Only a 3.6 average rating? I'm surprised. The ending was perhaps a little weak but I thought this tiny book was a banger!
Pierre and Jean tells the stoOnly a 3.6 average rating? I'm surprised. The ending was perhaps a little weak but I thought this tiny book was a banger!
Pierre and Jean tells the story of two brothers and how one's sudden turn of fortune makes the other bitterly jealous. Jean comes into some money, and Pierre becomes so consumed by jealousy that he totally spirals.
Pierre's resentment of his brother-- and, soon, everyone else --makes him so bitter and messed up that he basically becomes a 19th century incel. His anger turns on women with virulent intensity. He decides that women are all deceivers and manipulators; at one point, he watches Jean and Madame Rosemilly flirting and he sneers: "I'm taking lessons, learning how a man prepares himself to be a cuckold."
I found it a very effective little book. At the start, I felt some sympathy for Pierre, because who would not feel unjustly treated if life handed your sibling unearned wealth? But the guy goes completely off the rails and Maupassant depicts it brilliantly. Pierre’s growing paranoia, shame, and anger are drawn with sharp psychological insight. The book quietly maps the descent of a man who feels erased from his own life....more
Hmm. I enjoyed Steinbeck's writing, as always, and he creates a strong sense of place in this sardine-canning district of Monterey, California, but I Hmm. I enjoyed Steinbeck's writing, as always, and he creates a strong sense of place in this sardine-canning district of Monterey, California, but I find I prefer his longer family epic novels like East of Eden and The Grapes of Wrath.
In this book, we visit brothel owner Dora Flood, Chinese grocer Lee Chong, marine biologist Doc, a bunch of unemployed rogues led by Mack, and the disabled boy Frankie who struggles to fit in anywhere, amongst others. Cannery Row's short vignette-style chapters flit between so many different characters that I didn't feel particularly invested in any of them, save maybe Frankie. This was not the case in the other two books I mentioned above.
There is a beauty in how this ragtag bunch of characters come together and forge connections. It is thematically and atmospherically strong-- the gritty setting, the poetry in the mundane --but structurally plotless, and reads like a collection of loosely connected episodes....more
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