The Pastures of Heaven (1932)

אוסף סיפורים של שטיינבק על עמק מונטרי​ ( )

http://speculiction.blogspot.com/2011/09/review-of-pastures-of-heaven-by-john.ht... ( )

"Look! I have very sharp teeth!" A-hahahahaha!

And that nice old man and his poor house. ( )

In his early California novels, Steinbeck focused on the land he loved and the people who lived there. The Pastures of Heaven (which is based on a real valley and whose characters have roots in real people) is one of those novels and uses the same format he employed in Tortilla Flat and Cannery Row—a collection of stories around an organizing theme. One of his earliest books, The Pastures of Heaven, focuses on the people who work the land and live in its town. The stories are fairly independent; there are recurring characters but each can stand alone.

Steinbeck has an eerie way of foreshadowing the emotional climate of his early books in his prologues. Some are gently humorous, some cast a shadow of foreboding; because Steinbeck’s prose in these books in which the land is at the heart of everything is lyrical, it’s sometimes difficult to understand why. In The Pastures of Heaven, the prologue recounts the discovery of the valley by a Spanish corporal leading a punitive expedition to recover a group of converted Indians who had the audacity to desert the mission to which they were bound. On his return, by accident this man who had “whipped brown backs to tatters, he whose rapacious manhood was building a new race for California” accidentally stumbles on this hitherto undiscovered (by whites) valley. Overcome by the beauty of the valley, he murmurs “here are the green pastures of Heaven to which our Lord leadeth us”. Intending always to go back when he retires, he dies instead of the “pox” (syphilis). And that story sets the tone for the rest.

Running through the book like a theme is the history of the Battle farm, named after its first settler. Although one of the best pieces of land in the valley, nothing good happens to George Battle and his son John is a crazy religious fanatic who dies appropriately by snake bite. Others buy it, and finally Burt Munroe is the last in a line of people who buys the old Battle Farm as a refuge, a retirement, from battle with the forces of the hostile business world. But the land has a force of its own; somehow Munroe is never quite able to come into harmony with it and really make the place his own. Burt is one of the recurring characters, and this disharmony with the farm runs through the stories. Other characters appear for their moment in the sun, but somehow or another, nothing ever quite works out for them. It’s as if the valley rejects the evil of the Spanish corporal in the only way it can—by rejecting the people who come to settle there. Not that there’s any black cloud that hangs perceptibly over the valley and the town (with the exception of the Battle farm)—it’s just that somehow life in the valley never quite lives up to its promise.

The last chapter is an epilogue, in which a group of people in a tour bus look down over the beautiful valley from a view point. An old man, a successful businessman, a priest, the driver of the tour bus—all are caught up in the apparent tranquility and prosperity of the valley, and each imagines in his own way what it would be like to retire from the hostile world to this refuge. It's a perfect, ironic close to the cycle of stories. ( )

Wonderful book full of interwoven stories. I love how everything fits together and the theme of place is so apparent. The land is a mysterious thing, especially with the way us humans interact with it. Read this and experience The Pastures of Heaven. Move into their community and see what life is like. ( )