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| Edition: | Wheeler Publishing (Hardcover) |
| Author: | John Steinbeck |
| Published: | January 2004 |
| Pages: | 885 |
| ISBN 10: | 1587245620 |
| Used: | $14.90 (7) |
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East of Eden is a novel by Nobel Prize winner John Steinbeck, published in September 1952.
Often described as Steinbeck's most ambitious novel, East of Eden brings to life the intricate details of two families, the Trasks and the Hamiltons, and their interwoven stories. The novel was originally addressed to Steinbeck's young sons, Thom and John (then 6½ and 4½ respectively). Steinbeck wanted to describe the Salinas Valley for them in detail: the sights, sounds, smells, and colors.
The Hamilton family in the novel is said to be based on the real-life family of Samuel Hamilton, Steinbeck's maternal grandfather. A young John Steinbeck also appears briefly in the novel as a minor character.
According to his last wife Elaine, he considered this to be a requiem for himself—his greatest novel ever. Steinbeck stated about East of Eden: "It has everything in it I have been able to learn about my craft or profession in all these years." He further claimed: "I think everything else I have written has been, in a sense, practice for this."
Plot summary
The story is primarily set in the Salinas Valley, California, between the beginning of the 20th century and the end of the Great War (World War I), though some chapters are in Connecticut and Massachusetts, and the story goes as far back as the American Civil War.
In the beginning of East of Eden, before introducing his characters, John Steinbeck carefully establishes the setting with a description of the Salinas Valley in Northern California.
Adam Trask, after a tumultuous childhood in the East and enduring harsh treatment from his younger brother, Charles, spends his time first in the military and then wandering the country. He is caught for vagrancy and asks Charles for 100 dollars. Charles reveals that their father has died and now they have an inheritance of 50,000 dollars each. When the brothers live together at the family farm in Connecticut, they find Cathy Ames, a viciously beaten woman, on their doorstep. Adam falls in love with her, and soon marries her.
Samuel Hamilton and his wife Liza, immigrants from Ireland, raise their nine children on the rough infertile hillside. As the Hamilton children leave the nest, Adam Trask — newly wed and newly rich after inheriting considerable wealth from his deceased father, Cyrus Trask — settles with a pregnant Cathy into a large and fertile plot near the Hamilton plot. Shortly after Cathy gives birth to twins, she shoots Adam in the shoulder and flees. Adam recovers and raises his children with the help of his Cantonese cook, Lee.
Meanwhile, Cathy becomes a prostitute at a brothel in the city of Salinas. She renames herself Kate to avoid recognition, and eventually becomes the owner of the most "respectable" brothel in the area, after killing its former owner, Faye, who had called Kate her daughter and said that she would inherit all her wealth. Kate makes the brothel infamous for its brutal treatment of clients. Samuel Hamilton later reveals Cathy's whereabouts to Adam, hoping that the truth will not kill him but set him free. Adam later visits Cathy during a trip, and Cathy (now Kate) reveals to him that his brother Charles is possibly the biological father of his two boys. First edition title page - 1952
Adam's sons, named Caleb (Cal) and Aaron (Aron) — after their namesakes in the Bible — grow up oblivious of their mother's situation, with Cal pursuing a career in business with Will Hamilton, one of Samuel's sons, and Aron going to college to become an Episcopalian priest. Aron goes on to become very popular among the townspeople, while Cal goes on to become a recluse. At a very early age, Aron meets a popular girl named Abra from a well-to-do family, and the two fall in love. Cal finds out about his mother from a drunken acquaintance of his father, and goes to meet her; Kate learns of her two children, and recognizes Cal's similarity to herself in mindset and similarity to Charles in appearance.
Adam becomes inspired by Samuel Hamilton's inventiveness and begins to come up with ideas on how to transport produce across the country using iceboxes on trains. The plan fails, causing Adam and his family, now living in Salinas, to lose most of their wealth. To give a gift to his father — admittedly to buy his father's love — Cal works with Will Hamilton to make his father's money back, capitalizing on World War I by selling beans grown in the Salinas Valley to nations in Europe for a considerable premium.
Aron returns from Stanford for Thanksgiving. At dinner, Cal gives his father the money, but Adam refuses to accept the money and tells him to give it back to the poor farmers he exploited. Adam adds
- I would have been so happy if you could have given me — well, what your brother has — pride in the thing he's doing, gladness in his progress. Money, even clean money, doesn't stack up with that.
and concludes with
- If you want to give me a present — give me a good life. That would be something I could value.
In a fit of jealousy, Cal takes his brother to see their mother, knowing it will be a shock to Aron (who is still under the belief that she had died and was buried on the East Coast). Aron, his idealistic world view shattered, enlists in the army to fight in World War I. He is killed in battle in the last year of the war, and Adam suffers a stroke upon hearing the news from Lee. Cal, who later befriends Abra after Aron leaves for war, tells her why Aron left and tries to convince her to run away with him. She instead persuades him to return home.
The novel ends with a bedridden Adam giving Cal his blessing in the form of the word Timshel! (a Hebrew word said in the novel to mean 'thou mayest'), alluding to the point that Cal may have the ability to conquer his evil nature.
