1. Yes. I appreciate the appeal of a novel that can be read quickly, that is confined to a specific and narrow time period, whose plot moves in chronological order, that involves basically a single generation of characters, told from a single narrative point of view, limited to a particular place or setting.
It's these features that make many (not all) crime novels exciting. Their focus, their tightness contribute to their momentum and they are often real page turners.
I also really enjoy, and maybe even prefer, sprawling novels, novels that cover multiple generations of characters over the course of many years, even decades, sometimes centuries, novels that take place in multiple places, and that might even jump around -- a quality many readers who comment on Goodreads and Amazon and elsewhere find frustrating and confusing.
East of Eden is a sprawling novel. It's multi-generational. It crosses the USA, explores various locations in Northern California, will seem to have erased certain characters from its story, and then almost out of thin air, the seemingly forgotten character pops up again, and increases the story's tension.
Novels can also be philosophical, take on eternal questions of human existence, explore questions of good and evil, justice, human freedom, exploring to what degree freedom even exists, the nature of God, human forgiveness, love, happiness, and a slew of other timeless questions that are essential elements of being human.
2. The key word in my favorite novels (and plays, movies, poems, essays, and other kinds of writing and art) is "questions". The best works, to me, are not declarative, but interrogative.
I've been wrestling with questions implicit in Steinbeck's book as well as in the book I read about the Columbine shootings, the Long Island serial killer, the murders in North Dakota's oil fields, and other books, fiction and non-fiction, which feature individuals who have little or no conscience.
Are they free? Is an individual with no (or little) sense of good or evil able to do what many consider the foundation of freedom? Are they deliberating? Are they making choices? And if they aren't making choices but acting from a hard-wired inner desire or a pathological compulsion to have power over others, to take control of others, to mete out retribution to those who confront them, who try to curb their power, what does it mean to hold such shameless persons accountable for their actions?
I haven't finished East of Eden, but I think two of its many characters are irredeemable, unable to stop themselves from injuring others, destroying those around them, and are unmoved by efforts to hold them accountable. On occasion, each of these characters experiences inklings of humane feeling, but either they push these feelings out of existence or come to realize these softer feelings are impotent.
In a sprawling novel like East of Eden, Steinbeck can give us long, nearly unbearable examinations of such characters and he has the space within the freedom afforded by writing fiction to explore these characters in depth and to confront his readers with jarring realities so many of us wish weren't possible.
3. I don't really know that I'd say I took a break from this sprawling novel to prepare a sprawling dinner, but I sure enjoyed my return to the kitchen and getting the wok back in action again.
I fixed a green curry sauce and put a couple packets of Thai wheat noodles in the sauce, an approach I'd never tried before.
In the wok, I stir fried onion, red pepper, broccoli, and cauliflower, pushed them up the wok's sides, and stir fried chunks of tri trip beef. .
I combined the sauce, vegetables, and beef together in well of the wok and Debbie and I liked how the curry helped clear our sinuses but did not move us to call the fire department and both of us experimented with augmenting the flavor of the curry with touches of different sauces I'd bought over the last few months at Trader Joe's.
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