I’d resigned myself to not buying any books this week, I wasn’t expecting any parcels to arrive and had no intention of going book shopping. Then my Dad roped me in to spending a day exploring op shops and second hand bookstores. It took a lot of convincing, but I happily tagged along:

• All the President’s Men by Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward
• Howards End by E. M. Forster
• My Brilliant Career by Miles Franklin
• Where You Find It by Janice Galloway
• Island by Aldous Huxley
• Setting Free the Bears by John Irving
• The Armies of the Night by Norman Mailer
• Chickenhawk by Robert Mason
• Harold Pinter: Plays Volume Three by Harold Pinter
• Tortilla Flat by John Steinbeck
• The Pearl by John Steinbeck

Over the past year or so I’ve become more inclined to buy new/remaindered books, mainly thanks to a.) working in a remainder bookstore, b.) working in a “normal” bookstore and c.) The Book Depository. When I was younger, and even sometimes now, I bought a lot of second hand books. What I love about them is thinking about the journey they’ve taken to end up in a particular store. How did a Vintage Classics copy of Aldous Huxley’s Island bought in Indonesia for 40 000 RP end up for sale for $2 in a suburban Salvation Army store? Why did someone buy Volume 3 of Harold Pinter’s plays from Monash University bookstore and how did it end up unread in a second hand bookstore by the train station? What was originally in the envelope in All the President’s Men that was then used as a bookmark, forgotten about at page 42? I like to think about these stories, in addition to those contained within the text.

This week I was also suffering from what I not so fondly refer to as perma-headache. Not quite as intense as a migraine, but painful enough to be constantly aware of the throbbing pain in my head. Very annoying. And in my birthday week as well! There were some exciting things happening despite perma-headache. My favourite band, Manic Street Preachers, who I’ve loved since my early teens, announced their first Australian tour in ELEVEN YEARS! This means I’m currently planning another trip to Sydney to see them play in two capital cities in November. I’d been looking for an excuse to visit Sydney again after going there (again, for a band) in March, and this is the perfect reason. There’ll be more about this band in tomorrow’s review, as the tour was not only announced on my birthday but while I was reading a biography about them. Pretty amazing coincidence.

This week Bret Easton Ellis was in town, and I went and saw him interviewed at the Athenaeum Theatre on Friday night. It was such a great night, Ellis was in top form, funny and irreverent. I met him briefly afterwards, he signed a couple of my books (including the battered copy of Less Than Zero I’ve been reading and rereading since I was sixteen) and posed for a few photos with me. I look insanely happy. He was very lovely, chatty and warm. When my sister accidentally took a photo of us while he was looking away he insisted that she retake it as he wanted to be looking at the camera. While I don’t really get the whole book signing thing, I’m very happy that I got to meet him.

I read Imperial Bedrooms this week, and I’m not going to review it for the blog. It was difficult to get out of review mindset and just read for pleasure, to really immerse myself in the book and enjoy it – that’s not to say that I don’t enjoy the books I do review but it’s a completely different approach to read without that critical distance. Does that make sense? I’m sure that I’ll be rereading it in the future and then I will write up my thoughts on it, but for now I was really pleased to just read the latest book from one of my favourite authors. Heh, maybe some time in the future someone will pick up my signed copy of Imperial Bedrooms and wonder who Jess was and why the book ended up in a second hand bookstore.

Whenever I read a classic novel, or something by a renowned author, I stare blankly at the document in which I intend to write my review, deeply anxious and uncertain. “But, Cannery Row has been read by a million people before me, studied by thousands of students, what else can I possibly say about it?” Even though the act of reading the novel can be immensely pleasurable, when it comes to writing about it I freeze. I even considered rewriting the lyrics to Bob Dylan’s “Desolation Row” to reference Cannery Row (“Mack and the boys they’re restless/they need somewhere to go/as Doc and I look out tonight/from Cannery Row” it could work, I tell you.) in order to avoid actually talking about the book itself. (You have to wonder, what will I be like when I get around to that William Faulkner marathon I have planned? Interpretive dance review of The Sound and the Fury?)

