full of kind of dualism, like there's light and dark, mountains, valleys, rain, dry. And this kind of mirrors like the good and the evil in human nature. And I guess in Steinbeck's view, throughout the course of American history, it's full of light and dark.

• 26:25Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah, on that point about American history. So basically, the book covers the time period from 1862, I think, to the end of the First World War. So this is the moment when America comes of age as a capitalist power. It's the conquering of the frontier, the decline of the American kind of rural dream, which is being eclipsed by kind of industrial modernity. So you have the two families, the Hamiltons and the Traskes. The Hamiltons have arrived as immigrants and they're working on the land. And Samuel Hamilton, he's a classic immigrant and he wants to be a farmer, but his sons all end up as sort of urban professionals, kind of working in advertising or whatever, or teachers.

• 26:58Speaker 02

  Almost in reaction to him. And I think that's quite true to life, isn't it?

• 27:02Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah, of course.

• 27:02Speaker 02

  And they kind of resent his outsider status. So they become kind of apex Americans.

• 27:06Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yes, exactly. I mean, that's exactly what happened to so many first, second, third generation immigrants in this period. And then you have Adam Trask. I mean, he's the central character of the book, and he's the kind of personification of American history in this period. So he's the son of an East Coast farmer who served in the Civil War. He goes into the American Army himself, the US Army. And he fights against Native Americans. He basically, you know, cleans them from the landscape.

• 27:29Speaker 02

  But he's a pacifist. He refuses to commit violence or to take human life. But he's very brave.

• 27:36Dominic Sandbrook?

  He is. Exactly. I'm being too harsh on him, Tabby, I know.

• 27:39Speaker 02

  You are.

• 27:39Dominic Sandbrook?

  He moves west. He tries to establish himself as a farmer, but that doesn't really work out. So he ends up in the city eventually, or a town eventually. He does things like he buys a Model T Ford. He dabbles in refrigeration, as we've already mentioned. And then his son goes off to the First World War. So basically, all American history is condensed and embodied in this one character and in the life of his family. So that's the That's the sweep of American history. One other thing we should talk about before we get into the characters, the style of narration. So I mentioned already, I didn't realise the Hamiltons were Steinbeck's own family for some considerable time. I thought they were the narrator's family, and I didn't think Steinbeck and the narrator were the same person. And actually,

• 28:21Dominic Sandbrook?

  the reason he did that, I think, is because he'd thought he would write the book as a family history. And then he wrote it very quickly. And I think he still had that idea of it being his family history, and he hadn't quite rid himself of that. And so, at times, particularly at the beginning, he says, I don't really remember what what happened. I'm relying on old photographs, I'm relying on kind of family anecdotes and things. So he grounds the narrative in real history, and it's almost as though he's pretending to be a historian. But then I think he forgets about that for whole chapters. And then the narrator almost disappears and then comes back in whenever he remembers. And I find that a bit patchy and unsustained. And I know that some of the early critics did as well. But Tabby, I know

• 29:05Dominic Sandbrook?

  you like this. You think it's very well done.

• 29:07Speaker 02

  I do like it. I think it's intentional. Like, someone who was putting as much energy and intensity into writing this book, it wasn't just going to start, you know, forgetting what he was doing. But I like it because it's, it feels loose and free and unrestrained. And as we'll see, freedom and the ability to choose is a big part of this book. It kind of, it melds history and mythology together, which the book does throughout. You know, as you say, it's a window into genuine American history, but then it's also, you know, a retelling of the Bible. It moves you from these kind of very intimate reflections or observations about someone to kind of these, the big, the philosophy at the heart of it, and this

• 29:47Speaker 02

  idea that it kind of encapsulates the heart of a nation overall. I think it's very, very effective. But so let's get on to the major characters in the book then. So we've, we've spoken a little bit about Samuel Hamilton, has a big family, he's an immigrant. He's kind of, people are very suspicious of him originally when he comes to the valley and then they grow to love him.

• 30:11Dominic Sandbrook?

  A classic immigrant story, right? He's an Irish immigrant.

• 30:14Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 30:15Dominic Sandbrook?

  He, you know, has this large, very boisterous family.

• 30:19Speaker 02

  But he never, he's, he's, he's brilliant at inventing things and, you know, he's pretty ingenious, but he never ever manages to make any money. And I like that kind of detail of him. And so he's always poor, but he's always kind of free in himself. He has kind of great faith in himself.

• 30:34Dominic Sandbrook?

  So if I was being skeptical, I'd say two things. I'd say first of all, everybody who reads.

• 30:38Speaker 02

  You are being skeptical.

• 30:40Dominic Sandbrook?

  All right, fine. The Hamiltons, the stuff with the Hamiltons, I think a lot of critics at the time in the fifties said is redundant. Because basically everybody who reads East of Eden is really only interested in one of these two families, which are the Trask's, which are the family that the Cain and Abel thing recurs in and the good, the good versus evil struggle. And the Hamiltons are a kind of slightly stolid counterpoint to that. We, we joked at the beginning, they're all called Tom, Dick and Harry, and no one can remember which one is which. And Samuel Hamilton, I would say, you know, he, to me, he feels a bit of a stereotype. That basically the stoical, wise, hardworking Irish immigrant who, you know, he's unlucky.

