Journal of a Novel

It is the cynical, grounded counterweight to the soaring hope of Timshall.

And if you don't want the cynicism, but you are entirely obsessed with the mind that built East of Eden, the essay has one more Steinbeck recommendation, which is Journal of a Novel, the East of Eden letters.

These are the actual left-hand pages we talked about earlier.

The morning letters to Pascal Covici.

You can read them.

It's published under the title, Journal of a Novel, Letters from

Eden.

Amazing.

Yeah, Steinbeck, uh, knew at the time that this was the work of his life.

He wrote these letters to his editor, Pascal Covici, as he was writing the book, and all those letters are collected in a book called Journal of a Novel: The East of Eden Letters, where he refers to East of Eden as his, quote, "First book," capital F, capital B.

Mm.

Um, like, this is the epic thing he's been working towards.

Just as we can't hold Lee to the same light as everyone else as well.

You had written in your essay that something that kind of stood out to me is you say here in the essay, Steinbeck himself reflects on this in Journal of a Novel that used to be in Letters on March 28th, quote, if she were simply a monster that would not bring her in.

But since she had the most powerful impact on Adam and transmitted her blood to her sons and influenced the generations, she certainly belongs in this book and with some time given to her." You then go on to say, "...to read Kathy as a simple, soulless, one-dimensional evil is to misrepresent Steinbeck's ability to tell a compelling story.

As far as Anthony Bourdain's rules for writing go, you should always have sympathy for the bad guy if you don't.