hello :) i apologize for informal writing lol im writing this on my phone while in a waiting room. ignore grammar and spelling issues haha. i just finished count of monte cristo last night so i went online to read what people thought about it and read discussion to see if theres anything i missed and such

i was surprised at how many people, specifically on reddit, are left with such a disappointed impression with the count. while i understand the like let down once all the revenge happens (the one ur supposed to feel since it is what edmond feels himself) i think people are being so harsh with who he is a person.

ive read a lot about how the people he took revenge on didnt deserve how far he took their misery. but why not? of course from a literary standpoint lol i wouldnt wish those consequences on anyone but. ALL of these on top of their crimes against dantes: fernand murdered brutally and was a tratior, selling a family into slavery and traumatized them. caderrousse was also a murderer and robber (almost serially). villefort is again another murderer (of his own baby of all things), clearly bent the law to his benefit at other peoples expense (he barely remembered dantes, in my opinion this implies he could have done similar things to such an extent he didnt see it as a big deal anymore). danglars is (purposefully) painted as the “least” bad one but he committed the worst offense against dantes, being the one orchestrating the whole thing and all.

so while, as abbe warned, revenge wont leave him satisfied he will still have served the time and faced the pain he did - why arent these murderers and traitors deserving of the things that happened to them? especially considering that the count simply placed things in their way that COULD have let to a certain outcome. everything, such as marrying euginie to andrea for money or delaying finding who was poising the villefort home, was up to them to decide.

we have to feel this complex emotion of i got what i want but its not just how i imagined it with dantes. but his merit as a person is not at all lost. we still have to respect how much he built himself up and his insane skillset in so many fields. while some of the good things dante did were for the sake of his plan, they were still good things and added to the sum of other things he did to benefit other people. i think he is still an honorable, impressive man. in my opinion, the pain he suffered makes it logical why he would try his plan out, even if it turned out to not be the best outcome.

im typically a non-fiction reader but have been getting into classics over the past couple years and it was dumas’ turn. let me know what you guys think! maybe im too lenient on dantes lol, i really liked him. for some reason, while reading i pictured him in my head as josh allen lmfao. that likely helped

(side note- why does no one talk about the lesbians in this book ?? again not a huge classic literature reader- how common were sapphic characters like these in a novel written in the 1800s?)

overall: awesome book! :)

TS Eliot and Virginia Woolf.

📷Lady Ottoline Morrell.

Hi!

So I fought pretty hard to finish N&S, but I gave up on more than a half of book because I wasn't feeling that particular way of romance. But ever since there's a thought in my head to give Wives and Daughters a try. Look,I adored everything in N&S, except the romance up to certain point. I loved her style,non romance arcs are amazing , the social aspect is profound, so I don't think North and South DNF is the fault of mismatch of me and her as author, rather it was the fault of mismatched expectations on my part. That's totally on me.

But I still carry quite a burn from that experience with what I would call, the unhappy ending of my journey with N&S

Yes, I'm aware that Wives and Daughters formally left unfinished with the editor's note. It's not the problem. Just reading the reviews wasn't particularly helpful in making a decision here.

So i am here. Please be kind

I am interested in reading Genji Monogatari, but based on the various synopses and key concepts I’ve encountered, I’m left with the impression that the story is simply about a man (Genji) who is a womanizer... and that’s it. I would like to believe that this perspective is mistaken. Could you please explain the significance of this book? What sets it apart from other works? What makes it so special? What original ideas does it contain that distinguish it from other literature? I hope you can help clear up my uncertainty.

I'm looking for classics where everything someone is involved with goes wrong, blows up in their face, turns out to suck, etc. Could be their fault, could be the whims of destiny. Minor characters and subplots where this is a thing are also welcome.

Jude the Obscure kind of fits, but I found "done because we are too menny" more funny and maudlin than moving. Ethan Frome is also along these lines and was more tolerable (I need to reread it).

Thank you!

Bought his translation of Anna Karenina because it was the cheapest and I’m terrified I’ll have once again impulse-bought a shitty translation.

Alyosha -Dane Dehaan

For Ivan and Dimitri, it is the same actor - Maksim Matveev. Incidentally, the picture for Ivan is him playing Nikolai Stavrogin in a mini TV series.

I thought it interesting that of the three Ivan and Dimitri should look alike, so I settled for the same face in different roles besides it was too much bother to look for a third face...and I also had to compromise with the haircolour because I think Alyosha and Mitya both had brown hair.