• 31:22Dominic Sandbrook?

  But he's warm-hearted, things that haven't really worked out for him, but he's a great patriarch and he loves his family and all this kind of thing. For me, he and his family do not feel terribly alive as characters.

• 31:35Speaker 02

  I think they do. That each, each child has a very different character and each child kind of goes on to, you know, symbolize something different about that kind of American dream. And, and also Samuel Hamilton, he has a real quirkiness to him, which makes him more than kind of just conventional and a bit of a stereotype. But then let's get on to the Trask's, as you mentioned, that they're massively the heart of it.

• 31:57Dominic Sandbrook?

  You would agree though, Tabby, the Trask's are the, are much more interesting than the Hamiltons, wouldn't you?

• 32:01Speaker 02

  Yeah, I would, I would, but that's partly because they're much worse people than the Hamiltons.

• 32:05Dominic Sandbrook?

  Of course, that's the point.

• 32:06Speaker 02

  Isn't it the case in a way then that that makes the Hamiltons kind of more realistic, that their flaws and their. Weaknesses are not evil, they're just like human foibles. Whereas the Trasks are firmly divided into good and evil because they are essentially the second Cain and Abel. So you have the first Cain and Abel in the Bible, then you have the Trasks. And you have, and they're called Charles and Adam, so the C and the A. And these, there's a massive element of nominative determinism in this book.

• 32:33Dominic Sandbrook?

  Completely is, yeah.

• 32:34Speaker 02

  Yeah. And so Cyrus Trask, their father, he's from Connecticut, he's a fake war hero. I find him really, really funny because he reminds me of someone that was like briefly in the territorial army or something, and then makes their identity having been in the army. So I find that quite amusing.

• 32:49Dominic Sandbrook?

  Exactly. He ends up becoming basically a mate of Abraham Lincoln or something?

• 32:52Speaker 02

  Yeah, well, he claims to have been a big mate of Abraham Lincoln and basically says that all kind of military tactical discussion that goes on is all thanks to him. He uses up his wives though. So he has a first wife, this is Adam's mother, she dies. And then a second wife, this is Charles's mother, she dies. And he loves Adam more, yet he also says of him that he's a weakling who will never amount to a dog turd.

• 33:17Dominic Sandbrook?

  That's harsh.

• 33:18Speaker 02

  Yeah, at least he doesn't rub his face in dog turds.

• 33:20Dominic Sandbrook?

  He doesn't, but he actually says it to him. I don't think, this is more some of the poor parenting that recurs.

• 33:26Speaker 02

  Adam, yeah, look, he's guilty of constantly letting things happen to him. He's not exactly a proactive character, he's a massive drifter. But his blindness and his naivety, it's kind of just a form of radical optimism. He's without malice and, well, he's not the most charismatic character. He's a good man and in a sense, I think Steinbeck writes him weak because he puts the possibility on the table for readers that goodness in life gets you nowhere.

• 33:52Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah.

• 33:52Speaker 02

  And ultimately, that isn't the case in this book. But he's also the perfect contrast to his brother, Charles, who is violent, fairly psychopathic, he's cruel, he almost beats Adam to death as a child, you know, again echoing Cain and Abel story. And, but he's not, I think, an entirely one dimensional villain either, because he writes these letters to Adam that are kind of full of guilt and missing, like childish missing of his brother. And there's this line, for instance, that says, "As with many people, Charles, who could not talk, wrote with fullness. He set down his loneliness and his perplexities." And I love that because I think there are people in life that you can recognise that in.

• 34:35Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah. So you've got these two characters, they're Cain and Abel effectively, and then A big twist in the book, Steinbeck introduces the character who really comes to define the book more than any other, the character that I think most readers, you know, that lives in readers' minds.

• 34:52Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 34:52Dominic Sandbrook?

  And this is this woman, young woman called Cathy Amis. She's by far the most memorable character in the book. She could be a psychopath, a devil in human form. She could be a scathing portrait of Steinbeck's ex-wife, or she could just be a misunderstood, hardworking woman trying to make her way in the world with what assets she has. And we will find out which one of those we think she is after the break.

• 35:21Speaker 00

  Now, more than ever, we need someone on our side. But Rob Whitman? Whitman's votes drove up costs, cut Medicaid and risked 350,000 Virginians' healthcare to pay for tax breaks for himself and his donors. He's not on our side. Shannon Taylor will fight corruption, cut taxes and bring down costs. This November, vote for Shannon Taylor. She's for us. Paid for by HMP, the HouseMajorityPact.com, not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee.

• 35:54Dominic Sandbrook?

  Welcome back to the book club, everybody. Now, we love a strong female character on this show, don't we, Tabby?

• 35:59Speaker 02

  You're wearing your feminist dad t-shirt.

• 36:01Dominic Sandbrook?

  Feminist dad.

• 36:05Dominic Sandbrook?

  This is, so Cathy, just to be clear, so Cathy, this person we've talked about, she's psychopathic, she's evil, she's slender, she's blond-haired, she has these sort of blank staring eyes. I'm looking at her right now, frankly.

• 36:18Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. So I, I actually think Cathy, well, maybe it's because I see myself in her. I don't, by the way, she's awful.

