The Winter of Our Discontent

A very slow start led to interesting developments in which all of those details from the start were relevant and necessary. I ended up being gripped by the end and can see why this is such a lauded book.

“Does anyone ever know even the outer fringe of another? What are you like in there? Who are you in there?

Steinbeck's introspective writing and innate skill at character studies are the sole reason I'm giving a star rating at all. As a novel, and as a Steinbeck novel, this hit the mark for me.

I can admit at least half of the reason is because: I wasn't willing to sit with a narrator who was ( and especially at first ) a narrow-minded, middle-aged white man. It reminded me a bit too much of a rhetoric I would prefer to avoid. Is it a real family I've met? It absolutely is, I have met this kind of family ( husband, wife, two kids, working class ) in real life, you can indeed go to your local small town and hear almost the exact same things said at any point. And I knew that this would be what the novel focused upon when picking it up.

The other half of the reason is that ... even if I wanted to relate to the narrator, it was written in such a way that I couldn't. Real life slices in novels can be the most interesting things depending on the manner in which they're written. And although this won the Nobel Prize in 1962 ( I believe it was that one? ) it would not win my personal Nobel Prize right now. There's reading about real life, and then there's trudging through it, without any emotional connection besides feeling like it's a hogwash of text.

I'm not recommending this novel as a Steinbeck character study. Grapes of Wrath, The Moon is Down, and Cannery Row were much harder hitting and didn't feel like as much of a drudge. I would say that I'd try again, but I know I won't. The title at least delivered: I read this during the winter, and it was a book that filled me with discontent.