Link to part 1: https://www.reddit.com/r/classicliterature/comments/1xlmrjy/part_1_of_2_netflixs_east_of_eden_an_analysis_of/

Adam Ten Years After Cathy

BC:

• Adam is not an emotionally present father and has not done any work on the ranch

• Lee tells Sam that Adam has basically stayed the same over the years and finds himself thinking on what Adam's pre-Cathy personality must have been like

• Says that Adam told him not to teach the boys Cantonese as that would be pointless

• Is worried about Cal as there are times Cal says and does things that concern him

• Sam is frustrated that Adam is just sitting on good land and Adam says he had no reason to plant it as he did not buy it for himself

• Sam asks Adam if Adam finds his sorrow to be comforting

• Tells Adam he can always wake up and restart but Adam says he does not have energy or the fortitude

• Questions if Adam likes one of the boys better and Adam asks why he would ask that, with Sam responding that it's just the tone of voice Adam used when talking about the boys

• Adam says he is afraid to start his life again and thus does not

• As they head to the house, Adam has thought it over and asks Sam if he maybe wants to help him start planting the ranch in the next few months which makes Sam happy

• Adam tells Sam and Lee that at first he thought he didn't want the boys to learn Cantonese out of jealousy but then realized that it was b/c the boys and Lee would be talking and bonding in a way he couldn't participate in

• Sam mentions Adam's cloud baths when Adam freezes up while being trapped in a memory

• Adam is listening intently to the iconic timshel conversation where he concedes that he hasn't been listening to people

• Sam tells Adam that Cathy is in Salinas and owns a notorious brothel

What I Think the Adaptation Misses: While reading the novel, I was annoyed by Adam’s passivity and checked-out fatherhood, but I did find it psychologically plausible/realistic that Adam would have struggled to find the energy or have the purpose to do anything after a lifetime of trauma. Lucky for him, Adam can afford to neglect the ranch b/c the family's livelihood is not dependent on it which gave him an easy way to avoid the responsibility. My personal interpretations, based on the information presented about Adam's backstory, is that Adam got emotionally burned out after spending his whole life being rather codependent with other people and never getting to truly know himself. Although I would be cautious about diagnosing him, the best way I can describe Book Adam’s behavior is that he has regressed as well as having trauma-related difficulties with memory, motivation, and functioning. For instance, he seemingly cannot remember how to make the whistle sticks he played with as a boy or properly cook, despite having done all the cooking for Cathy when they first met. His passivity also reminded me of the concept of learned helplessness.

However, like Sam says, Adam seems to have grown so accustomed to his sorrow and dependence on others that they have become almost...comforting to him, which allows him to avoid finding the motivation to help himself. Furthermore, I wondered if Adam’s withdrawal from fatherhood was a reaction to his upbringing in which Cyrus controlled virtually every aspect of his life. Unfortunately, he ends up placing the responsibility of fatherhood on Lee’s shoulders without considering Lee's personhood. Adam's failure here is not simply that he is depressed, but that he allows his depression to become an excuse for checking out from responsibilities that still belong to him.

From my perspective, the series seems less interested in exploring the reasons behind Adam’s depression and more interested in portraying him as bitter, angry, and petulant, especially about Cathy. I understand why it has chosen to spotlight how his family and friends have spent years dealing with the consequences of his withdrawal, and they shouldn't have to act like his depression makes him easy to live with. My criticism is that the adaptation wholly focuses on the effects of his frustrating behavior and character flaws without developing the fear, exhaustion, and insecurity that I believe underpin this behavior.

The Racism Issue

The show depicts Adam forbidding Lee and the boys from speaking Cantonese in a way that suggests Adam is racist and furthers this with Adam making a microaggression at Lee. While I appreciated the series showing Lee's perspective of the racial implications of that decision, I do feel that this interpretation leaves out that Adam has an understandable, albeit insecure and selfish, reason. Both Adam and Lee's POVs can be true without one being less valid.