• 36:24Dominic Sandbrook?

  Of course you do.

• 36:25Speaker 02

  I remember when I first read this and coming to the bits about Cathy and meeting Cathy and being like, and it may seem obvious, but nevertheless, it's effective. I was totally chilled by her. So who is she? She is described of having, as having been born different, a monster from birth with a malformed soul. And Steinbeck kind of uses the idea of being born with physical defects, but rather than it being on the outside, it's on the inside, there's something wrong with her inside. So there's this wonderful quote and it's, I believe- There are monsters born in the world to human parents. Some you can see misshapen and horrible with huge heads or tiny bodies. And just as there are physical monsters, can there not be mental or psychic monsters born? The face and body may be perfect, but if a twisted gene or a malformed egg can produce physical monsters, may not the same process produce a malformed soul.

• 37:10Speaker 02

  She's born and raised in a small town in Massachusetts and the kind of cosmic evil that is manifested in her, it comes out right from the first when she's a little girl. You know, she's the devil incarnate.

• 37:22Dominic Sandbrook?

  She entraps a teacher, doesn't she?

• 37:24Speaker 02

  There's a real element of the kind of horror story in this, you know, the pretty little girl with a terrifying cold smile who's got the devil inside her. She manipulates, she harms, she destroys those around her. She frames young boys of her age for sexual assault. She drives a schoolteacher to commit suicide. She smiles when she hears that one of her schoolfellows has died. And there are other kind of unnerving details that give her away, like her room is always spotless and never betrays the fact that it's lived in by a little girl. That other children are kind of fascinated by her, but then they look at her with like, they look away as if what they've seen is a bit, like there's something disturbing there. Most importantly, in fact, about her characterization, she has these chilling, sharp, small, white teeth that are constantly referenced when she smiles.

• 38:10Speaker 02

  She doesn't drink because she's afraid that it will expose her darkness.

• 38:13Dominic Sandbrook?

  That's a very bad sign.

• 38:14Speaker 02

  And that's a terrible sign. Yeah. And at one point it does, there's this moment when her, the pimp that she is the mistress to persuades her to drink some champagne and she goes utterly mental. All the wickedness comes up to the surface and like, she tells him that he's a big fat slug, that she knows his mind. Brutal, that she can use whatever he feels, all of his weaknesses and desires against him. And she does this throughout her life. She spots and recognizes the weakness in people, particularly men.

• 38:44Speaker 02

  When it's sexual and she uses that against them because she feels no desire. She has, you know, emotionless hazel eyes. She has a childlike figure and she never develops a woman's figure and like a scary little rosebud mouth. And then over the course of the novel, as she gets older, it's like the evil inside her starts to show on the outside because she becomes kind of twisted and crippled, contorted by arthritis. She's just, she's a formidably wicked character and I think she's a joy to read.

• 39:15Dominic Sandbrook?

  So at first, the only person who really sees through her is another so-called evil character. So the Cain figure in the first half of the book, which is Charles, Adam's brother. And Charles says to Adam, basically, she's been beaten up by the pimp because she accused him of being a fat slug. He beats her up. She arrives on their doorstep. She's been beaten within an inch of her life and they take her in. Adam develops this huge fondness for her. Charles says to him, please, Adam, throw her out. She will tear you to pieces. She will destroy you, Adam. But Adam can't see it, as we'll, as we'll discuss, being able to see clearly. And blindness is one of the themes of the book. Can you see the, the complexity of human nature?

• 39:57Dominic Sandbrook?

  Or are you doomed to only see the good or only see the evil in people? And not to see the sort of, the, the battle within every soul?

• 40:05Speaker 02

  And love is blinding. Love makes you less able to see than ever.

• 40:09Dominic Sandbrook?

  So Adam is blinded by his love. He thinks she's absolutely wonderful. All he sees is the golden hair and so he ends up marrying her. Although Charles actually ends up sleeping with her and is possibly the father of her twins. It's never really spelled out. Now, here's the thing. People who have not read the book and who've listened to our description may well say, I think that what we're describing is not necessarily a real person, but a pantomime villain, a bit of a caricature. So when Steinbeck says, some people are monsters, she's just evil.

• 40:43Dominic Sandbrook?

  I kind of think in a more sophisticated book, the characters would be more rounded than that. You wouldn't just say, here's a Dickensian villain and who ends up, you know, she corrupts men. You might, you might well say this is actually quite a misogynist kind of take on a female character, that the big female character of the book is just using her beauty and her sexuality to bewitch men and then to betray them and to, you know, kill them or to steal all their stuff or whatever she does. I mean, she is a murderess.