Cannery Row in Monterey in California is a poem, a stink, a grating noise, a quality of light, a tone, a habit, a nostalgia, a dream. Cannery Row is the gathered and scattered, tin and iron and rust and splintered wood, chipped pavement and weedy lots and junk heaps, sardine canneries or corrugated iron, honky-tonks, restaurants and whore-houses, and little crowded groceries, and laboratories and flop-houses. Its inhabitants are, as the man once said, ‘whores, pimps, gamblers, and sons of bitches,’ by which he meant Everybody. Had the man looked through another peep-hole he might have said: ‘Saints and angels and martyrs and holy men,’ and he would have meant the same thing.

John Steinbeck‘s Cannery Row is set in the waterfront street known as Cannery Row in Monterey, California. Somehow, in the space of what is comparatively a novella, Steinbeck lets us into the worlds of a multitude of characters who reveal themselves to be more than our initial impressions of them and a testament to the necessity of community. The narrative is fractured between different characters as the poorer inhabitants of the street attempt to throw a party for Doc, a marine biologist who has offered much to the community. While the intention, led by the bums of the Palace Flophouse, is good, the follow through just doesn’t go quite to plan; but, the community eventually pulls together to throw a party that honours the kind-hearted Doc.

Within the narrative itself, Steinbeck – mainly through Doc’s observations of marine life, but also through the omniscient voice of the narrator – reflects on the natural world and how it reflects our own. Seemingly tranquil sea life proves to be capable of the the most vicious violence, the bums catching frogs for money is described with the detail of a bloody battlefield, a gopher builds a home in a safe area but cannot find a mate so moves on to a more dangerous area. The attention to these aspects of nature reveals life on the Row to be similarly delicate ecosystem.

Early morning is a time of magic in Cannery Row. In the grey time after the light has come and before the sun has risen, the Row seems to hang suspended out of time in a silvery light. The street lights go out, and the weeds are a brilliant green. The corrugated iron of the canneries glows with the pearly lucence of platinum or old pewter. No automobiles are running then. The street is silent of progress and business. And the rush and drag of the waves can be heard as they splash in among the piles of the canneries. It is a time of great peace, a deserted time, a little era of rest.

Despite the brevity of the text, the nuanced cast of characters and their stories feel complete. To add more to them would be going overboard. Steinbeck’s simplicity possesses an innate awareness of the aspects of these characters which make them a.) interesting to a reader and b.) integral to the Cannery Row hive. They may not be extraordinary people, but their talents, their humanity and their generosity lend them a dignity which cannot be denied. Dora, the madame of the Bear Flag brothel, sends her girls out to look after the children of the town when influenza strikes and the ill cannot afford medical assistance, despite it being the busiest time of year at the brothel. Lee Chong owns the grocery store, and though the locals owe him large amounts of money, he doesn’t chase it up – knowing that eventually they’ll repay him rather than trek to the market in the next town. Henri the local artists constantly builds and dismantles his boat, never wishing to complete it.

Financial bitterness could not eat too deeply into Mack and the boys, for they were not mercantile men. They did not measure their joy in goods sold, their egos in bank balances, nor their loves in what they cost.

After the first disastrous attempt to give Doc a party – to which he doesn’t even arrive, and great damage is inflicted upon his house – the street not only makes outcasts of the perpetrators; but begins to suffer itself. It’s as though if one part of this community is ill at ease, the whole community faces great misfortune. As Mack and the boys are gradually forgiven, the town heals, the illness and misfortune lifts. It’s a beautiful illusion, and it is impossible not to feel a deep yearning for a sense of community as deep and essential as is evident in Cannery Row. Does community like this exist anymore? Did it ever?

‘It has always seemed strange to me,’ said Doc. ‘The things we admire in men, kindness and generosity, openness, honesty, understanding, and feeling are the concomitants of failure in our system. And those traits we detest, sharpness, greed, acquisitiveness, meanness, egotism, and self-interest are the traits of success. And while men admire the quality of the first they love the produce of the second.’

