Cannery Row John Steinbeck
Discuss This Book--As the title says, this book is about Caannery Row; a very small town consisting of only a few blocks. Mack and the boys (a few philosophical job-less individuals wandering about the town), Doc (who makes a living by collecting and shipping various animals to be studied), Lee Chong (The Chinese owner of the local grocery) and Dora and the girls (The women who run a local whore house) make up the main characters in the book. It's an odd gathering of people, but together they make up the town known as Cannery Row.
Mack and the boys get the brilliant idea to give Doc a party. Doc is highly respected in the town, as he brings in much of the income. Mack and the boys make a living by resisting holding steady jobs, though they know how to find money when they need it. Their party turns into a disasterous failure, but later in the book they are able to make up for it.
Lee Chong was my favorite charactor in the book, with his no nonsense attitude for business, and dealing with Mack and the boys. He seemed a bit scared of them, but he still managed to drive a hard bargain. Lee Chong was quite weathly when it came to junk, such as the run down house he rented to Mack and the boys, and the Ford truck that didn't start. This was the result of using the barter system with customers who didn't have the cash to pay their grocery debts.
Though I enjoyed the book, and Steinbeck's style of writing, this was not one of my favorite books. When I got to the end of the book I was left hanging without a real feeling of closure, or a real sense of the point of the book. For anyone looking to read one of Steinbeck's novels, I highly recommend reading The Grapes of Wrath instead of this one.
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