East of Eden (Penguin Modern Classics)

This is easily one of my favorite books ever. I teared up after reading the last page, because I realized it's just a book. Describing the book, it's story and purpose, in a few sentences, won't do it justice. I am just glad that I got familiar with Sam Hamilton and Lee. They may be dead, because every book eventually has to end, but they will live on in my heart.

I so wish a writer so skilled as Steinbeck at weaving layered allegories had chosen to be anti-racist, or something other than a racist mouthpiece for manifest destiny. What self-awareness he does demonstrate in describing non-white people is to tip his hat to the problematics of the stereotypes present, while using them anyway. While his brand of modernism stands out in at least telling the stories of poor folk, it's still from a heavily white settler-normative perspective. "East of Eden" in particular centers around the parable of original sin, a hereditary motif flagged by acts of 'moral deviance': from characters' interactions with sex workers that are supposed to be some universalized shorthand for evil/indulgence. The reality is that unwritten expectation falls flat in the face of modern theories of phenomenological subjectivity.