• 41:14Speaker 02

  Yeah, but I, I actually totally disagree because first of all, in the real world, there are psychopaths, you know, they don't feel as other people feel and there are murderesses. Like, these people exist. They don't exist just in books. Also, I think she is far more than a Dickensian villain because first of all, there's no chaos to her. She is patient, she's observant, she's socially intelligent. She's also fascinating because she, the character, is kind of skeptical of human goodness. Like, she embodies that. She is an experiment in finding the darkness and the weakness in the heart of every person and manipulating that. And there's a power in that which challenges the book's otherwise fairly simplistic moral thesis and it prevents it from becoming just a book about simple moral optimism. But also, the other thing that makes her far more interesting is that

• 42:00Speaker 02

  when her son, Aaron, comes to see her, she is appalled by how appalled he is to find her as his mother. She's not necessarily guilty, but she is appalled and horrified by his horror of her. It actually frightens her. And that's another thing. She has vulnerabilities that make her three dimensional. She experiences fear, she loses control, she's forced to confront growing older and like losing the facade that allowed her to be manipulative. So she, she realizes there are, there are limits to what she can achieve. She's kind of nevertheless admirably kind of irreducible. And she doesn't have this thing that a lot of pantomime villains have, which is kind of an unrealistic goal. There's no moral,

• 42:42Speaker 02

  flimsy moral justification to her. She's just kind of an animal, as I think some psychopaths are. Her desires are animalistic. It's money, it's comfort, it's, you know, basic things like that. And in terms of, like, Steinbeck's women are often quite sexist, like, they're, they're often defined by what they do in society. So they're either kind of prostitutes or wives and mothers.

• 43:02Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah, and literally, they're a mother or whore.

• 43:04Speaker 02

  Yeah, a mother or whore.

• 43:05Dominic Sandbrook?

  To use the old kind of cliche. I mean, that's what she, she rejects one and embraces the other.

• 43:11Speaker 02

  But but I think that's still a little bit dismissive. I I agree, his women are kind of defined in terms of their potential or otherwise for sexuality and motherhood. Like Liza Hamilton is your ultimate like domestic mother, she's virtuous, she's strict. Cathy is pretty attractive, she's a temptress, she's depraved. But I would say that the mothers and prostitutes themselves, while they may be those things, they're far from one dimensional and they have kind of iron wills. And there's actually this line, I believe a strong woman may be stronger than a man, particularly if she happens to have love in her heart. I guess a loving woman is indestructible. And it's almost like through Cathy Steinbeck acknowledges that women do often fall into these two categories. Because Cathy sees the way that women that women are defined by men and she uses it against them.

• 43:56Speaker 02

  You know, she knows that Adam sees her as like a perfect, motherly, beautiful, kind woman, you know, the other men who see her as a whore and a prostitute, she uses that against them and she takes their money. You know, she she charts her own course throughout. So in a way, she's a critique of standard notions of femininity.

• 44:15Dominic Sandbrook?

  Okay, fair enough. I'll take that point. But so the key moment, the the sort of pivotal moment, we started with it. She basically exposes her true nature to Adam. She's had these two boys, she doesn't want to really be their mother, she doesn't want to be his wife. She she says to him, I'm going. He tries to stop her. She shoots him, that's what we began with, and then she walks out. He then brings up the two boys, the Cain and Abel, Cal and Aaron, on on his own. And the question that hangs over the second half, are they ever going to find out the truth about her? And I guess, is the Cain and Abel pattern going to recur with these two boys as well? Which brings us to the two boys, Cal and Aaron.

• 44:54Speaker 02

  Horrid Henry and perfect Peter, that's what I kept thinking of.

• 44:57Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah, completely. What Steinbeck does is he he makes it absolutely obvious to you. I mean, nobody could ever accuse him of excessive subtlety. Even with the even with the names, this bloke is going to be Cain, this bloke is going to be Abel, the bloke who's Cain has got dark hair, the bloke who's Abel is blonde and very good looking and all of this kind of thing.

• 45:17Speaker 02

  All the Canes have got some sort of scar or disfigurement.

• 45:21Dominic Sandbrook?

  So do you think that these two characters are a bit one dimensional? Surely you do.

• 45:26Speaker 02

  I I do think, I have to say, I think Aaron is massively one dimensional. He's a bit tiresome, bit of a caricature caricature. He's blonde, he's beautiful, he becomes obsessed with passionate purity. I actually, when I came to rereading it this time, I could barely remember anything about him because there's nothing very memorable about him. But there's a bit more to Cal, his twin brother.

• 45:45Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah, actually, you're right about that. Cal is much more layered, isn't he?

• 45:48Speaker 02

  Probably the most complex character in the book, really, because he knows that there is darkness and evil in him and he spends all the whole course of the book trying to fight it and struggle with it.

• 45:59Dominic Sandbrook?

  He's tormented by his own self-knowledge, isn't he? Because Cal is aware of the, this thing about, can you see yourself in other people clearly? Cal really can. He can see that there is darkness in his soul and it really troubles him. He can be very manipulative and very cruel. And yet, at the same time, we're told, he longs for his brother to love him.

• 46:17Speaker 02

  And his father.

• 46:19Dominic Sandbrook?

  And his father, Adam. And unusually in the book, one of very few such moments, he prays to God to help him overcome the evil in his soul. Dear Lord, let me be like Aaron. Don't make me mean. I don't want to be. If you will make everybody like me, why I'll give you anything in the world. And if I haven't got it, I'll go and get it. I don't want to be mean. I don't want to be lonely for Jesus's sake. Amen. It's quite a moving moment, actually.

• 46:41Speaker 02

  It's really moving.

• 46:41Dominic Sandbrook?

