1. I finished reading East of Eden today. Upon closing the book, I thought less about the book itself -- that came later -- and more about my reading habits since July, 2024.
Committing myself to read all the books Leah Sottile posted on her Substack account last July enhanced my discipline and while I worked my way through her list, I took occasional breaks from her books and read others.
Over the years, aside from the several months when I pretty much quarantined myself because of my sense of uncertainty about the pandemic, I've started to read any number of books (including East of Eden) and got distracted or sidetracked and never finished them.
I'm finishing books now.
Finishing East of Eden has moved me to tackle another thick, even longer book, Lonesome Dove, a book I've heard a lot about -- a lot of praise -- and that I have no familiarity with. I didn't watch the Lonesome Dove television series and everything that happens in this book will be a surprise for me, just the way I like it.
2. While East of Eden is doubtlessly a study of psychopathy and the human struggle with evil, it's also a study of idealism. Steinbeck created some characters who impose idealistic fantasies upon others -- especially men idealizing women. He also tells stories about characters who don't live according to what's actually happening in their worlds, but by what a professor, Clark Griffith, I worked a lot with over forty years ago, called the Grade B movie in their minds.
The Grade B movie metaphor is a way of understanding a character's illusions (or delusions).
It's a source of failure in these characters' stories. While the men in this book who idealize a certain woman might think that their high and illusory regard for the women would be pleasing, in fact it's a weight, a pressure, a burden that the women, at a certain point, can't stand any longer and must escape from.
When the illusion, the idealizing crashes, it crushes the idealizing man.
It's a source of intense suffering.
3. Back in August of 2021, I discovered the Facebook account called "Long Live Lenny's Nosh Bar" and it transported me back to my life in Eugene from 1979-82 and 1984-85 and my memories of wishing I'd been a Lenny's Nosh Bar regular.
I wasn't.
But Lenny's Nosh Bar had my attention and I paid quite a bit of attention to what was happening there and people who hung out at Lenny's.
I blogged about all of this on August 27, 2021 and I wrote a remembrance of a WR 121 student of mine from 1982 who was part of the Lenny's Nosh Bar scene.
His name is Scott Taylor.
To my astonishment, Scott Taylor emailed me today. He'd been doing some poking around online about Lenny's Nosh Bar and came across my 08-27-2021 blog post, figured out I was the Raymond Pert who wrote it, and secured my email address.
He wrote me to make sure I was the person who writes the kelloggbloggin' blog.
I wrote Scott back and confirmed that I am Raymond Pert.
Hearing from Scott made me very happy and once again I thought back to those days and remembered how much I enjoyed Scott's presence and his writing in WR 121 and the times I visited the bookstore he worked at in the Fifth Street Market and chatting a bit with him there.
I do not remember the bookstore's name -- but other Eugene bookstores have arisen in my memory: Hungry Head, Foolscap, Perelandra, Smith Family, Mother Kali's, J. Michael's -- there were many more -- but my memory weakens and I just cannot remember that bookstore Scott worked at.
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