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Well, issybird, I liked it, and liked it a lot. Yes, the characters are a bit of a caricature, but all drawn from very real characters of the time. Certainly, there were different roles for men and women of the time and I don't try to impose my current standards on that.
What I got out of this book was Steinbeck's love of the people and the place. All of the characters of Cannery Row are essentially good. The employees of the Bear Flag Restaurant (Dora's bordello), are just that - employees doing a job for which they are treated well by a reasonable boss. They provide a service, and like everyone else in the small community, they are a part of that community. Lee Chong is hardly inscrutable, and even the nighttime wandering "Chinaman" is treated with respect by Steinbeck, if not always by local youths. Doc is, of course, the main character and in many ways the denizens of Cannery Row are filtered through his eyes even though it's not told as his story.
Cannery Row, and all the many other places like it across the world, live a hard-scrabble existence. When the boats were in and the fishing had been good, there was some money to be passed around. But when the fishing was bad, there was the darn little to support the community but each other. And a person like Doc who had an actual source of income external to the vagaries of the community was a resource of some value even without his abilities with sick puppies.
This is a book about love. And basic humanity. I'm really glad it was chosen this month, I'd likely not have read it.
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