A review by ayla_derammelaere
Ten oosten van Eden by John Steinbeck

emotional mysterious reflective medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

 

'East of Eden' is a story about 2 families. It's situated in the Salinas valley, at the end of 1800's, beginning of 1900's.

The book starts with the childhood of Adam and Charles. 2 brothers who have the same father but not the same mother. Adam is the eldest and his fathers favourite, and Charles is well aware of that. Adams father wants Adam to join the army while Adam is a very soft young man, not willing to go. He asks his father why he needs to go while that life is more suited to Charles but their father had recognized something dark in Charles and didn't want that part of his son to grow.
At the hight of Charles' envy, he tries to kill Adam but fails. When Adam arrives home, both his father and stepmother understand what has happened. His stepmother makes up excuses for her son while his father starts walking around the town to find and kill Charles, but doesn't find him.
Adam goes to the army, answers his brothers letters and feels very out of his place in the world. When he leaves the army, he wonders for a very long time before he goes back home. Home now is a place where only Charles lives : his stepmom has died and his father had told lies about his past, and rised to become a very political man.
When Adam has a conversation with his father to understand his fathers choices, his father answers this : " I love you more. Why else would I have troubled myself to hurt you?"
It gave me the chills to read this and made me wonder at the same time if this is true..
Adam and Charles find a balance between them and live together on the farm. 
When Adam saves Cathy, she becomes a knife that cuts the bond of the brothers.
Adam leaves the farm with Cathy and travels to the Salinas Valley where he buys one of the most beautiful parts of the valley to build an 'Eden' for him, Cathy and the child she is exspecting. 
Cathy tells him from the beginning she wants a different life but Adam is sure she will come around. One week after she delivers the twins, she shoots Adam, leaves the valley and goes to the big city as 'Kate', to become a prostitute (again).
Adam is completly stuck within himself and only with the help of 2 close friends, he finds a way back to himself and his sons, Cal and Aron.
When they are teenagers, sadly, history has a way of repeating itself and even worsening. Cal has a darker nature than his brother and envies the love his brother gets naturally while Cal needs to work very hard to gain respect but not love. He becomes more and more jealous of his brother until the point he does something he can not forgive himself.

There are a few moments in the book that made me think about what I believe and wonder how I (would) react :

1.The moment when Li tells us that he and 4 wise Chinese men have studied Hebrew to really understand the story of Kaïn and Abel, to try and find out what the strenght of the story is since, only stories that contain a message that are important and useful for everyone, are stories that are remembered. And what they found, was massive and probably the basics of all religions : 'we choose' or 'timshel'.
We don't 'have to', we are not 'guaranteed a certain outcome' ; 'we choose'  and one day we'll follow the path and the next we might stray but it is never written in stone and we can always choose.

2.When Kate is dead and the sheriff is at Adams house, Adam calls for Cal and asks him where his brother is. Cal answers with the words Kaïn also spoke in the Bible when his father asks if he knows where Able is :"How should I know ? I'm not my brothers keeper", already hincing to the ending of the story.

3.I think this book is about the mix of good and evil in everything and everyone, and not just in the obvious themes but also in the details : how a righteous person like Adam, for who honesty is the most important thing, can afford to build himself a life with money his father had stolen with his lies. How Kate used the money Charles left her, to continue the whorehouse. How Aron, who wanted to be a minister, receives his mothers money..

4. I think that, in the end, complexity makes the world and yourself more difficult to live in and with, but when we work through the struggle, we arrive on the other side stronger. 
Simplicity might be what we long for but it fragile and can be destroyed very easily (and us with it). I believe this is the lesson Li tries to give to Cal.