Adam Trask and Family
Portland:
The story of Adam, Cyrus, and Charles grabbed me tightly, and I couldn't let go until the end of chapter 7. Again the women, the mothers of Adam and Charles, such tortured and troubled women. Perhaps I would be too if I were married or parented by such men.
I wonder about Alice. What made her smile when she looked out the window? Did she figure out that it was Adam and not Charles who left the tiny gifts once Adam left for war? Was it the holding in of all her thoughts that led to the lungs failing?
When Adam felt that he was "being trained as a sacrifice" by his father, I'm sure is some kind of biblical reference, but I believe that Cyrus actually, knowingly or not, sacrificed Charles. The loneliness left him a little more than pathetic as a human being, but an excellent farmer.
Again, the narrator (that I keep naming as Steinbeck) hits a nerve with me, "It has always seemed strange to me that it is usually men like Adam who have to do the soldiering. He did not like fighting to start with, and far from learning to love it, as some men do, he felt an increasing revulsion for violence." How Adam becomes ever more the pacifist with all the more violence he faces is credible to his character. I liked him as a child, and have grown more fond of him upon his return to Charles.
The the magical 3 years it took Adam to return, the traveling, the restlessness... something I understand well in the attempts to return to "home". Its difficult task sometimes. Being put on the road gang and seeing how "a man doing an ugly or a brutal thing has hurt himself and must punish someone for the hurt." Maybe this give him some insight into Charles, and is the catalyst for him to make that final push back to the farm.
I like the conversations between Charles and Adam the night of his return. The need to know from Charles, and the acceptance of Adam. I look forward to seeing what they do next... how they, or at least Adam, gets to California.
A little note about Chapter 5 and the insertion of the Hamiltons in the middle of the other story is interesting. I like how Liza becomes a drinker, one spoonful at a time. We get a bit of information about the narrator, that Olive, one of Samuel and Liza's daughters, is the his (?) mother. I also get a deeper affection of Samuel here. He defies what the valley considers acceptable for a "poor man" to find enjoyment in: poetry, drawings not related to work, etc. The valley eventually began to see Samuel as someone who "belonged to the valley, and it was proud of him in the way a man who owns a peacock is proud. They weren't afraid of him any more...." Yes, I like Samuel all the more.
Yup, I am totally pulled in to this story, leaving notes in the margins and inspired to do.
The story of Adam, Cyrus, and Charles grabbed me tightly, and I couldn't let go until the end of chapter 7. Again the women, the mothers of Adam and Charles, such tortured and troubled women. Perhaps I would be too if I were married or parented by such men.
I wonder about Alice. What made her smile when she looked out the window? Did she figure out that it was Adam and not Charles who left the tiny gifts once Adam left for war? Was it the holding in of all her thoughts that led to the lungs failing?
When Adam felt that he was "being trained as a sacrifice" by his father, I'm sure is some kind of biblical reference, but I believe that Cyrus actually, knowingly or not, sacrificed Charles. The loneliness left him a little more than pathetic as a human being, but an excellent farmer.
Again, the narrator (that I keep naming as Steinbeck) hits a nerve with me, "It has always seemed strange to me that it is usually men like Adam who have to do the soldiering. He did not like fighting to start with, and far from learning to love it, as some men do, he felt an increasing revulsion for violence." How Adam becomes ever more the pacifist with all the more violence he faces is credible to his character. I liked him as a child, and have grown more fond of him upon his return to Charles.
The the magical 3 years it took Adam to return, the traveling, the restlessness... something I understand well in the attempts to return to "home". Its difficult task sometimes. Being put on the road gang and seeing how "a man doing an ugly or a brutal thing has hurt himself and must punish someone for the hurt." Maybe this give him some insight into Charles, and is the catalyst for him to make that final push back to the farm.
I like the conversations between Charles and Adam the night of his return. The need to know from Charles, and the acceptance of Adam. I look forward to seeing what they do next... how they, or at least Adam, gets to California.
A little note about Chapter 5 and the insertion of the Hamiltons in the middle of the other story is interesting. I like how Liza becomes a drinker, one spoonful at a time. We get a bit of information about the narrator, that Olive, one of Samuel and Liza's daughters, is the his (?) mother. I also get a deeper affection of Samuel here. He defies what the valley considers acceptable for a "poor man" to find enjoyment in: poetry, drawings not related to work, etc. The valley eventually began to see Samuel as someone who "belonged to the valley, and it was proud of him in the way a man who owns a peacock is proud. They weren't afraid of him any more...." Yes, I like Samuel all the more.
Yup, I am totally pulled in to this story, leaving notes in the margins and inspired to do.
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