Occasionally, I stumble across books with notorious titles and reputations, constantly referenced in popular culture, which despite knowing about, I have never actually read. That was how I came across East of Eden at a library book sale, picking up the title for a dollar, and assuming that it would sit on my shelf indefinitely. This, too, was true. For some time East of Eden gathered dust beside a Shakespearean language dictionary and a 700-page catalog of works hanging in the Louvre. I cracked open the book a year-and-a-half after placing it on the shelf, and did so only to satisfy a genteel, nagging voice that wanted to know what the first page said.
Six hundred and two pages later, I was just as curious to know what every subsequent page would also say. That is the hallmark of a good book, one that snags you on a great opening and keeps you strung out for an entire store, begging to know what either the author or divine providence has decided will come next. East of Eden is set in a dusty, rugged portion of California in the early twentieth century. The plot leaps between barren farms, brothels, and one-room schoolhouses. Some of the most unromantic settings still allure the fantasies of modern audiences. This raises a very particular question: Why does East of Eden matter in 2024?
This year has been tumultuous and we’re barely through summer. We’ve seen the rise of artificial intelligence, an assassination attempt on a Presidential Candidate, countless protests, the Olympics, the DNC and RNC, an aging and senile President, Hulk Hogan; the list goes on and on. Decades old literature is the least of anyone’s concerns, and every time you refresh Elon Musk’s X, there’s a new political coup, conspiracy, or coconut tree to fall out of.
Yet, this is where the scrappy persistence of Steinbeck’s lonesome Salinas Valley blossoms.
East of Eden is the perpetual fight between good and evil. Throughout the narrative, it slowly details the lives of several generations of the Trask family. This might sound monotonous and skippable (Didn’t they just release a new Deadpool and Wolverine film?), but it displays how knowledge, mistakes, and memory are passed from one generation to another. The beautiful, the ugly, and the grotesque are handed down like gifts, exactly as one passes along a pair of pearl earrings from their grandmother to their daughter. Cherishing the treasures which are passed down through the generations requires us to respect the people who preceded us, even if we may not fully understand them. Having faith in the past was a concept held dear for a majority of human history.
We have forgotten the value of inheritance.
I am tempted to blame the French revolution here, which discredited the monarchy because it operated by bequeathing the crown from one generation to the next, which the revolutionary class believed to be inherently wrong. However, it is much more valuable for us to approach this spirit with humility. Even the kindest mothers have flaws. Even the strongest fathers have cracks.
It is frighteningly easy for us to wheel around to the generation that came before us, pointing fingers and claiming that we are victims of our parents’ imperfections. However, we, too, will inevitably make many of the same mistakes they did. Their mistakes may look different, they might have different implications, and with any luck, they will hopefully not be severe, but they will happen all the same. The flaw of mankind is not only that we are imperfect, but that we expect ourselves to suddenly go forth without blemish.
The same patterns of good and evil, of selfishness, of anger and fear and judgment which we experience today, also existed in Steinbeck’s world. Adam Trask passed down his shortcomings to his son, Aron. Adam’s wife, Kate, passed her sharpness down to her son, Cal Trask. The cycles persist and the wheel of human nature turns. Donald Trump comes up with another new nickname. Joe Biden falls up another set of stairs. You forget to send your mother flowers on her birthday. You leave another unopened book laying upon your shelf.
One of the major themes of 2024 seems to be despair. It permeates our culture and our news cycle. There is always an air of fear, a constant bracing for the next inevitable disaster. Those with thick-skin might ignore it, but unfortunately there are many who succumb to it. Personally, it changes on a daily basis. However, East of Eden offers an anecdote. It is one that the Trask family desperately clung to, and one which we, in the current day, fundamentally require. That is the beautiful hope of choice.
Cal Trask makes several bad decisions which hurt his family. Yet, he ultimately takes ownership of them because his mistakes are his alone, caused by his actions. He resists the temptation to be passive, to allow his life to happen to him without ever having made a firm decision. In 2024, passivity is maddeningly common. The overwhelming globalization has left many ordinary people feeling paralyzed. Corporations, social media, and multi-million city populations crush the human spirit under their enormous weight. To combat this, the modern revolutionary needs only to be decisive, exact, and unfaltering. Conviction reigns supreme; it propels the submissive mind into its own particular identity.
What was true in Steinbeck’s vision of California in the 1910s is also true today: Parents make mistakes. They pass the whole of their knowledge, both good and bad, down to their children. This legacy is not a fundamentally bad thing. Rather, it presents us with a choice. How we decide to utilize the legacy of our forefathers will shape modernity.
2024 is the year in which we are presented with a choice. We have been gifted the legacy of 1776, and we hold all of its histories, successes, and mistakes in our hands. We face several decisions which will impact the success of our nation and its culture. East of Eden asks us to take action in the dire present; to be firm, honest, and effective as the soul of our very own Eden lies in our laps.