  And it's one of the few moments, I would say, in the book where somebody sees themselves clearly and they wrestle with their nature. Because Cathy never wrestles with her own nature. She accepts it. She just basically says, I'm an evil person. I'm going to be evil.

• 46:52Speaker 02

  She uses it.

• 46:53Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yes. And the other person, I guess, that they live with, which we should talk about, is this guy called Lee. So Lee is, he's the sort of servant of Adam. He's a, perhaps a slightly dodgy character.

• 47:06Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 47:07Dominic Sandbrook?

  So he is Chinese American. He speaks in this kind of pigeon English, which we discover is put on because he's playing a part that people want him to play.

• 47:19Speaker 02

  It's what Americans expect him to be.

• 47:22Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yes. And then, once he's sort of unmasked, actually, you can speak very good English. What are you doing speaking this pigeon English? He then assumes his natural guise, which is of a sort of stereotypical mystical man of the East, who dispenses Chinese wisdom at regular moments during the book. And, you know, I don't know, some people, readers may find that powerful and moving. I found Lee's Chinese wisdom a little bit annoying, to be honest with you. It was a bit like a succession of fortune cookies.

• 47:51Speaker 02

  I found it quite powerful because he's like, he's only ballast in these boys' lives. And I like the conversations that he has with their girlfriend, Abra, Abra.

• 47:59Dominic Sandbrook?

  I don't know, is it Abra?

• 48:01Speaker 02

  But I did, yeah, I agree. I got a little bit sick of his sections after a while. Like, vast portions of the book are given into, just given over to just conversations between him and Adam.

• 48:11Dominic Sandbrook?

  But the sort of philosophizing.

• 48:13Speaker 02

  Yeah, philosophizing.

• 48:14Dominic Sandbrook?

  It's those Steinbeck has slightly included, the literary criticism about the book in the book, I think.

• 48:20Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 48:20Dominic Sandbrook?

  So this narrative will stop and people will then, characters will have a conversation and they'll sort of say, well, what does this story all mean? And they'll, and that's what Lee is there for, right?

• 48:30Speaker 02

  But you have other books where that happens. I mean, that happens in 1984, doesn't it?

• 48:34Dominic Sandbrook?

  When they're reading from the Goldsteins' manifesto, a little bit, but I feel, it's a massive, I'm giving myself away here, but I think Orwell is a much better writer than John Steinbeck. Anyway.

• 48:43Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 48:44Dominic Sandbrook?

  I mean, let's talk about actually what the book does mean.

• 48:46Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 48:46Dominic Sandbrook?

  So Steinbeck wrote it for his sons. This is a huge element of the book. And actually, the relationship between fathers and sons runs through it. So you've got, you start off with Cyrus, who's the war, fake war hero, and his sons. And then you have Adam's sons, Cal and Aaron and so on. And this idea that the Cain and Abel story in particular, the love of one son being rejected by his father and that makes him embittered and he takes out on his brother, that that just repeats down the generations. Did you like it? Do you think it was well done?

• 49:21Speaker 02

  I thought it was quite well done with the first set with Adam and Charles when they're young and their father Cyrus, because that is basically what drives Charles, you know, that's what fills his heart with darkness in a sense is his jealousy over the fact that Cyrus says to Adam at one point, and he suspects this, I love you better. And actually, there's this moment when, I mean, before he calls him Dogturd, a dogturd. There's this moment where Cyrus takes Adam out and says, you know, I need you to enlist and just so you know, I love you better. And I actually, I was very moved by that. I was almost found myself weeping, something about these hard men of 20th century America saying soft, loving words. It really was very tender.

• 50:00Dominic Sandbrook?

  See, I think what's something that you really like, there's no question about this, you like basically very spare, hard boiled prose written by a man in which, as you say, hard men are struggling with steep sentimental emotions. Exactly.

• 50:17Speaker 02

  I do. I think that's touching. It does speak to me. Yeah. Yeah, sometimes it's hard for those of us with, you know, wills of steel and hearts of stone.

• 50:26Dominic Sandbrook?

  Right, of course.

• 50:27Speaker 02

  It's tough out there. So I was moved by that. And I thought it was a great motivator for Charles's evil. I was, I was kind of less convinced by the second generation. So this is Adam and his two sons. I thought the point there was kind of cow. Yes, he feels rejected by Adam, but I suppose Adam doesn't, it doesn't feel like he necessarily prefers one to the other. It just feels like he's brokenhearted by Cathy's betrayal. And also, it is interesting that fathers and sons are such a major theme in the book, because obviously Steinbeck had a very strained relationship with his own sons, but he also had a very strained relationship with his own father. He was also kind of a man of sunken ambitions. He owned a business that went bust. And, you know, he turned into that kind of father himself. So this must have been very therapeutic for him, writing all this.

• 51:10Dominic Sandbrook?

  I mean, Steinbeck's not terribly interested, we already mentioned, he's not terribly interested in motherhood. So either you're a stereotypical mother, like the Hamilton's mother, Liza, who's this sort of, she's like a mother from a kind of little house on the prairie or something. But let's get to the real sort of struggle at the heart of the book, which isn't necessarily father, sons or mothers, sons or whatever. It's actually... Good versus evil. This is what Steinbeck always said was the point of the book. And I quote, "I believe that there is one story in the world and only one. Humans are caught in their lives and their thoughts and their hungers and ambitions, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, in a net of good and evil. There is no other story. A man after he's brushed off the..." This is so kind of American prose in the 1950s.

