You’re not supposed to re-read classics for pleasure, but I do. To me, that’s the real definition of classic: when something’s so good it transcends the first or second wave of popularity so people return to it year after year, seeing new ties and ideas with each re-reading. so their depth of appreciation grows with age. Anyone can read a book once and pronounce a judgment, good or bad. On the other hand, it takes an age to appreciate the depth in John Steinbeck’s East of Eden. At least it requires an understanding of the Power of Two. In many ways, East of Eden is the story of two families, the Hamilton and the Trasks. The Hamiltons are the author’s own family, the maternal relatives he knew and heard about in family gatherings. The accounts of his grandfather’s gentleness, his grandmother’s fortitude and the bravery and sadness of their children were the first tales that stirred Steinbeck’s imagination and he wanted these stories immortalized. The Hamilton family tales are mixed in an earlier family saga, already known to most of the world. The Trasks are the first first family of all, and two sets of Trask brothers follow the biblical…
I’ve thought a lot about this entry because it falls on a calendar date of some significance. Of course, calendar holidays aren’t usually the ones that make big dents in our memories (unless we’re talking about bicycle gifts for holidays or a wedding celebrated on Valentines). The days you hold on to, good and bad, aren’t marked on someone else’s calendar. And of all of the marked days, New Year’s Eve isn’t anticipated by loads of people outside of the liquor business. Still, it has significance and so does the book, Just an Ordinary Day despite it’s title, because its author was no ordinary writer. Just an Ordinary Day is a selection of stories written by Shirley Jackson. Some of these are previously unpublished stories that seem to go back to her college years and the final one was published three years after she died. She created a lot of material between those two events that fall into several different genres. There are the psychologically disturbing stories that made her famous, the domestic ones that made her loved and several tales that resist categorization of any type. As a guess, I suspect Ms. Jackson would like that. Her stories tended…