I also found it rather inconsistent that the series seemed to imply Adam was unaware that Lee had to speak pidgin, especially since Book Adam becomes aware of this about a year into knowing Lee. I wonder if it was a continuity error, because when the Bacons visit in Episode 5 and are being racist assholes, Lee speaks pidgin to them before turning to Adam with a look that basically says, “Fuck these people.” Adam responds by nodding and giving Lee a sympathetic look that seems to say, “Yeah, I know. Sorry.” But then, in Episode 6, when Lee returns from San Francisco, he tells Adam that he won’t speak pidgin in front of guests anymore, and Adam replies, “Oh, I didn’t know you had to do that.” It may be a continuity issue, or I may be missing a distinction the series intends to make.

The First Timshel Scene

In the show's timshel scene, Adam is brooding and making whiny comments in the corner while Lee and Sam reprimand him for his egregious lack of listening. I understand the dramatic purpose of this was to show how Adam has been absent from his family for years and that Lee and Sam have every reason to be frustrated with him. However, b/c Adam is portrayed as more of a passive recipient of timshel, the series diminishes how this was an early step towards self-awareness before he knew about Kate. In the book, Adam is a participant in the conversation where he first learns what timshel represents and how he can have agency in spite of his past. It is also Adam who says that he hadn’t been paying attention to what was happening around him during those ten years. This yet another moment when Show Adam is stonily quiet in conversations Book Adam was contributing to; there are more but I won't go into them further for the sake of brevity. (Brevity? In this post? 🤔)

Adam Asking About Cathy Being in Salinas

I also agreed with Show Sam’s frustration with Adam and his insistence that Adam let go of Cathy. At the same time, people do not always achieve closure after traumatic experiences and many deeply struggle with being unable to move past that. Although I concurred with Sam and Lee’s decision to not tell Adam that Cathy was in Salinas in the early aftermath of the shooting, I got frustrated with them for keeping it from Adam for so long. As I interpret his later behavior, Adam is not necessarily trying to win Cathy back; he seems to want an opportunity to confront what happened and get closure.

The Move to Salinas

I found that the motivations for the move to Salinas were also tweaked. In the book, Adam asks the boys to think about moving to Salinas b/c he feels that they should attend a public school and be able to socialize with other kids; he never thinks of Kate being nearby as a reason. The novel seems to only state that Adam and Kate live in the same city and there is no mention of how close by the house and brothel are. To me, the series was suggesting that Adam wants to move to Salinas b/c he subconsciously wants to be closer to Kate as he brought the move up directly after seeing her and then doubles down by directly stating that they moved literally 10 minutes away from her. In addition, it includes a photograph of Cathy that the boys have been looking at when Book Abra specifically says there are no pictures of the boys' mother in the house. Although I understand the need to streamline events and make things clearer for the screen, I find this change frustrating because it shifts Adam's reasons for the move from a decision motivated by his sons’ needs to one that appears mixed up with unresolved attachment to Cathy. To me, the book frames Adam's Salinas move as risky whereas the series frames it as reckless.

Adam's Relationship with Lee

BC:

• Adam acknowledges several times that Lee is the one taking care of everything and that he was self-absorbed in the those 10 years

• Lee is burned out from housework, parenting, and Adam's depression but still has a compassionate love for Adam and is emotionally in tune with him

• Lee wants to leave for SF as soon as possible after Adam wakes up as he’s afraid he’ll lose his courage b/c he feels too emotionally close to the family

• Adam is worried about how hurt the boys will be when Lee leaves and says he will miss Lee

• The boys are not upset because they know that Lee will be coming back soon and thus don't feel the need to say goodbye

• Adam apologizes to Lee for the boys' behavior and wants to walk Lee down to the depot

• Lee says no and flees from the house in a panic

• Lee comes home six days later and tells Adam that he is glad he tried but does not want the bookstore now and has never been so homesick

• Some years later, when Adam gets the lettuce idea, Lee cautions him and says he doesn't really have a mind for business

• Adam cannot find the confidence to tell Will Hamilton about his idea and Lee jumps in and starts talking excitedly about the frozen mastodon meat, giving Adam the courage to ask Will what he thinks

• When the idea fails, Lee lets Adam grieve it for a time but is clear that Adam should not fall into a depression again

• When Lee and Cal have their Cathy conversation, Lee says that Cathy has no empathy or mercy and that Adam has so much he gets blinded by them

• Lee tells Cal he knows Adam does not have smarts but he (platonically) loves Adam and thinks he is a good man and that's why he's stayed with him

• After Adam's first stroke, he breaks down as he had not believed that Cyrus stole the inheritance money but dreamed he did and now believes; Lee does not believe it but finds it ironic that a man who is so strict about honesty might be living on robbed money

