I really enjoyed
Cannery Row.
Last year I read
Grapes of Wrath which I gave 4 stars, intending 4.5 stars, but now nostalgically remembering as 5 stars. Although this was a very different reading experience to GoW, I felt there was a similarity in how Steinbeck treated the characters.
Like some others have mentioned, I really sensed the love Steinbeck had for the characters in
Cannery Row, but I felt it equally in the darker novel.
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However, I don't necessarily see this cheerfulness as a bad thing. I thought the book was still revealing about human nature and it had an optimism about it that I liked. Maybe the book wasn't written simply to let us who are in comfortable homes have a view of these people's bleak or desperate existences, but rather to illuminate how people living a hard and low-caste life can be good people, are still just people like anyone else and can still make the best of things, have good times and enjoy life despite it all - and even despite themselves - without being too saccharine and while still maintaining a certain level of realism.
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Yes, yes, yes.
While reading this "novel", I remembered the stories my mother and father used to tell me of growing up in very poor homes. Their stories (particularly my father's) were of larger-than-life characters and humorous events. And despite the obvious lack of means, the memories are of joy and mischief, and the tales of struggle are always told with a certain fondness and nostalgia. This is what I felt when reading
Cannery Row.
In the end, I didn't quite like it quite as much as
Grapes of Wrath, but I definitely enjoyed it. I haven't decided on my next Steinbeck, but there will definitely be one.