• 51:52Dominic Sandbrook?

  "A man after he's brushed off the dust and chips of his life will have left only the hard, clean questions. Was it good or was it evil? Have I done well or ill?" Now, I may sound like I'm mocking that and I slightly am because I don't think that is the only story you can tell and I don't think that's the only subject of all literature.

• 52:10Speaker 02

  Of course, but it is a massive one.

• 52:13Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah.

• 52:13Speaker 02

  I mean, the big Russian authors like Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, all those guys, they're constantly grappling with the question of, you know, the evil in every human heart and how to live a good life and stuff like that. And no one ever criticizes them for being cliched.

• 52:26Dominic Sandbrook?

  I know you, I could see what you've written in your notes. I know you think I've got double standards on this.

• 52:31Speaker 02

  I do slightly believe in double standards, but also, I mean, the thing is, yeah, it may not be the only question. I don't think it is the only question. But just because it's kind of takes on this like mythical, greater than life quality in the book, it doesn't mean that, you know, in the day to day and people's like lives going about their daily business, it isn't something that everyone grapples with to some degree. It's just that you are, I think, too cynical, like in this way. You don't think ideas govern, you know, human lives or the course of human history. You think it's stuff like, you know, how much food people need or how the economy is doing and stuff. So this idea wouldn't chime with you very well. But I actually think, I like it. I think, I think just because it may be a bit cliched, it doesn't mean it's not valid or true.

• 53:15Dominic Sandbrook?

  Okay, fair enough. So we've already said that whether you can see good and evil clearly is a big theme, like basically characters who are rewarded, who are successful are those who can see both the beauty and the ugliness in people. So actually even Adam, who has deluded most of the book because he can only see the beauty, there was a moment when he goes to see his ex-wife at her brothel. It's a very...

• 53:39Speaker 02

  I've forgotten about that.

• 53:40Dominic Sandbrook?

  It's actually quite a powerful scene and he says to her, "You, you know, you think you're so great because you just see the evil in people and you are cynical and all of this. You're the Dominic Sandbrook of brothel owners."

• 53:53Speaker 02

  So that casts us in our true roles on the show. You are the Cathy of this podcast and I am the eternally kind and optimistic Adam Trask.

• 54:00Dominic Sandbrook?

  Well, Adam says to Cathy, you know, you know about the ugliness in people, but you don't know about the rest. You see only one side and you think more than that you're sure that that's all there is. There is a part of you missing. And I suppose by Starbuck's own lights, he's quite right, that he and Cathy are polar opposites and each of them only sees one side of human nature. And the clarity with which somebody like Cal, Adam's son, can see the complexity of human nature and he wrestles with his own demons, that elevates him. It makes him more successful as a character, because he is alive to both the good and the evil in human nature. He wrestles with this darkness within himself

• 54:40Dominic Sandbrook?

  and he's frightened, isn't he, that he will be trapped by his own nature? That, you know, that he basically sees the Cain and Abel pattern. He thinks, gosh, I'm Cain and I'm doomed to evil and doomed to...

• 54:53Speaker 02

  Yeah, I'm trapped. I'm trapped by my nature.

• 54:55Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah. And do you think that's, do you think people really think that's about themselves? Maybe they do.

• 55:00Speaker 02

  Well, I think that is genuinely something that people battle with. I think some people go through life terrified of there being something inside them that isn't, that has bad impulses. So I think that is true to life and I, that's why Cal is such a relatable character, I think, for anyone. You're lying if you think that you're good all the time. You're definitely not being honest if you say that you don't wrestle with yourself from time to time. But then the thing is, the other wonderful, hopeful part of this novel is that basically the crux of it all, this secret Hebrew word we've been alluding to throughout, it's all about freedom. It's about how we are in fact, free to choose not to be the darkness inside us, but rather the good side of us. And this is basically encapsulated by this word, Timshell.

• 55:45Dominic Sandbrook?

  It comes from a key line in Genesis, when God is talking to Cain and God says to Cain, "If thou doest well," this is the King James Version, "shalt thou not be accepted, and if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door, and unto thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt rule over him." Thou shalt rule over him is basically, if you're good, you will rule over sin. And if you're not, you won't. And basically, the three characters, Samuel Hamilton, Lee, the Chinese-American guy, who's basically a bit of a caricature, and Adam, they sit around for hours, don't they, talking about these, about Cain and Abel and about this sort of, what does it all mean?

• 56:26Speaker 02

  Biblical interpretations, yeah.

• 56:28Dominic Sandbrook?

  Biblical interpretation. It's like your divinity degree at Edinburgh, Tabby.

• 56:32Speaker 02

  Yeah, I was born for this.

• 56:33Dominic Sandbrook?

