Thursday, June 6, 2019

Back to the Classics Challenge: Cannery Row and The Scapegoat

I read two books for the Back to the Classics category “Classic from a Place You’ve Lived” for the Back to the Classics 2019 Challenge hosted by Karen at the blog Books and Chocolate and both are thanks to Jane who blogs at Reading, Writing, Working, Playing who encouraged me to read Cannery Row by John Steinbeck back when I posted my potential list in January 2019 and who wrote such an appealing review of The Scapegoat by Daphne du Maurier last month that I was impelled to read it right away. I even had an old Book of the Month hardcover edition of it, inherited from my mother. Another encouragement to read both was the fact that Cannery Row is so short; It wasn't stressful to read both books

The Scapegoat takes place in France (in a village called St. Gilles somewhere in the Northwest) and I lived in Bordeaux, France for a year in the late 1980s when I was in college. Later in the early 1990s I lived for a year in Monterey, California. I know I visited Cannery Row at least once while there, but I only remember it as being very “touristy”. I have fonder memories of the Monterrey Aquarium.

My journey through Steinbeck’s works has been up and down. I first read Travels with Charley, which I loved. But then I read East of Eden which I didn’t love. But when I read The Grapes of Wrath a few years ago, I was very impressed with the writing and that positive impression carries over to Cannery Row as well. The descriptions are vibrant and colorful.

Cannery Row in Monterey in California is a poem, a stink, a grating noise, a quality of light, a tone, a habit, a nostalgia, a dream. Cannery Row is the gathered and scattered, tin and iron and rust and splintered wood, chipped pavement and weedy lots and junk heaps, sardine canneries of corrugated iron, honky tonks, restaurants and whore houses, and little crowded groceries, and laboratories and flophouses. Its inhabitant are, as the man once said, "whores, pimps, gamblers and sons of bitches," by which he meant Everybody. Had the man looked through another peephole he might have said, "Saints and angels and martyrs and holymen" and he would have meant the same thing. 
The book is collection of semi-connected vignettes about the inhabitants of the row, most featuring Doc, a marine biologist/procurer of marine animals, Mack the leader of a crew of lay-abouts, Lee Chong, the grocer. There is virtually no plot. At best, one could say that it is about Mack and the boys wanting to throw a party for Doc which goes awry. In some cases, Steinbeck borders on clichés with some of his characters, particularly that of the hooker with a heart of gold, but generally I found the characters to be realistically flawed and it was clear that Steinbeck had a real affection for all of them, whatever their moral weaknesses.

My history with du Maurier is equally mixed. In brief, no book has quite lived up to Rebecca in my estimation. But nonetheless, The Scapegoat was an interesting and propulsive read and boy does it have a plot! Two men meet by chance in Le Mans, France and they are by all accounts identical. One is an Englishman named John, a professor of French history whose command of the language is that of a native. The other is a French count called Jean.  I won’t say how, but in true soap opera tradition, they end up switching places.                                                                                            The book then follows mild mannered John who sees the chance to live another person’s life both a challenge and freeing. John is an orphan and a loner who has always had difficulty connecting to other people. When he steps into the rather profligate Jean de Gue’s shoes, he is thrust into a complicated familial and cultural situation that invigorates him. The book almost reads as a thriller as John navigates one tricky situation after the next. And at any time, the real Jean could return and then what? The Scapegoat’s plot is completely implausible yet du Maurier makes it believable.  My only niggle was the ending but not because it was a bad; it just didn’t end the way I wanted it to.  

15 comments:

  1. I've never read Travels with Charley, although I intended to at one point. I've never read Cannery Row for some reason, so it is interesting to see your opinion. After Rebecca, I think my favorite by Du Maurier was Frenchman's Creek, and while it has been decades since I read it, I think that as much as I liked it as an adolescent, the ending was not what I wanted either. Even with your caveat about the ending of The Scapegoat, I'm still interested. :)

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    1. Thanks for the comment jenclair! Go read Jane's review of the Scapegoat and then you will really want to read it!

