I like Twain as quote-worthy curmudgeon. I like his cynical way of writing. But, alas, I don’t really like Tom Sawyer.

It’s a melodrama that, while purporting to narrate Tom’s story and take Tom’s side, both condescends to its protagonist and never really gives a sense of motivation. Rascally, sure, mischievous, but why? We see hints of Tom’s conscience from time to time, but the grief he puts his elders through seems nothing short of sociopathic at times.

Intriguingly, this story reads like a play. Give this some thought as you read the book. Scenes are clear-cut, action relatively confined in space, and entrances and exits highlighted (over fences, into caves, etc.).

What is appealing to me is the treatment of absolutely non-children’s issues in the novel. Widow Douglas is absolutely threatened with rape. Murder happens. Racism. The children themselves act much more grown up than the preadolescents I know today–able to cook for themselves, boat, sleep in the open, drink and smoke–enough that I spent a lot of the time wondering just how old Tom was supposed to be. At times he seemed seven, at times fifteen.

This early wending into adulthood reminds that this bucolic drama is not entirely innocent: it deals with heavy topics; it takes place in a wilder time. It’s an important document of Americana, just don’t ask me to enjoy it too much.

Tags: 19th century, american, fiction, literature, novel

Dense, complex, rewarding. Steinbeck’s band of apres-Depression misfits each form an essential pillar in the community of Cannery Row, in Monterey, Calif.

A quick but tricky book. Occasional deviations into individual vignettes are intriguing, but difficult to decipher at times. But Steinbeck’s love for place and land–this book is almost a pastoral at times–is clear and joyful.

The plot is loose and centers around Mack and his group of down-and-out unemployed, scrappy rifraff, who have the best of intentions but drunkenly screw everything up. You always see it coming. Sometimes it involves trapping frogs. It always involves booze.

Each individual character adds to the tight sense of community. Dora, vibrant madam; Doc, the intellectual, lonely marine biologist; Lee Chong and his center-of-the-little-universe grocery.

Cannery Row is a paean to the Monterey collective consciousness, the little joys of life, the quick shocks of violence and the meaning of place.

Tags: american, california