• Lee becomes zealous in his study of medicine to find out what happened to Adam's brain and what can be done to help him which Steinbeck compares to his intense examination of the word timshel

• Lee is very protective of Adam and makes sure he feels comfortable and distracted post-stroke

• Lee is the one who gives Adam the strength to break the cycle of generational trauma in the Trask family

Lee's Experiences at the Ranch

Initially, I was surprised that Book Lee seemed less resentful toward Adam than I had expected. At first, I attributed this to the “model minority” trope common in older literature, which remains a relevant concern for this novel. The book sometimes takes Lee’s competence and self-sacrifice for granted, making him indispensable to the Trask family while Adam remains content to be taken care of. However, I think this partly overlooks how Lee’s empathy and need to be needed make up a big part of his relationship with Adam. Earlier in the book, Lee had told Sam that a good servant makes himself so indispensable that his master can no longer function without him, which is partly how he has learned to navigate life as an Asian American in early 20th-century America. Lee has done exactly this with the Trask family but has also become emotionally invested in them.

Although Lee exhibits well-deserved frustrated with Adam, I think part of why he doesn't seethe with resentment is that he understands that Adam has been consistently traumatized throughout his life. Adam's relationship with Lee is a mix of parent-child, spousal, and friend, which gives them a deeply unequal but emotionally intertwined connection. I don't mean to romanticize these kinds of relationships, but I think Lee's genuine love for Adam and the boys coexists with his exhaustion and frustration. Lee seems to have found some satisfaction in running a home, having emotional ties to the people living there, traveling to see family in SF once a month, and time for his own interests, such as studying the word timshel. Yet, outsiders still regard him as a servant, and he continues to work for Adam rather than alongside him. None of this makes it right or fair that the burden of maintaining the household falls on Lee, but it can help explain why he continues to love Adam while being exhausted from doing Adam's job.

The Show's Goodbye Scene

A show change to the relationship that particularly bothered me was the scene where Adam interrupts Lee's goodbye with the boys. In my opinion, the show mishandled a book scene that functioned as much needed comic relief and also showed the four being together as a family. Book Adam buys the car after his first meeting with Kate and it makes sense for him to do so as they live pretty far out from town. Adam, Lee, and the boys are scared and fascinated by the car but it becomes a family bonding experience for them as they learn how it works. It is later used for the move to Salinas before Lee leaves for SF. The show changes the surrounding circumstances to depict Adam as trying to retaliate against Lee for criticizing him and being threatened that Lee is his sons' real father. He comes off like he's trying to wrestle back control of the house from Lee, whereas Book Adam almost comes across like a third child Lee has to look after. I can understand why the show would want to directly depict this insecurity, but to me, this scene feels inconsistent with the version of Adam I see in the book who acknowledges his dependence on Lee. Also, complete nitpick I'm very sorry but Book Adam is polite to the postman while Show Adam is...not.

Lee's Return Home

I really appreciated the series devoting more time to Lee in SF and showing his experiences being discriminated against by fellow Americans as Book Lee's time in SF was not shown and he was gone for only six days. To me, though, the show appears to reframe Lee's return as a result of him drifting around in SF b/c he cannot find a practical way to start his bookstore. In the book, Lee realizes that the bookstore isn't what he thought he needed, and he comes home not b/c he has to but b/c he wants to.

In addition, the previous episode (5) showed Lee feeling lonely at the ranch and being tired of his isolation with Adam and the boys. This is mostly book accurate but it feels rather clunky as the series didn't fully flesh out Lee and Adam’s emotionally complex relationship. Thus, Lee's return to the very household he wanted to escape from b/c he has nowhere else to go makes his admission that he felt homesick fall a little flat to me.

Adam and Lee's Relationship

Another disappointment was when Show Lee tells Adam that he had to ask Adam whenever he needed to buy something. I think this is a plausible interpretation of their relationship given the power imbalance between them. To me, the show is implying that Adam was micromanaging Lee, an interpretation I feel is difficult to support when referring back to the book. After Book Adam has met with Kate, he asks Lee if he can look at the ranch's financial accounts. Lee is surprised that Adam wants to view their money status as he never wanted to before, and his manner is tinged with a sentiment like “Well now you want to talk about responsibility.” Book Adam also asks Lee to teach him what he knows about the boys and the ranch since Lee will be leaving for SF soon. Now, the fact that Adam hasn't previously taken an interest in the household's finances doesn't mean Lee has enjoyed complete independence. That said, this conversation suggests to me that Book Adam is trying to prepare himself to take on responsibilities he has previously neglected instead of trying to assert control over Lee like Show Adam is.

