Order from a Major Online Bookstore
Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine
Save Your Time And Money
| AnyBook4Less.com | Order from a Major Online Bookstore |
|
| Home | Store List | FAQ | Contact Us | | ||
| Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine Save Your Time And Money |
||
 |
Title: The Winter of Our Discontent (Penguin Twentieth-Century Classics) by John Steinbeck ISBN: 0-14-018753-7 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: April, 1996 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.47 (55 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: Loss and American Regeneration
Comment: "The Winter of our Discontent" was published in 1961, just before Steinbeck received the Nobel Prize in 1962. The story is set in the late 1950s in New Baytown, a small (fictitious) New York -New England town which, Steinbeck tells us, had flourished during the whaling days of the mid-19th century. The main protagonist of the book is Ethan Allen Hawley. Ethan ("eth" to his friends is descended from early pirates and whaling captains. His family had lost its capital through speculative business ventures during WW II and Ethan, with has backround and his Harvard education, is reduced to working as a clerk in a small grocery store he once owned. Marullo, an Italian immigrant, owns the store and calls Ethan "kid".
For a short novel, the book includes a wealth of characters, many of which I found well described. There is Ethan's wife Mary who is impatient with the family's impoverished lots and eager for Ethan's economic success as well as the couple's two children, Allen, who is writing an essay called "Why I Love America" and the sexually precocious daughter Ellen. We meet the town banker, Mr. Baker, a bank clerk and a friend of Ethan's, Margie Young-Hunt, twice married and the town seductress, and Danny Taylor, Ethan's childhood friend who has thrown away a career of promise and become a drunk.
The book describes the deteriorations of Ethan's life as he gradually loses his integrity and succumbs to temptations to lift his life, and the lives of his family members, from its materially humble state to a state consistent with Ethan's felt family heritage and education and with the desire of his family for material comfort. The story is sad and told in a style mixing irony and ambiguity that requires the reader to reflect and dig into what is happening. The story ends on a highly ambiguous note with Ethan's future left in doubt.
The book describes well the lessening of American standards and values. The book seems to attribute the loss to an increasing passion for commercial and economic success among all people in the United States. Juxtaposed with the economic struggle are pictures of, in steinbeck's view, what America was and what it could struggle to be. I think the images are found in religion (much of the story is, importantly, set around Good Friday and Easter and these holidays figure preminently in the book), and in America's political and cultural heritage. In the old town of
New Baytown, America's history figures prominently with speeches from American statesment such as Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, and Abraham Lincoln tucked (suggestively) in the family attic. The book is set against a backround of New England whaling and reminds the reader inevitably of a culture that produced Melville and a work of the caliber of Moby Dick.
The most convincing scenes of the book for me were those where Ethan ruminates his life in his own mind and compulsively walks the streets of New Baytown at night. I was reminded of Robert Frost, a poet of New England and his poem "Acquainted with the Night" which begins:
"I have been one acquainted with the night.
I have walked out in rain -- and back in rain.
I have outwalked the furthest city light."
Steinbeck captures much of the spirit of this wonderful poem.
The plot of the book seems contrived at is climax and depends too much on coincidence. The characters, and their inward reflections on themselves, the descriptions, the setting, and the theme of the book, mingled between a love for our country and a sense of despair, make the book memorable.
Rating: 4
Summary: Discontent? Read this book.
Comment: A powerful novel, with a plot that most can relate to. Ethan Hawley, the main character struggles to provide for his family. Comes from a family of successful business men, until The Great Depression hits his family hard and he must start from the bottom, working as a produce market clerk. He feels that he must own up to his name that has been made by his predecessors. He is confronted by opportunities that question his integrity and common sense.
What I like about this novel is that present day situations arise which grabs my attention and makes me think. Ethan, married with two children, thinks of his family first, because all he wants is to give them what he feels they deserve. He would sacrifice his own happiness to make his family happy.
I also can relate to how he sometimes feels disappointed by how his life is panning out, but doesn't forget all the things he should be grateful for. I strongly recommend this novel to all who love to read. Whether you can relate to it or not, it will make you think, and help you appreciate some things that are taken for granted.
Rating: 4
Summary: Steinbeck does Hemingway
Comment: This novel was one of Steinbeck's last, and delves heavily into themes of disillusionment with one's country and one's lot in life. While The Grapes of Wrath was arguably a more heartbreaking book, in that novel, at least the characters still cared and still maintained ideals. In this book, the character of Ethan Allen Hawley has lost hope for the future and lapsed into a great abyss of depression and despair. In this way, Steinbeck seemed much more Hemingway-esque than he had in his earlier, and in my opinion greater, works of fiction.
While I did not enjoy this book as much as earlier works like The Grapes of Wrath, there is still much to appreciate in this tale about an American patriarch who has lost his way. Ethan lives in New Baytown, a fictional New England town, with his dissatisfied, materialistic wife, daughter and son. Both children are writing an essay regarding why they love America, though only the son is able to finish it--and he does so by plagiarizing speeches by Henry Clay and Abraham Lincoln. Ethan's family was once well-to-do but lost their fortune with speculative investments after WWII, relegating Ethan to working as a grocery clerk at the store he once owned. His boss is an illegal Italian immigrant who encourages Ethan to be less generous with the customers.
New Baytown itself is a major character in the novel. The entire town operates within a realm of corruption. Yet things have operated that way so long that no one remembers it is corrupt anymore. All of the major and minor characters are seriously flawed--Margie Young-Hunt, the town seductress and witch; Mr. Baker, the greedy banker; Joey Morphy, the bank clerk who describes the perfect way to rob a bank. Gradually Ethan realizes that the only way to be happy is to get money. The only way to get money is to bend his own moral standards. And once he bends his moral standards, he is more miserable than ever.
This short novel is delightfully written, with superb dialogue and clever references to religion and American history. It is basically an indictment of America's materialistic lifestyle as it entered the 1960's. I enjoyed it very much on that level, but did not feel it withstood comparison to Steinbeck's earlier, more emotional novels. This story was more allegory than novel, which is fine--but which one should keep in mind while reading this little gem.
 |
Title: Tortilla Flat by John Steinbeck ISBN: 0140042407 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: April, 1995 List Price(USD): $8.00 |
 |
Title: Cannery Row by John Steinbeck ISBN: 0140177388 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: February, 1993 List Price(USD): $8.00 |
 |
Title: Sweet Thursday (Twentieth-Century Classics) by John Steinbeck ISBN: 0140187502 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: April, 1996 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
 |
Title: The Grapes of Wrath: John Steinbeck Centennial Edition (1902-2002) by John Steinbeck ISBN: 0142000663 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: 03 January, 2002 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
 |
Title: The Wayward Bus by John Steinbeck ISBN: 0140187529 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: August, 1995 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
Thank you for visiting www.AnyBook4Less.com and enjoy your savings!
Copyright� 2001-2021 Send your comments