Cannery Row is a deceptively simple story – the inhabitants of a street gather to throw a party for an honoured resident – but the heart and the faith in humanity that Steinbeck imbues this story with is amazing, and difficult to forget. Celebration of good deeds and genial warmth are essential to the proliferation of the human spirit, and despite their lack of ambition or lofty pursuits, and in this the folks of Cannery Row are richer than most. Sweet Thursday is a sequel set years after the events in Cannery Row, although I will be trying to get a copy soon, I think I’ll let the pleasures of Cannery Row linger a little while longer.

• Ragtime by E.L. Doctorow
• The Ginger Man by J.P. Donleavy
• The Heart of the Matter by Graham Greene
• The Rainbow by D.H. Lawrence
• The Violent Bear It Away by Flannery O’Connor
• The Moon is Down by John Steinbeck
• Consider the Lobster and Other Essays by David Foster Wallace
• A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again by David Foster Wallace
• Native Son by Richard Wright

This week I found a link on tumblr to the handmade bags of Olympia le Tan (incidentally, my parents planned to name me Olympia – because I was born during the 1984 Olympics, gimmicky I know  … anyway! sometimes I still wonder whether life would have turned out differently if I’d been named Olympia. Would my nickname be Oly? Pia? Lympy?) via the We Love You So blog, and was intrigued with the idea of a purse embroidered with the first edition cover of The Heart is a Lonely Hunter. Then I found the price tag. You, too, can pick up one of these little darlings for $1,500. Let me just repeat that for you. $1,500. Honey, you could get an actual first edition of The Heart is a Lonely Hunter – possibly even signed by Carson herself – for that kind of money, and let’s face it that’s surely going to be more of investment in the long run.

I was going so well, I didn’t buy anything at all during the week. Then I decided to visit the Federation Square Book Market on Saturday. It had always been on my radar, but for the past couple of years I’ve worked every Saturday so I’ve never been able to go. Oh, my! Cheap books. Good cheap books. Friendly stall-holders. Relaxed atmosphere. Cheap books bears repeating. I’m hooked. I won’t be able to afford to go every week, but I am definitely going to make it a somewhat regular book shopping treat.

Book Loot: Week Ending 6th September 2009

The score:

• Winesburg, Ohio by Sherwood Anderson
• The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Brontë
• Off the Road: My Years with Cassady, Kerouac and Ginsberg by Carolyn Cassady
• As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
• Absalom, Absalom! by William Faulkner
• The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro
• East of Eden by John Steinbeck
• The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
• Of Mice and Men/Cannery Row by John Steinbeck
• Travels with Charley by John Steinbeck
• We by Yevgeny Zamyatin

The Winter of Our Discontent: Ethan Allen Hawley has lost the acquisitive spirit of his wealthy and enterprising forebears, a long line of proud New England sea captains and Pilgrims. Scarred by failure, Ethan works as a grocery clerk in a store his family once owned. But his wife is restless and his teenage children troubled and hungry for the material comforts he cannot provide. Then a series of unusual events reignites Ethan’s ambition, and he is pitched on to a bold course where all scruples are put aside. … Steinbeck’s searing examination of the evil influences of money, immorality, greed and ambition on American drew acclaim from the Nobel Committee who hailed him as an “independent expounder of the truth.”

Before The Winter of Our Discontent, the only John Steinbeck book I have read is Of Mice and Men – which I enjoyed. Steinbeck seems to be one of those quintessentially American authors, it seems he is frequently used as a high school text. When I was in high school – a moderately sized suburban school in a lower middle-class area, not prestigious in any way – we studied mainly contemporary Australian literature, or young adult fiction that was smack-you-over-the-head heavy on themes. The only opportunity to study anything that was considered a “classic” was in Literature, I studied Sylvia Plath and Tennessee Williams, but this was stuff I was reading in my own time anyway. I wish that my school curriculum had been more diverse, more challenging. Maybe then I would have read more Steinbeck by now. (Coincidentally enough, after I’d been thinking about this for a while, Abebooks posted this article about required reading worldwide. Australia isn’t on their lists, but I’d be curious to know the differences.)