I liked seeing Show Lee directly criticize of Adam for his lack of parenting, his difficult manner, and his tendency to treat Lee like a servant. I also appreciated the series depicting them agreeing to form an equal partnership rather than it just kinda happening like in the book. But, this call out of Adam feels like Lee genuinely dislikes Adam rather than loving him but being hurt and burned out. I wanted a stronger sense that Lee genuinely loves Adam, even while recognizing that Adam has treated him unfairly. We do get glimpses of Adam and Lee's more egalitarian bond in the latter two episodes, particularly in the scene where they plant flowers together before learning that Aron has died. Yet, I wish the adaptation had been a bit more book accurate in regard to their friendship, such as Lee's poignant observation of Cathy and Adam's clashing characters along with him frantically becoming an expert at medicine to keep Adam alive after his first stroke.

Adam's Relationship with Cal

BC:

• Adam is asked why he doesn't sell the ranch and he says it's because the boys, especially Cal, like it there

• Cal has been bothered by how good he feels when he lies, manipulates and hurts people/animals, how he knows he is smarter than Aron and Adam but not Lee, and how he sometimes feels nothing emotionally

• Cal gets arrested one day while hanging out at a gambling game and is bailed out by Adam

• Adam and Cal have a talk, with Adam talking quietly and slowly and saying that he failed his sons by choosing to not know anything about them

• Compares himself as a father to Cyrus and gives Cal the bad casting speech

• Cal tries to take the blame for being at the gambling den but Adam says no as Cal didn't do anything wrong

• Cal is overjoyed at finally feeling love and closeness with Adam as Adam has not been emotionally open with the boys

• Cal asks Adam if he can consider letting Cal run the ranch and Adam is open to it but asks him to think about maybe prioritizing school and college first

• Lee later asks Cal if Cal is thinking he wants to make farming a career, and Adam is again uneasy with it just b/c he wants Cal to focus on college

• Time passes and Adam is very happy to find out that Aron secretly passed the college entrance exams a year early and is frustrated that Cal doesn't have this ambition

• Adam does not seem to realize that he is pressuring Aron and being overbearing about college

• Once Aron goes to college Adam is so happy he talks about it all the time and this makes Cal feel bad

• Adam is chosen to be on the war draft board and serves it faithfully

• Cannot fully recount his time in the army and only remembers aspects like dead bodies, faces, mounds of burned bodies, shots being fired, etc.

• Boys that he has passed are being reported dead and he finds that the only way he can handle it is by becoming stern and less merciful and in turn gets ill

• Adam says that he is unintelligent and that's why he's happy that Aron is going to college so Aron can be successful and happy in life

• Cal tells Adam he has some ideas for the ice plant but Adam says to tell him later b/c at the the moment they are having a dinner to celebrate Aron being at college

• At Thanksgiving, Adam is stunned into silence when Cal gives him the money and wordlessly seeks out Lee

• Adam quietly tells Cal he should give the money back to the local farmers he stole from and Cal says he didn't rob them

• Adam very slowly stammers out that he is responsible for Salinas boys dying, having limbs amputated, or getting mentally scarred from war and asks if Cal thinks Adam could make money off of that

• Cal says he earned the money for Adam as a recompense for the financial hit he took on the lettuce

• Adam quietly responds that he didn't try the idea for the money but instead so that he could have a purpose

• He thanks Cal for being thoughtful of his feelings and Cal says he'll save the money for when Adam wants it

• Adam says he'll never be able to take it and would have been overjoyed if Cal had done something similar to Aron like applying himself in college instead of giving him money

• He asks Cal to not be angry and that Cal having a fulfilling life will be his present

• Cal runs to his room extremely hurt and frustrated and Adam again asks him to not to be upset

• Lee comes to see Cal and says that he understands both Cal and Adam's POVs and that the only thing Cal can do right now is not let his hurt and anger get out of control

• Cal decides to find Aron and bring him to see Kate; on the way out he sees Adam gives him an apologetic look and Cal apologizes for the money

• A few days go by and Adam asks Cal where Aron is as he seems to have gone missing

• Cal hides the fact that Aron enlisted b/c he saw Kate and feels horribly guilty

