Steinbeck's Cannery Row

[Cole]

I was just thinking about all the similarites between HOL and Steinbeck's Cannery Row. Jonny worked at a cannery. He is in a constant state of depression, they find a dead man. Too many to list. I'm going to have to go back through and re-read cannery row to make the correct references.
-Cole

[kingfrogger]

Cole:

Never read "Cannery Row," but I'm interested in your analysis. If/when you get done reading Steinbeck, please post any more similarities you find, and let me know... it might inspire me to read Steinbeck, something I haven't done in a looong time.

Good luck! images/smiles/icon_cool.gif images/smiles/icon_cool.gif images/smiles/icon_cool.gif images/smiles/icon_cool.gif images/smiles/icon_cool.gif

[Angelhaunt]

I just came across this late last night.

In Steinbeck's East of Eden there is the following passage:

"On the edge of the field stood a little pump house, and a willow tree flourished beside it. . . . The long skirts of the willow hung down nearly to the ground.

Abra parted the switches like a curtain and went into the house of leaves made against the willow trunk by the sweeping branches. You could see through the leaves, but inside it was sweetly protected and warm and safe." [emphasis mine].

The scene is where the little girl Abra and little boy Aron fall in childhood love (inside the house of leaves), and she plays at being his mother and they promise to get married when they are grown. His mother is really a whore who shot his father and left him and his brother when they were babies, to go to another town and become a whore. Growing up without a mother (somewhat like, but not exactly like, Johnny) has left a hole in him that Abra play-acts at filling when she pretends she is his mother in this scene, and he weeps in her lap.

I guess I'm just making another mother-neurosis crack for which I'm so notorious. Of course it's possibly complete coincidence that the willow is described as a little house of leaves, but when I read it I wondered if that were where MZD got the idea for his title, and if the mother-longing in Aron, along with the deadly revelation in the end that his mother is a whore, plays on similar themes of Johnny and his mother in HOL.

To those curious, my reading East of Eden and Oprah's recent selection are complete coincidence. I'd have to hang myself with shame if it were anything else.

[ September 18, 2003: Message edited by: Angelhaunt ]

[Stencil]

0000

[The Disgruntled Frenchman]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><HR>To those curious, my reading East of Eden and Oprah's recent selection are complete coincidence. I'd have to hang myself with shame if it were anything else.
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Hmm. How did you find out it was Oprah's selection?

I think this is just another coincedence. MZD might have read the book and possibly appreciated the wording, but the cotext of the phrase is entirely different. The willow is a house of leaves quite literally because the leaves form walls with a hollow interior. The basis for MZD's usage is entirely abstract. He might have read it, but I'm sure the phrase has been used on more than one occassion. Wasn't there another book called it as well?

Besides, I'm banking that he got the idea from Mayer.

[ThomasJ]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by The Disgruntled Frenchman:
Besides, I'm banking that he got the idea from Mayer.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

<font face="Arial">Cute, French man. Very cute.