The Winter of Our Discontent follows a few short months in the life of grocery clerk Ethan Allen Hawley. His family was once wealthy and respected, but managed to lose much of their fortune. Though Hawley has little ambition or greed, the needs and desires of his family drive him to change his perspective. One thing that I loved about Of Mice and Men was Steinbeck’s use of dialogue. It flowed, he wrote as people spoke. His dialogue in The Winter of Our Discontent is supreme, whole chapters mostly of dialogue that manages to drive the narrative forward. Characters are introduced and established mainly through their conversation with Ethan.

Steinbeck paints a vivid portrait of small town America, and has a keen eye for the details of routine. The time that Ethan spends manning the grocery is filled with accurate insight into the dredge of retail work. The intimate knowledge of customers, the ability to predict the ebb and flow of business, the rapport that grows between seller and customer slowly over time.

No man really knows about other human beings. The best he can do is to suppose that they are like himself.

Ethan Allen Hawley is a curious character. He is clearly educated – he mentions having spent a lot of time at college but none of that knowledge is useful to him in his work – and in the beginning he is level-headed, charming (some of the dialogue and scenes between Ethan and his wife Mary are just adorable), somewhat stoic and not at all concerned with possessions or social positions or any of the things which seem to bother his fellow townspeople. The story traces his transformation into a creature that is swayed by greed and ambition – however small and seemingly simple the greed and ambition is. I’m just not sure where this lust for money and social wealth comes from? Is it purely out of necessity for the growing needs of his wife and two teenage children? Is he trying to return to the respect that his forefathers inspired? Is it a subtle revolt against the system which has kept him working as a lowly grocery clerk? This corruption takes place in most of the characters, but we see it through Ethan’s eyes, and it his desperation that has the most effect.

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 Winter of Our Discontent is a morality tale that forces us to ask ourselves: is the corruption of ambition worth whatever rewards it may reap?

I’m definitely going to read more Steinbeck, I’ve put East of Eden and The Grapes of Wrath on hold at the library.

This week went by so fast! I didn’t have too many book-buying opportunities this week – some might say that’s a good thing. Here’s what my rummaging about at book sales scored me this week:

• The Sea by John Banville
• Les Enfants Terribles by Jean Cocteau
• The Black Dahlia by James Ellroy
• Faces in the Water by Janet Frame
• Living in the Maniototo by Janet Frame
• Naming the World: And Other Exercises for the Creative Writer compiled by Bret Anthony Johnston
• February House: What Happened When W.H. Auden, Benjamin Britten, Paul & Jane Bowles, Carson McCullers and Gypsy Rose Lee Moved in Together by Sherrill Tippins

I was hugely, ridiculously pleased to find February House on sale for a couple of dollars, mainly due to my rampant obsession and admiration for Carson McCullers. A signed copy of The Heart is a Lonely Hunter was sold on ebay for US$500 this week, I’d been following it out of interest for a while now. It was originally listed at a couple of thousand but didn’t sell. The seller relisted it as a normal auction but with a reserve price. People bid on it, but it didn’t reach the reserve so the seller relisted it with the Buy It Now price of US$500 and it was snapped up almost instantly. Alas, not to me!

Reading: I have spent a lot of time reading short stories this week. Mainly short stories on the 1001 Books to Read Before You Die List – Edgar Allen Poe, Nikolai Gogol and my favourite of the lot, Charlotte Perkins Gilman. The Yellow Wallpaper is suitably creepy and frightening, amazing that a story of just over 6000 words can explore so many themes so richly. I’m still reading the Flannery O’Connor short stories, but as I’ve said before, I am in no hurry to finish them all quickly. I read “Greenleaf” on the bus this week, and it was horrifying as I slowly realized where it was going. I started reading John Steinbeck’s The Winter of Our Discontent today, enjoying it so far, but more on that later. Next week I’ll also be starting Jane Austen’s Lady Susan as part of the Austenprose group read.