The Winter of our Discontent, John Steinbeck
Deciding to read this was one of the best moves i have made in a long time. I have always felt that Steinbeck was hit or miss. some of his work is easy. Others can never cath my attention enough to be able to make it worth the time. Reading Discontent, i thought at first i would be working with the latter of the two choices. I was dead wrong on this. As Steinbeck’s last work published before his death, it is a work worthy of the title “Literary Classic” that it is often assigned.
Ethan comes from money. The founders of New Baytown included his family. Whalers and supposed pirates, their fortunes were amassed over generations. through a series of bad decisions and bad advice, Ethan’s father loses it all. Ethan finds himself stuck working as a clerk at a local, immigrant owned grocery.
The main character, Ethan Allen Hawley, took some getting used to, but after 20 pages or so, i was very endeared to his character. He has a strange reserved quality that keeps everyone at a distance, even his family and friends. Strangely though, no one recognizes his reservations as he hides it all behind a veneer of humor and silliness. People see his shiny exterior and, blinded by the glare, do not look further in.
His story lends itself to the reader in a manner that makes him very likable. Stuck in a self perpetuating cycle of sameness, Ethan cannot be happy with the world he is in, but is far too afraid of change to do anything about it. his wife and children depend on him and taking chances could lose him all he holds dear. This all changes when Ethans wife has her fortune read by a friend, Margie Young-Hunt. This reading of the cards starts a Ethan thinking that his world is of his own making and no one can change his world except himself, the cost of this change is negotiable.
The whole story takes place between Easter and July 1960. Reading it gives a Unique insight into the era, which is only intensified by the workings of Ethan’s mind, sense of humor, and utter need for something better than what he is.
The following passage was my favorite two paragraphs from the book. It is the internal thinking of Ethan as he goes up to the attic to help his son, Allen, locate some research material.
I remember thinking how wise a man was H.C. Andersen. The king told his secrets down a well, and his secrets were safe. A man who tells secrets or stories must think of who is hearing or reading, for a story has as many versions as it has readers. Everyone takes what he wants or can from it and thus changes it to his measure. Some pick out parts and reject the rest, some strain the story through their mesh of prejudice, some paint it with their own delight. A story must have some points of contact with the reader to make him feel at home in it. Only then can he accept wonders. The tale I may tell to Allen must be differently built from the same tale told to my Mary, and that in turn shaped to fit Marullo if Marullo is to join it. But perhaps the Well of Hosay Andersen is best. It only receives, and the echo it gives back is quiet and soon over.
I guess we’re all, or most of us, the wards of that nineteenth-century science which denied existence to anything it could not measure or explain. The things we couldn’t explain went right on but surely not with our blessing. We did not see what we couldn’t explain, and meanwhile a great part of the world was abandoned to children, insane people, fools, and mystics, who were most interested in what is than why it is.So many old and lovely things are stored in the world’s attic, because we don’t want them around us and we don’t dare throw them out.
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