Reading East of Eden Theologically

Let The Summer Reading Begin!

Beginning this week, we will work our way through John Steinbeck's 1952 American classic. It's a long book, so we will take our time, reading about 75 pages a week. It's also a book full of theological and philosophical musings about humanity, so we need time to pause and ponder. Steinbeck structured the book into 4 parts, but we are doubling that division to read it in 8 parts.

Read chapters 1-8 this week. In the Steinbeck Centennial Edition, that's pages 3-88, about 12 pages a day.

Why do I love this novel so much?

Chapter 34. We might start there. It contains none of the novel's plot or characters, so we can read it as we begin the book. The chapter contains the narrator's ponderings about life. A sermon of sorts. You might take a moment to read the whole chapter.

Let me pull two quotes from that chapter to introduce the novel.

“Human are caught—in their lives, in their thoughts, in their hungers and ambitions, in their avarice and cruelty, and in their kindness and generosity too—in a net of good and evil. I think this is the only story we have and that it occurs on all levels of feeling and intelligence. Virtue and vice were warp and woof of our first consciousness, and they will be the fabric of our last, and this despite any changes we may impose on field and river and mountain, on economy and manners. There is no other story. A man, after he has brushed off the dust and chips of his life, will have left only the hard, clean questions: Was it good or was it evil? Have I done well—or ill?” (411)

East of Eden concerns human nature and morality. It explores the reality of human goodness and kindness as well as our capacity for harm. To me, this is theological territory. Some may think that theology concerns itself with the nature of God, but I've always been prone to start my pondering with us. It is a deep theological issue to consider humanity – our remarkable creativity and our profound vice. One way to read East of Eden is as a deep character study. We read about such deeply complex characters in this novel, and each of them brings us to question human nature. Are we capable of such manipulation? Do we have free will?

The next quote:

“In uncertainty I am certain that underneath their topmost layers of frailty men want to be good and want to be loved. Indeed, most of their vices are attempted short cuts to love. When a man comes to die, no matter what his talents and influence and genius, if he dies unloved his life must be a failure to him and his dying a cold horror. It seems to me that if you or I must choose between two courses of thought or action, we should remember our dying and try so to live that our death brings no pleasure to the world.” (412-13)

The narrator claims that people want to be good, and we find characters in the book who are striving in that direction. Some that even seem to be good without effort. But we also meet other characters who are definitely not good. Is the novel trying to argue that humans are inherently good? Because the characters we meet are more complicated and nuanced than the certainty that the narrator espouses here.

Summer Reading Schedule

Week of June 1-7: read chapters 1-8
Week of June 8-14: read chapters 9-14
Week of June 15-21: read chapters 15-19
Week of June 22-28: read chapters 20-24
Week of June 29-July 5: read chapters 25-30
Week of July 6-12: read chapters 31-39
Week of July 13-19: read chapters 40-48
Week of July 20-26: read chapters 49-55

A Benediction (Or Miscellaneous Thoughts)

This is the email to forward. Ask a friend to join the Summer Book Club! If you know someone who might want to read East of Eden with us, forward this email to them.

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