Recommended Reading

I’ve been doing quite a bit of reading down here and would highly, highly recommend both East of Eden by John Steinbeck and Jitterbug Perfume by Tom Robbins. They’re both epics—Steinbeck takes the farm life in the Salinas Valley and makes it into an epic, while Robbins mixes the modern day with the past through fantasy, imagining the potential for epically long life--and they both prompted me to write down a few quotes that I’ll share.

Jitterbug Perfume:
Sometimes Robbins’ writing style gets a little bit obnoxious—his metaphors can be way out there—but getting through that is well worth the story. And one metaphor does manage to capture a feeling that’s difficult to explain—how things that feel intensely real when they are happening also feel surreal.

“The eclipse,” said Ricki. “It was probably the most real thing I’ve ever seen, but it was also like a dream. You know what I mean? Real and unreal, beautiful and strange, like a dream. It got me high as a kite, but it didn’t last long enough. It ended too soon and left nothing behind.”
“That’s how it is with dreams,” said Priscilla. “They’re the perfect crime.”

East of Eden:
Lee and Samuel are discussing the story of Cain and Abel and there is a discrepancy between 2 versions of the Bible, so they look up the old Hebrew. They realize that “thou shalt triumph over sin” could be better translated to “thou mayest,” giving man the power to make decisions.

[Lee speaking] “… But the Hebrew word, the word timshl—“Thou mayest”—that gives a choice. It might be the most important word in the world. That says the way is open. That throws it right back on a man. For if “Thou mayest”—it is also true that “Thou mayest not”…
“Why that makes a man great, that gives him stature with the Gods, for in his weakness and his filth and his murder of his brother he has still the great choice. He can choose his course and fight it though and win…
“…[T]his is a ladder to climb to the stars.” Lee’s eyes shone. “You can never lose that. It cuts the feet from under weakness and cowardliness and laziness.”

“I feel that a man is a very important thing—maybe more important than a star. This is not theology. I have no bent toward gods. But I have a new love for that glittering instrument, the human soul. It is a lovely and unique thing in the universe. It is always attacked and never destroyed—because ‘Thou mayest.’”