|
For some reason I seam to really be on a different page than most with our last few reads. I loved The Dispossessed, but really did not like this book.
I started off by liking it, particularly the beautiful way the Steinbeck described the relationship between people and the land the live on and work. That "ownership" isn't necessarily the powerful catalyst to bonding than work is. I loved that and felt that it could have been developed into a more consistent theme. After the first few of the descriptive chapters they just became boring, like Steinbeck himself became disinterested. It felt to me like he was so committed to the concept that he just kept plodding along with decreasingly interesting or relevant things to say.
Worse for me was the never-ending repetitive dialogues and drawn out scenes throughout the narrative chapters. I actually like long, intricate books; this just got redundant and dull for me. I know this perhaps is a little unfair, given the era in which the book was written, but wouldn't it have been nice for the characters to step out of their gender stereotypes in terms of role and character just a little? This just wore me down.
And I didn't like the ending. Possibly more on this later.
|