So long.

This is one of those books you had to read in 9th grade, largely because it was by a famous author and it's short enough that teachers figure students might actually finish it. If you haven't read it since, give it another try. The relationship between George and Lennie is one of the most beautiful, and oft imitated, in all of literature and the themes of love, friendship, loyalty, courage and the dream of a better life are both timeless and compelling.

GRADE: A+

I would not recommend this book as an introduction to Steinbeck. If you have never read Steinbeck your time will be better spent reading the Grapes of Wrath. I think it works best for those of us who have read other Steinbeck works and/or those who wish to have better understanding of the peoples and ecology of the Sea of Cortez.

I read this book while preparing to follow the footsteps of Steinbeck and Ricketts to the Sea of Cortez (the Gulf of California).

I was living, at the time, in 'Steinbeck Country,' Monterey, California--where Ed 'Doc' Ricketts kept his lab (referred to in "Cannery Row.").

In this book, "The Log From the Sea of Cortez," Steinbeck sheds his fiction-writer persona, and regales his readers with the story of his trip, which Ricketts initiated for scientific purposes.

The thing that interested me the most, aside from the descriptive passages about the area in question, was the juxtaposition of Ed Rickett's pragmatism and Steinbeck's unabashed idealism and populism. Steinbeck comes across as a flaming socialist--not too surprising, considering "The Grapes of Wrath" and some of his other works.

The friendship of these two men, despite the radical differences in their philosophies, is intriguing.

If you are a fan of Steinbeck's fiction, this book will give you more insight into his character and philosophy than any of his other books save, perhaps, "Travels With Charlie," which came much later.

Such is the case with the columns that were composed while Mr. Steinbeck was a war correspondent in the European Theatre of operations during World War Two.

The columns are not blow-by-blow accounts of great battles. They aren't closely focused on the physical and emotional plight of the soldier, as were the columns of Ernie Pyle.

Instead, they capture the auras and subtleties of both big and little events. "What it's like" is the best description of these slices of war life, nobody puts you there better, nobody captures the mood of a place more vividly.

What it's like to be one of thousands of soldiers stretch across the deck or house in the bowels of a troop carrier, destination unknown? What's it like to sit through an air raid during the blitz?

Or, a few columns take a lighter approach. In one, he salutes the incredible durability and dedication of Bob Hope and his USO shows. Another details the American soldier's skill in growing vegetable gardens. Another muses about the popularity of the German song "Lillie Marlene" among both Nazi and Allied troops.

And some columns delve into deeper territory, such as his theory as to why so few men who have been in battle talk about it.

Steinbeck did not spend a great deal of time as a war correspondent. The columns were cabled back to the states between June and December, 1943.

But each one is a little jewel of journalism. What else would you expect from America's finest writer?

Steinbeck was very clear that he did not capture the essence of battle. Indeed, he wrote very clearly about the self-protective amnesia that descends after traumatic experiences (198-200).

What should have been the most important part of the book collecting his 1942-43 reporting, the introduction, seems to have been skipped by some readers. "We were all a part of the War Effort," Steinbeck recalled in 1958. "We went along with it, and not only that, we abetted it. Gradually it became a part of all of us that the truth about anything was automatically secret and that to trifle with it was to interfere with the War Effort. By this I don't mean that the correspondents were liars. They were not. In the pieces in this book everything set down happened. It is in the things not mentioned that the truth lies" Whether he was fully aware that he was producing propaganda when he filed the dispatches (which were censored as well as self-censored), Steinbeck was candid: "We edited ourselves much more than we were edited. We felt responsible to what was called the home front. There was a general feeling that unless the home front was carefully protected from the whole account of what war was like, it might panic. Also we felt we had to protect the armed services from criticism, or they might retire to their tents to sulk like Achilles. . . . Yes, we wrote only a part of the war, but at the time we believed, fervently believed, that it was the best thing to do. And perhaps that is why, when the war was over, novels and stories by ex-soldiers, like The Naked and the Dead, proved so shocking to a public which had been carefully protected from contact with the crazy hysterical mess". It is particularly unfortunate that Steinbeck's friend LBJ did not study these pages.

This compilation of reports from England, North Africa and Italy in 1943 provides excellent descriptions of what life was really like during the war. There are very few recounts of battles and strategy. But there are stories of the people that were involved in the war - the souls behind the uniforms. Steinbeck does an excellent job showing that the war wasn't just made up of nameless soldiers - it was made up of people, each with personalities, each scared, each struggling to deal with life in such hostile conditions.

