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I first read Cannery Row about 20 years after it was published when I was about sixteen. I adored it because I had known - or been related to - many similar characters. But unlike most books, they are seen through each other's eyes, and therefore with love and humor, rather than through the eyes of the rest of society who would see them as stereotypes and outcasts.
Perhaps, Issybird, you have led a sheltered life. I also found Lee Chong to be far from inscrutable. I've loved Steinbeck from my earliest years. He heard the people with no voice and told their stories in his books. At times he was more successful than others, but he was always real.
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