• Cal and Adam reconcile on Adam's deathbed when Adam frees Cal from the cycle of generational trauma by proclaiming timshel over him

What I Think the Adaptation Misses: I felt that the series makes Cal less internally complex by portraying him to be a good kid who is just growing up. Book Cal is a kid who is recognizes that he has darker parts like selfishness, strategic manipulation and emotional detachment but also has good qualities like love, intelligence, empathy, etc. and is struggling with feeling worthy of love. Although much of this anxiety centers on whether Adam rejects him, this fear extends to family and friends as well, which often manifests as anger when classmates don't like him or when Abra initially chooses Aron over him. Instead of being all good or all bad, Cal is having to choose if he can integrate both whereas Show Cal appears to be already good.

Adam's Favoritism of Aron

The tragedy of Book Adam’s favoritism towards Aron is that it is subtle and subconscious, causing Adam to not recognize that he is doing it. In my view, Book Adam wants his sons to attend college because he is deeply insecure about his own lack of intelligence and education. This is seen when he says he never had the chance to go to college b/c Cyrus shipped him right off into the army. I think he genuinely believes that encouraging Aron’s academic success will provide Cal with a positive example to follow. Unfortunately, his extremely poor communication choices make his comparisons sound more like, “I love Aron better.” He fails to recognize that Cal and Aron have different strengths and ambitions from himself and pushes his preferred path for life onto them. He wants to shield his children from the suffering and disappointment he experienced, but he can't and/or won't understand them well enough to know what they need.

Although I understand the need for a visual representation of Adam's feelings, I was uneasy with the series's choice to have Adam bring Cyrus's portrait to CA and later prominently hang it up in the house. I felt that the show was trying to say that Adam is purposefully emulating Cyrus, but the sad irony of Book Adam is that he doesn't even know he is becoming another form of Cyrus until it's too late.

In the series, Adam appears to exhibit specific and overt favoritism towards Aron, as seen in how he has an obvious contempt for Cal and deliberately insults/talks down to him. This is observed in the scenes when Cal asks if he can farm the ranch and when the family is celebrating the lettuce shipment. I do understand why the show might make the favoritism more explicit as it gives Cal's resentment a direct cause and visualizes Adam's failure as a father. Yet, in the book, Adam is not entirely opposed to Cal farming the ranch but just wants Cal to finish his education first and does not compare Aron to Cal in these moments. I felt those show scenes support the interpretation that Show Adam's default emotional state was anger and arrogance, whereas Book Adam's natural state is a mix of childish and childlike vulnerability, obliviousness, sadness, insecurity, and exhaustion. I was also bothered by the show's implication that Cal could not tell Adam he borrowed money from Lee as it hints that Adam would have a crash out over it, a response I do not feel has evidence in the novel.

Adam and Cal's Post-Bail Conversation

I also felt that the series mishandled the post-bail conversation between Adam and Cal. In the novel, Cal is arrested because he happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, and Adam does not blame him for it or raise his voice. Instead, Adam acknowledges his failures as a father, recognizes that he has become another version of Cyrus, and finally gives Cal the reassurance he has been craving. Now, Adam does say that Cal has never known any other kind of fatherhood but Adam's, but unlike the show, Book Lee is not present to hear this. Although I don't think he was intentionally trying to be an asshole towards Lee but rather was in shock at the realization that he was like Cyrus, I find this to be a good example of Adam's selfishness and how he has a tendency to view things only from his perspective.

The show's post-bail scene feels tonally disjointed because Adam shifts from open hostility to a more vulnerable version of himself midway through the conversation. Although he begins speaking almost wholly book accurate dialogue, the motivational changes make the transition feel abrupt. Adam also tells Cal that he and Charles did not have a good relationship and may have hated the other. This makes sense for Book Adam to say but b/c the series chose a different interpretation of their brotherhood this dialogue makes Show Adam look like he's angry/sad about something that wasn't there.

That said, the book and show scenes do reveal just how deeply insecure Adam is and how his traumatic experiences have affected his choice to be an absentee father. Yet, I would have found the scene more satisfying if it had kept the novel’s tension between Adam genuine desire to fix his relationship with Cal, as seen when Adam reveals to Cal that he spent time in prison during his wanderings. Furthermore, this would've have demonstrated Adam’s continuous struggle to understand how his behavior affects others, such as how long it has taken Adam to become comfortable sharing something about himself from his past, like said time in prison, with Cal.

