The Winter of Our Discontent in Never too Late to Read Classics

Jan 12, 2016 Chrissie rated it liked it

Shelves: classics, fiction, usa, philo-psychol, 2016-read

I adore Steinbeck's writing. Simple lines which all readers can relate to. Philosophical content, but never laid on thick. It is difficult to convey the feeling Steinbeck creates with his words, so I give you a few lines instead:

It sounds uncomfortable and silly sitting cross-legged in a niche like a blinking Buddha, but someway the stone fits me or I fit. Maybe I have been going there so long my behind as conformed to the stones. As for its being silly, I don't mind that. Sometimes it is great I adore Steinbeck's writing. Simple lines which all readers can relate to. Philosophical content, but never laid on thick. It is difficult to convey the feeling Steinbeck creates with his words, so I give you a few lines instead:

It sounds uncomfortable and silly sitting cross-legged in a niche like a blinking Buddha, but someway the stone fits me or I fit. Maybe I have been going there so long my behind as conformed to the stones. As for its being silly, I don't mind that. Sometimes it is great fun to be silly, like children playing statues and dying of laughter. And sometimes being silly breaks the even pace and lets you get a new start. When I am troubled I play a game of silly so that my dear will not catch trouble from me. She hasn't found me out yet, or if she has I will never know it. So many things I don't know about my Mary and among them how much she knows about me. I don't think she knows about the place. How could she? I have never told anyone. It has no name in my mind except 'the place'. No ritual or formula or anything. It is a spot in which to wonder about things. No man really knows about other human beings. The best he can do is to suppose they are like himself. Now, sitting in the place out of the wind, seeing under the guardian lights the tide creep in black from the dark sky, I wonder if all men have a place or need a place or want one and have none. (chapter 3)

Immediately you conjure your own special 'place'. Past memories flood your brain. Just as the author does, you ask yourself why you need that place, if everyone needs such a place and what makes those places so special. The language is down to earth, words that all of us relate to. This is Ethan Allan Hawley's place - in a cave by the sea. His place where he sits and thinks.

So who is this guy Ethan? A grocery store clerk living in a small fictional whaling town in Wessex County, New York State. The year is 1960. He is married and has two pubescent kids, a girl and a boy. An ordinary family. His family had held prominence in past generations, but not anymore. So how does one cope with such a past? What are money and importance and power worth? What are you willing to do to get it? Honesty - public and private. Friendship, what is that worth? How many are willing to lay out large sums to help another, a friend? Even back in the 1960s there was a dislike of foreigners. That is here too. These are the issues of the book.

Yet, I was not drawn in for two reasons. I know where I stand related to the moral, philosophical issues raised; I am not a kid anymore. I wanted more to think about, something more difficult to resolve. I prefer longer, more complicated novels. Secondly, the book, although it starts our contemplative morphs into a crime story, a mystery. In this process it becomes too simplified. A cozy mystery is not my favorite genre.

Beautifully written, but very much a cozy mystery, a comfort read. I would highly recommend it to those who love such. I enjoyed it being set in a New England whaling town. It isn’t Nantucket, but is drawn as such. This is the author’s last novel. The author understands people, young and old, and this shows in his ability to draw true to life characters.

The audiobook narration by David Aaron Baker was perfectly fine. No complaints there.
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Aug 28, 2017 Kelly_Hunsaker_reads ... rated it it was amazing

Shelves: favorites, read-in-2020, classics

Update -- reread Jan 2020. I found the book to be even better on a second read. This time I really picked up on the details of life in the time and place, and I got into the thoughts of Ethan more.

Steinbeck has a BEAUTIFUL mind. He makes me think, and cry. He is masterful -- telling stories through rich and interesting characters. He illustrates the hard parts of life by showing us how we feel when those things happen. He makes the reader question their own responses to the things that happen ar ...more

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Mar 10, 2024 GONZA rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: posseduto

I don't want to go back to the old argument again: How do you recognize a masterpiece?because certainly the answer here is glaring. First of all the language, which manages to describe a July afternoon as well as the feelings of a man who wants to vent his anger between a woman's legs. Then the very fact that throughout the book, at least I, never guessed what was going to happen (a robbery? a death? a suicide?). But most of all Ethan, a man who could represent all of us or maybe just me with al ...more

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