  So Lee, the Chinese bloke, he says to the others, right, I've taken this, I've taken this bit of the Bible to my Chinese elders. And they've consulted some sort of rabbinical authorities. And they've studied, they've spent two years studying the meaning of the Cain and Abel story so they can report back. And basically, the key word here is "timshel", which the King James translation says is "thou shalt", but in reality, it should be "thou mayest". And as Lee says to the other characters, that gives you a choice. It might be the most important word in the world that says the way is open. "Thou mayest". Why, that makes a man great. That gives him stature with the gods. For in his weakness and his filth and his murder of his brother, he still has the great choice.

• 57:18Dominic Sandbrook?

  He can choose his course and fight through and win. And Lee basically says, so Lee is given the role of the sort of dispenser of wisdom.

• 57:26Speaker 02

  Prophet, almost, yeah.

• 57:27Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah, exactly. And he says, this is what separates us from animals. We have the choice of good and evil. We're not trapped, we're not predestined. You might think you're going to be Cain, but actually, you, "thou mayest" means, this word "timshel" means, you could choose to be a good person. You're not defined by your heredity or by the role that you feel like you've been given. And this is amazingly exciting.

• 57:54Speaker 02

  And he says this to Cal, basically to say that you're not trapped, you're not, you don't have to follow in the footsteps of Cain. Just because your name is Cal and you're, you've got, you know, wickedness in your family, you can choose to be a good man. And this kind of liberates him. And obviously, you can see the appeal of a concept like this. Someone like Steinbeck, Steinbeck, you know, a man that had made mistakes throughout his life. He'd had a, you know, toxic and tumultuous personal life. He had had a negative relationship with his father and then had a negative relationship with his sons. You can see how emancipating and liberating this would be for a man like that. And then, you know, he's writing this for his sons.

• 58:38Speaker 02

  So to be able to tell them, you don't have to have the same relationship with your sons. You don't have to make the mistakes that I made. God, like you can see how um.

• 58:47Dominic Sandbrook?

  Liberating is.

• 58:47Speaker 02

  How liberating that would be. Yeah. I find it liberating.

• 58:51Dominic Sandbrook?

  But you know, the irony, Tabby, I hate to be the person who's constantly raining on your parade. I mean, I don't really, but I'm pretending I hate it just for the purposes of pleasing, pleasing the listeners.

• 59:00Dominic Sandbrook?

  Steinbeck was wrong, like that word is not, it doesn't even exist. It's not even a word, Timshell. The word is actually Timshiol. And I read an article about this in the Jewish Review of Books by Sheila Tullakaita. And she said, you know, actually, the original version was right and that Lee and Steinbeck are quite wrong. You know.

• 59:20Speaker 02

  Oh, ye of little faith. Do you not think that I have not contemplated your every single tricksy little argument you'd have to destroy this book? It's intentional. He's doing it intentionally. He's not like rewriting biblical interpretation. He's just, he's creating a philosophy and an idea in his book. You know, it's more than a word. He's creating a magical word in a way. A way to reshape the way that we see human nature and get put some more positive spin on things. I think he intended it to be mistranslated.

• 59:51Dominic Sandbrook?

  Okay, so when we get to the very last scene in the book, so which is basically.

• 59:55Speaker 02

  I actually cried the first time I read this.

• 59:57Dominic Sandbrook?

  Oh, Tabby, I'm gonna have to really dial down what I was gonna say now.

• 1:00:01Speaker 02

  No, no, let loose, let rip.

• 1:00:03Dominic Sandbrook?

  No, I, oh, well, Adam is dying, isn't he? And Cal comes in, so Cal, who basically has conspired or colluded in Aaron's death. He, he, by, by forcing Aaron to confront the truth about his mother. He effectively drove him to enlist in the army in the Great War. Aaron has been killed, the sort of telegram has arrived. Adam has had a stroke. He's lying in bed, he's dying. Lee brings in Cal, the bad guy, basically, and says, "Help him, Adam, help him. Give him his chance, let him be free. That's what a man has over the beast. Free him, bless him." And Adam does bless him. He whispers that word, "Tim shall thou mayest",

• 1:00:45Dominic Sandbrook?

  meaning you're not trapped by, you know, by fate. You can choose to be a good person, set yourself free and be a good person. I forgive you, all of this. And well, clearly, I was about to say, do you find it moving? But clearly, if you were crying, I mean, you weren't crying at the prose, you were crying at the

• 1:01:02Speaker 02

  The message.

• 1:01:04Dominic Sandbrook?

  The message. Yeah. So you did, so you do find this moving?

• 1:01:07Speaker 02

  I do find it moving firstly, because, you know, the idea of forgiveness is always moving. Whether that's like in War and Peace or whatever, when Natasha's forgiven on the deathbed or anything like that. And then, you know, it's a father dying, heartbroken, and then finding some degree of kind of hope and redemption in his wayward, prodigal son. So I do find that moving. But also, he's not actually being massively moralizing here, Steinbeck. I mean, he is, but he doesn't say, "Here's the moral question, believe it." It's a story, it's a conversation, it's actually a debate that runs throughout, like, are humans good or are they wicked? Does good get you anywhere in life? And the emotional reality of the book, you know, the death of a father whispering goodbye to his son,

• 1:01:50Speaker 02

  I think it outweighs the allegory or the symbolism of the idea of, you know, free will. And I don't think it is preachy. His voice is full of thought and doubt, it's intimate. And, you know, you love The Chronicles of Narnia, which has a big message at the heart of it. And this message is no, is no bigger and is just as subtly done, I think, and just as powerful. See, I use that word again.