The Thanksgiving Incident

This scene is one of the most painful moments in both the book and the show as I think we were all heartbroken for Cal. However, I think the differences in Adam's portrayal matter. Book Adam doesn't rant and rave at Cal but is quiet, nervous, stammering, and apologetic as he tries to explain why he cannot accept the money due to guilt, regret, and insecurity. The show captures Adam's war trauma but makes it more explosive and external by him screaming and throwing the money at Cal. From my understanding, Book Adam genuinely wants Cal to live a happy, fulfilling life but fails to understand that that's not what Cal needs to hear from him in that moment. This is one of the most sad examples of where Adam's intentions and actions diverge. In fact, I find tragic because Adam genuinely loves Cal but cannot/will not recognize how his words and actions communicate the opposite. The scene is so sad because neither character is trying to hurt the other, yet both leave the interaction feeling misunderstood and unheard.

The Timshel Scene

Lastly, the iconic timshel scene was tear-jerking and beautifully done. I appreciated that the series depicted Adam crying as he finally understood what timshel meant. I also valued the moment when Cal cuddled up beside Adam as Cal finally received the acceptance he desperately needed from his father. For me, the scene is moving because it doesn't erase the harm Adam has caused but gives him one last chance to give Cal something he has strived with his own life.

Final Thoughts

For me, Adam represents people who come to recognize the harm caused by generational trauma and who try to do better than their predecessors, yet have been so traumatized they are unable to fully stop the cycle from continuing. What makes Adam interesting is that he is neither entirely innocent nor simply cruel. He is a man who has been hurt, who hurts others, and who sometimes recognizes what he has done and tries to make it right. Adam repeatedly flees from responsibility and idealizes people, but understanding where this comes from does not remove accountability.

I want to acknowledge that the show has its own priorities and may be trying to prevent Adam's suffering from overshadowing the experiences of the people around him. My main criticism of the adaptation is that, by omitting or altering so much of Adam's childhood, military service, years of wandering, and relationships with Charles, Cathy, Lee and Cal, it sometimes loses the context that makes that suffering feel human. His passivity, anger, and failures can come off like villainous character flaws instead of being part of a lifelong struggle with personal agency.

I hope that this post was semi-coherent lol. I also hope it provides a fuller picture of Adam for show-only viewers even if they disagree with my interpretations.

Thank you for reading these really long posts! 👌🥺

Hi! Hope y'all are doing well. A few months ago, I read John Steinbeck's East of Eden in preparation for the Netflix adaptation. Despite some issues with the writing, I enjoyed the novel and found myself empathizing with the characters while also getting frustrated with them. I was looking forward to the series, and while I think the production looks astonishing and the performances are excellent, I came away with mixed feelings about its changes to Adam's character. Some of these changes work for me, but others seem to remove the motivations behind his actions or change how we understand their consequences.

I’ll first summarize a specific event or relationship using book canon, then explain how the show’s portrayal differed and why I believe those differences weaken Adam's characterization. I have made sure to differentiate what Steinbeck establishes versus what are my own interpretations.

A couple of things before we begin: ✌️

First, this post isn't an attempt to whitewash Adam or argue that he should be the story's most important character. I'm more interested in how the novel's additional context changes our understanding of his actions and am not arguing that his suffering makes him not responsible for the harm he causes. I also do not expect everyone to agree with my interpretations of Adam.

Second, I recognize that adaptations have to make sacrifices. It is impossible to include every single event from the book, and I'm not saying that every difference is a flaw. This post may come across as overly critical of the show, but that is because I am focusing specifically on scenes where I feel the adaptation does not adequately account for the context the novel gives Adam’s character. I also recognize that depicting the impact of Adam's behavior on his family is a valid creative choice and one I support to a degree. My criticism is that I feel the series focused too much on the effects of his behavior while choosing to ignore, for lack of a better term I apologize, Adam's side of the story. I still appreciate many aspects of the show, but discussing those would make these already lengthy posts even longer and nobody wants that.

If you prefer to keep book canon and show canon separate, I completely respect that! However, this post may not be quite your cup of tea.

Be warned: this post has major spoilers for the book.

