Book Report: The Pastures of Heaven

Yeah, it's a small picture. That's the cover from the edition I read though. Back when paperbacks cost 60 cents. (How expensive are things? There's no key on the keyboard for the 'cent' sign.)

So anyway, this is John Steinbeck's second book (after Cup of Gold). In it, he tells a bunch of stories that are loosely interconnected about people living in this valley community (near San Francisco) called Las Pasturas Del Cielo, or the Pastures of Heaven.

This one is pleasantly short, but can't quite decide if it wants to be all serious or a mix of serious and whimsical. The problem is, when Steinbeck is serious, he tends to be preachy, moralizing, and heavy-handed. Everything's a signifier (see: Grapes of Wrath). When he's whimsical, he's just writing about interesting characters and their daily adventures (see: Sweet Thursday or, better, the first 2/3 of Cannery Row).

Parts of Pastures of Heaven have interesting characters living interesting lives. There are two women (Maria and Rosa) who make great tortillas and start a Mexican lunch spot in their home, but business is slow, so they begin rewarding anyone who eats three enchiladas with sex. It's not exactly prostitution as much as a twist on a Happy Meal. It's a fun story.

Better, there's a story (a story that itself wanders around for a while before figuring out that it's about) that concerns a guy who loses his wife and is left to raise their son, only the guy is an aimless philosopher/storyteller with no incentive to farm his land. He just sits on a tree branch all day talking about whatever interests him. So he raises the kid to be the same. Eventually, they become the heroes of the schoolyard, and wackiness ensues. What's great in this story is how the boy isn't ostracized at school because his father is essentially a bum and he shows up dirty, barefoot, and poor; rather, the other kids want to emulate him because he's unusual and his father is entertaining and playful.

But then there are many stories that degenerate into formulaic exercises. I guess they're more exercises than formulaic. In his later works, he seemed resigned to Steinbeckian tropes and returned to established patterns of how a story goes (see: East of Eden). In Pastures of Heaven, he was so early in his career that I guess they really are just exercises. They're rough, that's the problem. Sloppy almost. It feels like he just threw together some stories he hadn't quite polished and called it a book (see: the movie Crash).

The book is ideal for reading as I did, in scattered pieces on those days where I took the train to work instead of riding the bike, as continuity isn't essential. I wouldn't recommend reading while riding a bike, especially not in a city, definitely not in a city with big hills and short blocks.

So "Pastures of Heaven" -- I'd give it a few notches above the "Geisha" 'eh' but definitely below my last obscure Steinbeck discovery, The Wayward Bus.