Aside from the historical value, these posts are amazingly well written. I have to admit I was reasonably surprised by the quality of writing. Steinbeck is an accomplished author, and on that I think everyone can agree, but to be able to put pieces like this together in London during the Blitz, in the deserts of North Africa or on a troop ship heading into the European theater is amazing to me.

Bottom line: I've got a new respect for John Steinbeck and an added appreciation and understanding of WWII. For both of those, I am grateful for having read this book.

Again, it's a good book, and well worth reading.

Joe Saul is a man, he could be any man, an acrobat, a farmer, a sailor, who has a deep desire to have a child of his body - but can he?

The story shimmers with violent energy, barely repressed. It truely 'burns bright' with emotion, clear and confused, painful yet tender, loving yet savage.

Without giving the story away, the three act structure is incredibly important to the theme of the story/play - Steinbeck is perhaps one of the most intelligent writers in thinking a theme right through, and crafting his work to reflect the theme on more than one level.

I read East of Eden when I was a high school freshman in 1994. The book is an allegory on how the lives of people can remarkably parallel events of Biblical history, as shown in the multi-generational and often intertwined family saga(s) of the Trasks and Hamiltons, who live in Salinas Valley, California. The events include two generations of rivalries between polar-opposite brothers, both of which culiminate in one killing the other's; a husband's and wife's fall from paradise; and various characters' discovery and awareness of evil..

The drama is laced with Steinbeck's interesting, though not Judeo-Christian, theological views.

The first two stories are the kind of works that English teachers love to assign; they involve women trying to break out of social roles. In the first story, Steinbeck starts his tale with: "The high grey-flannel fog of winter closed off the Salinas Valley from the sky and from all the rest of the world. On every side it sat like a lid on the mountains and made of the great valley a closed pot." Obviously, someone is trapped. I don't care for these two stories because I've read so many like them over the years, usually at the threatening point of a grading pen.

But as the book progresses, I quickly discovered that Steinbeck is an excellent writer. My favorite stories were "The Harness," "Johnny Bear," "Saint Katy the Virgin," and "The Red Pony." In "Johnny Bear," Steinbeck writes a freaky tale about an idiot savant that has an odd talent, much to the chagrin of the community. I figured out how it was going to end ahead of time, but it was still great fun. "Saint Katy the Virgin" is a strange tale, set in the Middle Ages, about a pig who converts to Christianity. This story does seem to be a criticism of the Catholic Church, but there is enough ambiguity in it to make me wonder if the story is actually pro-religion.

"The Red Pony," which is actually a cycle of four stories, has to be the best of the lot. I seriously believe Steinbeck could have made a comfortable living by turning this into a series. The stories focus on Jody, a boy living on a ranch in California. What impressed me most about these stories is the emphasis placed on discipline, hard work, and clean living. Along the way, Jody learns valuable lessons about death, old age, and respect for his elders. While reading about Jody, it is impossible not to draw comparisons with the pampered youth of our era. Almost no child living in this country today could maintain the patience Jody shows while waiting for the birth of his colt.

I thought Steinbeck would be stodgy reading; I was quite worried when I pulled this off the shelf and made a go of it. I can't say I'm going to dive right into his other works right away, but if his other stuff matches up to some of the stories here, they will be good reading.

I found that in reading the early parts of the novel, the stories were variable in quality. The one concerning Shark Wells, over-protective of his daughter, I thought was particularly good, but the one about the character Tularecito I thought was little better than a fairy tale. Yet, as I read on I thought that the stories became stronger, more consistent in their quality. It was as if Steinbeck was becoming more confident, both in his style and themes.

Whilst "The Pastures of Heaven" is not nearly as good as Steinbeck's best writing, overall it's still not bad, and it was interesting to see some development of his style.

G Rodgers

Although every story in the book has something to recommend it (I can't imagine any reader not liking at least several of them), I especially enjoyed one, labeled Chapter VI. (The story must have had particular resonance for Steinbeck as well, since he later published it separately in a private edition entitled "Nothing So Monstrous" and added an epilogue.) About a widower who faces the community's disapproval of the unorthodox way he raises his son, this edisode will haunt me for some time. The price of the book is worth this "chapter" alone.

