5.11.2011

study a bit

(this is a pretty book. the photos in this post are completely unrelated to the content of the post. this is called multi-tasking, of which I am a master.)

Dear Melissa,

Now that we have conquered Macbeth (anyone else out there want to weigh in on it? Last chance! I thought your post about the letter moment was really thought-provoking, and much deeper than my analysis, which was simply that Lady Macbeth was a complete sociopath, and you shouldn't kill people or else you will ruin your life) I think we should move on to our next book.

dum dum dum...

East of Eden, by John Steinbeck

I've started and I feel like it's the perfect book for me to read right now at the beginning of our hot California summer. I have read this book before, but I was only 19 and since then I completely forgot it, so I don't think it counts.

So far I love Steinbeck's portrait-like approach. Adam and Charles...beloved Samuel and Lee...and of course Cathy who is totally fascinating in her chalk-eating evilness. It makes me think that a good painting project to go along with this book would be a portrait of some kind. I'm really bad at painting people so I look forward to learning some new stuff.


(I wish I had a wall of family portraits like this)


(but most of all a room like this, covered in butterflies)

Love,
Lynne

13 comments:

Mary said...

Enjoy East of Eden! It's one of my absolute favorites.

jo said...

i love east of eden. it's one of my absolute favorites, too.
timshel.

Liz said...

I have East of Eden on my shelf at home & keep thinking I need to read it. I read Grapes of Wrath last year & it easily went on my top-favorite-books list.

Stephanie said...

Oh, East of Eden. The ending killed me. I couldn't understand why Steinbeck couldn't expose more of it as he went along... I'm having trouble expressing what I mean without giving away too much. I guess I'll try to weigh in later. In a recent discussion though we decided that maybe I wasn't picking up on enough of the biblical references as I went along. I'm interested to hear your thoughts.

Leila said...

I do love that book. Maybe I'll have to find time to read it again along with you all!

Unknown said...

stephanie, i totally forgot the ending, and now i'm worried it is going to be sad. i hope it ends well. i keep thinking that cal is going to choose to do something fantastic that will make me have great hope in humanity... the whole timshel thing. ...

liz, i have never read the grapes of wrath. i totally need to.

melissa said...

Yes I agree, the Grapes of Wrath is one of my favorites. Last year we watched the 80s mini-series on East of Eden. We enjoyed it, especially with all the feathery Farah Faucet hair and puffy 80s sleeves.

joy said...

I really, really want to join in. But I must finish "Pride and Prejudice" first. I'll have to add it to the list.

CMN said...

Dear Lynne,
Speaking of books... How about adding Jane Eyre to the Book Club Reading List? Okay, so I know that you've read it recently, but it's still sitting on my stack. Staring at me. Both the two copies I already had and the beautiful new leather-bound copy I just discovered at B&N. (Yes, it's true - I'm buying duplicates of books that I haven't read. {sigh} It's a disease, I tell you.) Just a thought.

Oh, and, um, I discovered that I do have that small leather-bound pocket-edition of Lorna Doone that I was dreaming of. Go figure! Picked it up in a used book store in Vancouver in 2009 and promptly shelved it. Aaack! Putting it on the stack...

Happy reading,
C.

Unknown said...

Christine, that is a great idea. There is so much to discuss with fabulous Jane. and, you MUST read Lorna Doone!!

(ps, my letter should be arriving in your box soon - I mailed it yesterday, I think? After it had been sitting on my dresser for a week!)
xo!

Jennie said...

East of Eden is an excellent read. I'm going to do my best to join in on this one!

twirling betty said...

I would love to re-read East of Eden (don't remember much of it at all) but not sure I can because it turns out the Count of Monte Cristo (my current read) is 600 pages long! Who knew. Alexandre Dumas, perhaps, but certainly not me. Also, in a bit of a coincidence, my mum dropped off Cannery Row to me just last week with instrucs to read it and re-read the paras she had marked. Yes Ma'am! Finally, I just need to weigh back in on Macbeth really quickly. Or longly, actually. We saw the Australian Shakespeare Co's Macbeth the other night in Melbourne. Melissa said for her the novel began to draw towards its climax from the time Lady Macbeth received Macca's letter (at least it was something along those lines without going back to the actual post) . For me, though, in the perfomance at least, it was the point at which she realised Macca (sorry, can't resist that Australianism) had gone mad. Fascinating, isn't it, what each person gets and takes from books/performance/art.

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