Still As Good The Fifth Time, As The First!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

                                 "East Of Eden" occupies a somewhat precarious position in the post-war literary realm.  On one side, I think this was the epic, dystopian novel Ross Lockridge was aiming for, but failed to achieve, in his 1948 popular success, "Raintree County," today best remembered as a 1957 film, starring Elizabeth Taylor.  Steinbeck published his novel in 1952, to better literary success than Lockridge, yet it predates William March's "The Bad Seed," by two years.  Rhoda Penmark defined childhood evil, but, in tracing the life of Cathy Ames in 'Eden,' Steinbeck gives us a look at a potentially grown up version of Rhoda Penmark.  And it is not pretty.

                                  It is amazing to me how this book reached publication in 1952. It depicts explicit childhood sex play, self-abortion, patricide, three suicides, and psycho sexual depravity.  Forget "Fifty Shades Of Grey," darlings, the better written "East Of Eden" has it beaten by miles.

                                  I have always wondered who narrates it, in my early readings of it, and now I know.  It is a fictional version of the author, John Steinbeck, son of Olive Hamilton and Ernest Steinbeck, who chronicles his family's history--involving the Hamiltons, Trasks, Steinbecks, and, to a lesser extent, the Ames'.

                                    It is a generation saga, par excellence.  But it is also a biblical allegory, repeating over two generations, via Adam and Charles, and then Cal and Aron, the story of Cain and Abel.  Note carefully the initials of the first names.  The Hamiltons , especially Sam and his wife Liza, and Abra Bacon, childhood friend of Cal and Aron, (Julie Harris played her in the 1955 Elia Kazan film) not to mention Adam's Chinese manservant and cook, Lee, represent humanity's good, and bolster Adam Trask through experiences one person should not be asked to handle.  But when "East Of Eden" turns its mind on Evil, I have to say it goes hog wild.

                                    Forget Mr. Edwards, the whoremaster.  He is the least of it.

Without Catherine Ames, later Cathy, ending up as Kate, the novel would have no spine.  Steinbeck modeled aspects of her on the woman of his failed second marriage, Gwyndolyn Conger.  I cannot believe Gwyn was quite as bad as Cathy; I think Steinbeck projected his disenchantment over the failure of that marriage, here.  He knew he needed a woman figure to represent Eve and Satan, so he took some of Gwyn, and enlarged it into Cathy.  If you only know the 1955 film, where Jo Van Fleet, a middle aged actress then, won an Oscar for playing Kate, then you do not know this character, whose back story shows how evil she was from the start.  I am surprised reviewers of March's novel did not pick up on Cathy having preceded Rhoda.

This portrait of her is perfect. One can see the evil and venality beneath the surface prettiness. Look at the eyes, and the shape of the mouth.  That is evil in all its chilling actuality!!!!!!!!!!

Cathy is all about evil as power.  My favorite piece of her nastiness is when she sexually entices her Latin teacher, Mr. James Grew, and then drives him to suicide, after the guilt ridden man knocks on the Ames' door, but gets no response, save to go away.  Many of us, in adolescence, have power fantasies over the adults in our lives, but few act them out.  When, in later years, she is Kate, she keeps a photo dossier, of all her most renowned clients--the citizenry who embody the town's moral compass--and the sexual acts they engage in.  I wish Steinbeck had allowed Cathy to unleash this chain of events; of course, the world is filled with hypocrisy, and while it may seem Cathy wants to wipe it out, her reasons are anything but moral--she wants to destroy!!!!!!!!!!!!

Is Cathy a misogynistic character?  Some might say so, though her hatred of all mankind is certainly equal opportunity.  She hates her own sex, as much as she does herself.  Her fascination with disappearing, like "Alice In Wonderland" is an interesting way of how she feels being inconspicuous is a power tool, not unlike the Snake, in the Garden of Eden.

As the novel climaxes, the story shifts to Adam and his sons, Cal and Aron.  This is the part most know as the movie.  Cal (played by James Dean) is seething with the torment of knowing whose child he is, and that he has her blood in him, and that everything he does bad is because of her.  This is where the book gets into a lot of philosophizing about free will, which is necessary to the story's conclusion, and gives the gateway to Cal understanding that just because there is evil in his blood, he is not necessarily evil.  Same with Aron, who goes about the book as Mr. Purity, having no idea who his mother is--yet is destroyed by it, when he finds out.  Yet it is Aron, who resembles Kate most, who gets her to attend church, and she who leaves her estate to him, when she dies.  One question "East Of Eden" never answers is, who, if anyone got Kate's estate?  Aron's traumatic encounter with her, initiated by Cal, causes him to run away from home, and join the Army--World War I--where he is killed.  This, in turn, destroys Adam, who loses whom he considers his favored child, but, through Lee and Abra, he and Cal are brought to a level of love and acceptance of one another, which the book ends on with a beautiful word--"Timshel," meaning "Thou Mayest."  Cal gets his father's love and acceptance at the end, finally realizing he had it all along.

This is one of the most insightful novels written about human dynamics.  Steinbeck probes his characters' assets and flaws, but, in the end, the choices are theirs.  One of the saddest, which I had forgotten, is the tragic suicide of Tom Hamilton.  He was the farmer of the family, and lived a nomadic existence, like Adam's brother, Charles, on his farm back in Connecticut.  Tom has a beloved sister, Dessie, living in Salinas, CA, and depressed from a broken marriage, or relationship, she never talks about.  She sells her house to Adam and his boys, and moves in with her brother.  Shortly after moving in, she becomes drastically ill in the stomach--I thought it was cancer, but it turns out to be appendicitis.  The loving Tom, clueless to anything medical, gives her salts, which, of course, turn against her, and the doctor cannot save her.  Tom cannot reconcile himself to Dessie's death, which he feels he engineered.  He sees himself as Dessie's killer, and, unable to live with the death of his beloved sister, takes his life, a week after her funeral.  I cried copiously, here.

The last suicide in the book is Kate's, which takes place the night Aron encounters her, and runs to the Army.  She is not aware of that; what I think drives Kate to suicide is the idea that someone genuinely good actually came out of her.  She looks upon goodness as a weakness, and, upset at seeing Aron's goodness destroyed before her eyes, and unable to acknowledge there may be a kernel--but just a kernel--of good in her, she cannot live with this, and kills herself.

Steinbeck's descriptive passages are as lyrical as in "The Grapes Of Wrath."  But, in character, and narrative scope, "East Of Eden" is much more encompassing.  The more I read it, and I expect there will be at least one more time, the more I think the accolade "Great American Novel" should be applied  to it.

And it offers me hope, who, like Cal, questions, the good and evil rampant in me.

For those who wrestle with ourselves, "East Of Eden" is a bane of comfort--if you have to question your evil, you probably are not, and can be proud of the choices you have made.

I can tell you, I am.