I devoured it at 8 and--except for "Travels With Charley"--still love it more than anything else Steinbeck wrote. The crystal-clear (to a grownup) allusions to prostitution & incest went right over my innocent head, but the utterly believable characters, their names, their haunting stories, the image of how that beautiful green valley must have looked to the pioneers after their ordeal of mountains & desert, have stayed with me for almost 60 years.

I'm now going to order a copy to replace the barely-hanging-together one still inscribed "From Mom & Dad, Christmas 1944". In fact I'm going to order one for all my 5 children's family libraries.

This book takes us through many years, and many places. Much of it is well known. It's really great when the topic is a personal friend, or an unsuspecting stranger (the article written after the death of Ed Ricketts, or the article about a French village in the Alps shortly after World War II). It gives a consistent voice to the views of one man and his reaction to the world around him. Much of it has been popular from time to time, and much of it has always been unpopular with a certain group of people. It would be easier to pick out the 'good' from the 'bad' is they were arranged chronologically, but they are not. If you are a fan of good writing, the whole book is 'good.' If you want to admire what Lee (in East of Eden) called 'clean thinking' skip the end. By the time I got to the middle of 'America and Americans' (about the last quarter of the book) it was getting old, and frankly I love Steinbeck's fiction so much that I could not finish it. By that time, it had become a litany of the complaints of my father, and the music was gone.

Critics argue about how great a writer Steinbeck was. One of their greatest criticisms was that he was too popular, or that he wrote for a popular following. That may be a valid criticism, and it may be one of the best reasons for reading his work. Which ever it is for you, it is here in abundance. The intimate details, the exacting prose, and the popular viewpoint. Whatever else we think, there is a Steinbeck voice that is unique, and worthy.

The strongest point in Steinbeck's writing is the sense of place. This book of non-fiction presents the land and the people. The real people and places who became Joad's, or Trask's, or sheriff's, are here in vivid detail. The Salinas of his youth, New York, France, Italy, traffic in Rome, and seaside villages are all vivid and inviting.

If you have read "The Harvest Gypsies" "The Log From the Sea of Cortez" "The Grapes of Wrath" or "East of Eden" many of the things in here will be familiar. If you have not, read this book. It may make them more appealing.

Always he wrote about his impressions, primarily of people. The best pieces in this collection are not accounts of foreign wars but of people in distinct places. Like Steinbeck's life, the book begins with Salinas, California, continues through San Francisco and New York City to Sag Harbor on Long Island, where Steinbeck lived in the 1950s and 60s. In the "Journalist Abroad" section there are strong pieces on people in Positano and Ireland. And there is a section on friends (all male, of course) including a long memoir of his idol and naturalist mentor, Ed Ricketts, and short but very illuminating memoirs of the popular WWII correspondent Ernie Pyle and the photographer Robert Capa (who accompanied Steinbeck on his Russian visit), plus concise tributes to Adlai Stevenson as an orator and to Henry Fonda as an actor.

The section "On writing" is regrettably short, and the selections of WWII colums from _Once There Was a War_ (a book which is in print) are mystifyingly missing the best ones, which Steinbeck wrote during the invasion of Italy. The Vietnam reports are unconvincing propaganda from what he presented as a war against Mao. (Brezhnev, perhaps, but not Mao!)

Many of the pieces are entertaining in the mock heroic Steinbeck manner of _Tortilla Flat_ and _Travels with Charley_ and some are moving. The text "America and Americans" had little impact. It certainly has not supplanted Tocqueville's analysis of democracy in America, but is not without interest. As generally for Steinbeck in fiction or nonfiction, the description of particular individuals is more interesting than the generalizations.

The editors provide useful introductions to the sections, but must think that Steinbeck's ideas and craft of the 1960s was the same as those of the 1930s. It is difficult but not impossible to find out when a particular piece was published but this vital information is not included in either the table of contents or with the title of the pieces.

This 400+ page collection also has seven thematic chapters that explore Steinbeck's nonfiction and journalistic writing in these topic areas: places he loved, socio-political struggles, the craft of writing, friends and friendship, travel abroad, being a war correspondent, and miscellanea. This is great bedside reading: something delicious to dip into, eloquent and thoughtful, and one can jump around.

The editors are both noted Steinbeck scholars who are making this man accessible to the common people (we, the salt of the earth, whom he champions and celebrates in so many of his writings). Perhaps I am partial to John Steinbeck because I live in "Steinbeck Country," but I still think his works deserve our attention and study in the 21st century. He had a lot of significant insights--this book is a wonderful follow-up for those who have only yet experienced his fiction.