Chapter 2
Kansas- So Samuel Hamilton comes to California from Northern Ireland. He buys the crummy land, has a severe wife and makes a lot of babies. I like how the men dranks whiskey and chewed cuds of wild green Anise. I do this with my own anise, I don't know if it covers anything up, but it sure tastes sweet.
I like how the book Dr. Gunn's Family Medicine served as the Hamilton's medical history. How any issue, illness or medical even had been researched in the family book.
"The Hamiltons must have been either lucky or moral for the sections on gonorrhea and syphilis were never opened."
I have found information like this in the old books of my grandparents. Books were once prized possessions and indispensable. Way more quaint than Google and WedMD.
I like how the book Dr. Gunn's Family Medicine served as the Hamilton's medical history. How any issue, illness or medical even had been researched in the family book.
"The Hamiltons must have been either lucky or moral for the sections on gonorrhea and syphilis were never opened."
I have found information like this in the old books of my grandparents. Books were once prized possessions and indispensable. Way more quaint than Google and WedMD.
I am deeply fascinated with Samuel and Liza, but the lines "But I think that because they trusted themselves and respected themselves as individuals, because they knew beyond doubt that they were valuable and potentially moral units-because of this they could give God their own courage and dignity and then receive it back. Such things have disappeared perhaps because men do not trust themselves anymore..."
ReplyDeleteThese words hit me most, perhaps because I am thinking about these things myself. That people, Americans, have seemed to have lost their faith in themselves, and therefore turn blindly and grasp tightly to the strongest, loudest voice they can find.
I like Samuel a great deal. I wonder if his supposed poor success with his land really bothers him. Is he happy and content with his life?
And why are Steinbeck's women so cold and harsh and at the same time frail and sickly?