      I've not read Frenchman's Creek but I plan on getting to it one of these days. :D

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  2. Hi Ruthiella, I enjoy books where authors take to the road to find themselves or America and Travels With Charley and another book Blue Highways are my favorite in that genre. Never read Cannery Rowe and your fine review makes me want to. As I understand Doc is based on Steinbeck's great friend Ed Ricketts who was a marine biologist.

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    1. Thanks for the comment Kathy! I like road trip books too. :D

      I read that about Ed Ricketts too. I suspect a lot of Cannery Row is based on Steinbeck's real experiences when he lived in the area as a young man.

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  3. Yay for you! Two more classics read. I keep meaning to read more of Steinbeck's novels. And du Maurier's, too. But life and other books always seem to intrude. Have you ever read Tortilla Flat by Steinbeck? It's one I'm hoping to read this year. :)

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    1. Thanks for the comment Lark! I've not read Tortilla Flat yet. But it sounds a little like Cannery Row in that it's a series of stories about down and out folks. I hope you like it if you get to it. :D

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  4. My experience with Steinbeck sounds like it was about yours: I started with Travels With Charley, and that may still be my favorite. But I thought Cannery Row was an awfully good one. Have you tried Of Mice and Men? A tragedy, but very powerful. That would be high on my list of Steinbeck, too.

    OTOH, East of Eden...uh, Cathy, uh...East of Eden...

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    1. Thanks for the comment reese! I've not read Of Mice and Men yet, though I more or less know the story already through osmosis.

      Yes, Cathy's one-dimension (evil) didn't work for me in East of Eden. That I remember. And I found the biblical symbolism a little heavy handed. But I read it decades ago. Maybe I would feel differently now.

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    2. I've been thinking about rereading it myself, but because I bought a copy of Steinbeck's Journal of a Novel last fall, his letters to his editor when he was writing the novel. It would make a good pairing.

      There were things I liked about East of Eden, but Cathy's one dimensionality was hard to take. I don't recall minding the symbolism, but I have no doubt it was heavy-handed.

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  5. Glad you read both of these! Isn't that opening to Cannery Row sublime? Yes, the modern incarnation of Cannery Row is pretty touristy, and I agree that the aquarium is far superior in terms of wow factor.

    With regards to Tortilla Flats, I was very disappointed in it, and I am a Steinbeck fan. In a way, it felt like a first draft of Cannery Row--little charm, lots of stereotypes, fairly flat.

    Yes, the Scapegoat is a thriller. I liked the ending--it surprised me, but I found it satisfying, although I know others disagree :)

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  6. Thanks for the comment Jane (and the inspiration)!

    Maybe I will move on to Of Mice and Men instead of Tortilla Flats when I next select a Steinbeck title.

    The ending to The Scapegoat is surprising. I was hoping for the expected, more conventional ending I think.

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  7. Alright. Now I must read, if not both, Cannery Row for sure. In an imaginary Steinbeck bingo, we will all be calling "like it", and "don't like it" at different times, ha ha ha. Of Mice and Men, for me, "don't like it", East of Eden, "like it", and The Winter of our Discontent, "loved it". The quote is pure Steinbeck, the duplicity of human nature, the emotionally charged landscapes, his enveloping prose, like a hug. I don't know why, this man loved all his imperfect people. And a short book of his without plot, sure, bring it on!

    As for Du Maurier, Rebecca is impossible to beat. Having only read that one and Jamaica Inn, and The King's General, I must say that though okay, the other two never wowed me as Rebecca does. But this title, The Scapegoat, sounds intriguing.

    (I'm behind in my Back to the Classics, I think, for the first time. Maybe I make it, though, if I shuffle some titles. I don't know.)

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    1. Thanks for the comment Silvia! You can catch up. It's only 1/2 through the year and you only need to read 6 books to qualify! :D

      Loved this: "this man loved all his imperfect people". That really does come across in Cannery Row.

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  8. I read some Steinbeck in my late teens & I remember thinking they were good but I have no idea which books they were. I also can't remember anything about them!
    The Scapegoat sounds interesting but as you say, Rebecca sets a pretty high standard.

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    1. Thanks for the comment Carol! I was reading only Stephan King as a teenager, so that's great you read Steinbeck, even if you can't remember it.

      Yes, Rebecca is a high standard to match! :D

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