Book Review - Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck

 Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck

Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1949    (first published 1937)

I recently reviewed Cannery Row by John Steinbeck, and mentioned that I wasn't sure I'd read any more; but given that the copy of Cannery Row I obtained also contained Of Mice and Men, I couldn't not read it, could I?

If anything, reading this long story (or short novella?) has confirmed my feelings about Steinbeck as a writer that I garnered from reading Cannery Row. There is much wonderful descriptive writing that sets the scene, but the characters and the storyline are somewhat formulaic.

Steinbeck, like some other American writers of the thirties that wrote about social issues, can lay it on a bit thick when he's trying to make a point. His description of Slim, the head worker ("His ear heard more than was said to him, and his slow speech had overtones not of thought, but of understanding beyond thought.") labours his point that workers are the salt of the earth. The bosses son Curly on the other hand is definitely the villain of the piece.

The tragic arc of Lennie, who doesn't know his own strength and who's mind is not able to understand how people behave or how he should behave to them, is the core of this story. George keeps telling him a story of how one day they will have their own piece of paradise, where Lennie can feed the rabbits. That this can't happen is a truth unstated in the story, and the fact that Lennie, George and Candy can get so close to it but have it taken away is meant, I'm sure, to rouse the reader's feelings. Yet it seems to sit to one side of the arc of the story: it seems to me that Steinbeck has good story ideas but tries to stuff too much meaning into them. Of Mice and Men, like Cannery Row is a story about class, but it's just a bit heavy-handed for mine - the descriptive writing is wonderful, but the story is a bit flat.

Cheers for now, from

A View Over the Bell