Cannery Row

The characters of Cannery Row are delightful. Doc, Lee, Mack, Dora and her girls, and many others, with their generosities and failings clear to see and their interactions convincing and human. Impressive descriptive writing which lets the imagination roam while setting clear boundaries on the scenes. Highly recommended

I feel like I've gotten pretty good at not batting an eye at seeing crazy things. I've lived in New York for a few years now and you have to just accept the crazy and move on with your day. But my cynicism is nothing compared to Steinbeck's in Cannery Row.Without so much as a hyphen, he drops in doozies like finding a beautiful dead girl while out on a fishing trip. And he slips in a family that lives in a boiler and rents out pipes so quickly that if you sneeze you'd miss it (you can hear the snores echo at night if you listen closely). Hilarious, scary, and touching moments are all a part of life at Cannery Row, and Steinbeck weaves them in so naturally you need to really pay attention to see the beauty of it all.But maybe that's not cynicism. Maybe that's optimism. To find these moments of hope and heart in your community among the work and strife is truly beautiful. And these moments were my favorite moments of the book.Not to say the rest of the town wasn't also great. Doc is a wonderful character whose pathological lies are the perfect counterbalance to his goodness. Mack's manipulations are only matched by the love for his new puppy. We know Mack's selfish schemes can't end well, but the way they fall apart is a lovely surprise each time. And the language was a beautiful surprise as well.My favorite quotes:They did not measure their joy in goods sold, their egos in bank balances, nor their loves in what they cost...where men hungering for love destroy everything lovable about them....for a starfish loves to hang onto something and for an hour these had found only each other.No one has studied the psychology of a dying party. It may be raging, howling, boiling, and then a fever sets in and a little silence and then quickly quickly it is gone, the guests go home or go to sleep or wander away to some other affair and they leave a dead body.Who wants to be good if he has to be hungry too?And no one was invited. Everyone was going.You may not be invited to the community you live in, but those who live at Cannery Row choose to participate. They share kindness, hope, distress, and--best of all--a good party.

"Nostalgia - (from Greek nostos - return home) - the state of being homesick: HOMESICKNESS; 2. A wistful or excessively sentimental sometimes abnormal yearning for return to or of some past period or irrecoverable condition" - Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary In 1945 John Steinbeck, already a successful author, was recovering in New York from physical and psychological wounds received as an active war correspondent in World War II. He returned to his writing and to his memories of where he grew up in as a young man in the late 1920s and early to mid 1930s - to the Cannery Row of Monterey California where the canneries which lined the street extended out over the water to receive sardines by the tons from the sardine boats which brought them in until over fishing ended the catch in the 1950s, where his best friend Ed Ricketts ("Doc" in the book) had run the Western Biological Laboratory until it burned down in 1936, where good hearted people - Lee Chong, the Chinese grocer, Mack and the boys, Dora - the generous madam who ran the whorehouse called The Bear Flag Restaurant - helped the poor, where Gay, Henri the artist and Frankie, the poor lad who couldn't do anything right except love his fellow men hung out on means which were virtually non-existent. The result was this emotional lovely reminiscence of times past told as a novel without a plot but in form a series of stories about his friends who had lived on Cannery Row and what they did when he knew them. It is writing at its best. The Model T, the frog hunt, the "party" given by "Mack and the boys" for Doc and then the real party given for Doc are episodes we will never forget. And, finally, when those of us who lived through these times, who remember simpler lives, and simpler times, who have walked down Cannery Row before it became a tourist spot and who have seen the shrimpers and the lifting fog and who remember in wistful nostalgia our friends now gone come to the end of the book and read Steinbeck's last stanza of the poem which ends his own thoughts, - the poem which echoes his own nostalgia - we have a tear in our own eye - rightfully acquired, "Even now, I have savored the hot taste of life, Lifting green cups and gold at the great feast. Just for a small and a forgotten time I have had full in my eyes from off my girl The whitest pouring of eternal light"

This is my favorite book of all time, and this edition does a great job at making a high quality book

I read this to get a Kindle achievement. It was either this or some dreck on the Amazon bestseller lists. I chose a Steinbeck book because I had lived nearly 50 years without reading one. Cannery Row was an interesting slice of life for a community in transition. The Depression had done its worst, and there is a dark cloud still remaining from those tough times. However, there is an optimism brewing that portends the post World War 2 growth consensus.There isn’t much of a plot here, so instead we have a patchwork of working class lives. Oddly there is a sense of community that suffuses everyone’s interactions that doesn’t really exist anymore. All in all this is a lyrical view of a lost era and of people that are rarely written about.

Always a good entertaining read

Una bellísima obra con unos personajes entrañables e inolvidables que se lee con gran placer.

The print is very small but good value for money

I would give 5 stars several times over for Cannery Row. I have read and reread it many times. I finally decided to purchase this because I had lost my old copy.BUT !!!!! this physical printed edition which I have received is one of the most disappointing books I have ever held in my hands. The paper is of very poor quality and the font is too small for comfort. In contrast, the font of "Sweet Thursday" is much much better.

Edizione splendida, era un regalo ed è stato molto apprezzato. È parte di una collana di romanzi, tutti con una grafica molto curata.