• 1:02:14Dominic Sandbrook?

  It's that good. It's as good as The Chronicles of Narnia. I mean, that is good. All right. So I think listeners can tell that we probably don't quite agree on whether this book is a great book or not.

• 1:02:25Speaker 02

  This book has created the tension at the heart of the book club. We've never disagreed so much.

• 1:02:30Dominic Sandbrook?

  No, so Tabby stands with Oprah Winfrey.

• 1:02:33Speaker 02

  I do.

• 1:02:33Dominic Sandbrook?

  And I stand with the New York Times, as always. So we're gonna, we're gonna mark this. What are we gonna mark? We always, as part of our own commitment to subtlety.

• 1:02:45Speaker 02

  Yeah, sophistication.

• 1:02:46Dominic Sandbrook?

  We mark these books out of 10.

• 1:02:48Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:02:49Dominic Sandbrook?

  So I'm gonna appall you by giving it five out of 10.

• 1:02:52Speaker 02

  Oh, it's the lowest mark we've ever had.

• 1:02:55Dominic Sandbrook?

  So the critics in 1952, what they didn't like about it, the highbrow critics, they said they did not like the Hamilton family, they found them redundant, which I do. They found Cathy unbelievable, a sort of mad psychopathic prostitute turned madam. They didn't like Lee's profound eastern wisdom. And they found the Cain and Abel stuff too on the nose. And I agree with all of that. I agree with all of those things. That said, I know a lot of people love this book. And a lot, so not just you, and loads of people do find it moving. And they love the kind of family saga element to it. And I agree with you about this. I think particularly maybe as a British reader,

• 1:03:36Dominic Sandbrook?

  there is something always very appealing about these books set in kind of California, on the frontier, people hewing out a new life for themselves. So that's why I've managed to find five marks to give it out of 10, Tabby.

• 1:03:51Speaker 02

  That's kind. That's good of you.

• 1:03:53Dominic Sandbrook?

  But I know that you are gonna give it a massive score. And feel free, you know, be my guest.

• 1:03:59Speaker 02

  Well, thanks. I'm gonna give it a nine out of 10. As you said, I love books set in this kind of part of America, set during this time period. I love Steinbeck's writing. It's kind of, it's so simple and spare and plain. And yet it conveys incredible delicacy of thought and incredibly delicate descriptions. And like this delicacy delivered in this kind of hard masculine voice, it kind of cuts to the quick. I love the descriptions of the Salinas Valley. You know, moving through the seasons, I like the message at the heart of it. I think it's a hopeful one, the idea that people can change. As you say, I love the family saga element. I actually thought the Hamiltons added a kind of nice domesticity to it that otherwise would make it just a book scene from the bird's eye view, maybe. And I read

• 1:04:43Speaker 02

  something that said that it captured the vast confusion of life. And that's how I feel about it. But I'm deducting a mark because I found Aaron and Lee a bit boring.

• 1:04:52Dominic Sandbrook?

  Our first proper disagreement, and the first, I hope, of many.

• 1:04:55Speaker 02

  Exciting.

• 1:04:57Dominic Sandbrook?

  And by the way, people should, on Instagram, on X or whatever, we'd like to hear your own thoughts.

• 1:05:02Speaker 02

  Express the fact that you agree with me.

• 1:05:04Dominic Sandbrook?

  I know they will agree with you. I mean, there's no question they'll agree with you. I mean, I should never have done this show, because I've just opened. I've just opened myself up to abuse from Tabby's stands. So what we've got coming up, I think some books that we'll agree on a little bit more. Certainly, the first one, The Hound of the Baskervilles is what we're doing next week. And then we are doing A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas, and we shall probably be discussing the whole genre of romanticy and why it appeals to so many people at the moment. The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins, Beloved by Toni Morrison, Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf. I'm looking forward to that.

• 1:05:46Dominic Sandbrook?

  And after that, and another big change of tone, The Hunger Games. I don't actually know who wrote The Hunger Games. Who wrote The Hunger Games?

• 1:05:52Speaker 02

  Suzanne Collins.

• 1:05:53Dominic Sandbrook?

  Suzanne Collins. That's an indictment of my literary knowledge that I don't know.

• 1:05:56Speaker 02

  You knew that. You're just pretending.

• 1:05:58Dominic Sandbrook?

  I was just pretending. It's one of my favourite books. So we're always keen to hear your views. And if there is, by some weird mischance, somebody out there who agrees with me and not Tabby, I'm particularly keen to hear from you. All right, Tabby, thank you very much, and goodbye.

• 1:06:16Speaker 02

  Bye.

• 1:06:26Speaker 00

  Now, more than ever, we need someone on our side. But Rob Whitman? Whitman's votes drove up costs, cut Medicaid, and risked 350,000 Virginians' health care to pay for tax breaks for himself and his donors. He's not on our side. Shannon Taylor will fight corruption, cut taxes, and bring down costs. This November, vote for Shannon Taylor. She's for us. Paid for by HMP, the HousemanJodyPac.com. Not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee.