In the indulgent lingering passages about the joy of food and drink the “heartbreaking” smell of a chicken stew cooking on an open fire and the way a good shot of liquor can leave a character like Mack peering “into his empty glass as though some holy message were written in the bottom”. It’s there in the enthusiastic descriptions of the landscape, and the friendships that have grown up there. As much as poor weak-minded Frankie, whose keening devotion and desire to give the Doc something precious eventually lands him on the wrong side of the law and facing life in an asylum – which we learn in a scene so plangent you can almost hear the swelling strings.Įven when Steinbeck isn’t going full-orchestral there’s a golden glow about Cannery Row, a persistent delight with the world, a continual sense of wistful affection. Steinbeck clearly loves his central character, marine biologist Doc (who was based on his close friend Ed Ricketts), as much as everyone in the book. Similarly, the book is dripping in nostalgia, not to mention sentimentality.
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