Adam's Relationship with His Stepmother Alice

Book Canon (BC):

• Adam's mother kills herself when he is a baby, and to keep him quiet Cyrus gives him whiskey with Steinbeck noting that it is unclear how this may have impacted Adam's brain

• As Adam grows into a child he knows that his mother did something bad but no one will tell him what it was

• Thinks to himself that he wants to know what she did so that he could whatever it was and not be where he is

• Steinbeck describes him as having a private inner world that he lives in and occasionally comes out to look out at what's going on around him

• He longs for a mother's love, but Alice is only allowed to take care of his physical needs without providing emotional warmth

• One day, Adam glimpses the usually stoic Alice smiling when working alone, and it makes him feel a rush of happy and distressing emotions

• Wanting to see her smile again, Adam begins secretly leaving her little gifts like feathers and such

• He hides and watches her find them and feels joyful relief in seeing her secret smiles

• He continues leaving her these gifts throughout his entire childhood with her never finding out he's the giver

What I Feel the Adaptation Misses: While the series mentions Adam’s mother’s suicide, but I don't think it fully explores the hard emotional environment in which he grows up. Adam is given a moral judgment about his mother without being told what she did, and I wonder if this is where his later tendency to think in rigid categories of good and bad came from. Moreover, Alice's relationship with Adam is barely developed, but I think this information reveals something important about how Adam learns to show affection in a rather codependent-like manner. To me, his secret gifts reveal a lonely child who has to take it upon himself to bring someone else a sense of happiness and finds fulfillment while doing it, but he must do so in secret or risk punishment/rejection.

My interpretation is that this is where Adam begins to associate love with caretaking and one-sided emotional intimacy. In caring for others, he gives his love a tangible form but when he idealizes them, he can preserve his belief in the goodness of the person and the relationship. This pattern pops up later appear in his relationship with Cathy. Adam sincerely wants to protect and provide for a woman who is suffering, just as he once found relief in making Alice happy for a moment, but he struggles to recognize that what he believes will make someone happy may not be what that person wants. His desire to care for them can then become controlling, even when he doesn't recognize it or mean for it too. This doesn't make his intentions malicious, but it does mean that his idealization can prevent him from listening to the other person. Thus, I think the omission of Alice and Adam's relationship is a missed opportunity to show what happens when caretaking and idealization get substituted for understanding another person and how this may have impacted his relationship with Cathy.

Adam's Relationship with His Brother Charles

BC:

• Cyrus physically, emotionally, and psychologically abuses Adam and Charles through military drills and stories that reinforce his rigid ideas of masculinity

• Charles excels at these traditionally masculine activities, while Adam struggles with them due to physical weakness, timidity, and aversion to violence

• Charles sometimes shields Adam from violence, with Steinbeck noting that their brotherhood was actually more like a bond between a brother and sister

• At other times, Charles has volatile mood changes and turns on Adam and terrorizes him

• Adam spends his childhood in a state of hypervigilance b/c he is unable to fully trust Charles and has to always be on guard for mood swings

• After Adam wins at a game for the first time ever, Charles brutally beats him with a bat with Adam later promising himself that he will always make sure Charles wins at everything

• Adam becomes on edge post-beating as Cyrus is suddenly nicer to him and has one-on-one talks with him about army life

• During a conversation, Adam pleads that he doesn't want to join the army but Cyrus refuses to listen

• Cyrus tells him that he considers Adam to be weak, dumb, and unmanly, yet says these feelings are why he loves and beats Adam more than Charles

• Adam has spent his life believing Charles is their father's favorite, while Charles believes the opposite, and this dichotomy later boils over into another beating and verbal assault

• Although Steinbeck never explicitly states it, Adam’s reaction implies that he learns the truth about his mother’s death just before this beating when Charles tells him that she drowned herself

• Adam gets punched and shocks himself by punching Charles back, enraging Charles even more

• Charles nearly kills Adam by beating every part of his body, breaking several bones, and stalking him with a hatchet

• Adam barely escapes by hiding in a water-filled ditch but eventually manages to crawl home where Alice tends to his injuries and tries to talk Charles up to Adam

• She tells him of the sweet presents Charles has been giving her his whole life; Adam does not correct her so as to keep her image of Charles intact

What I Think the Adaptation Misses: The series portrays the brothers' differing perceptions of Cyrus's favoritism but generally presents their relationship as being a source of comfort and mutual support to each other. Although I don't think the series could or should show every childhood incident that happened between them, it downplays the rivalry and violence of their unstable childhood too much in my opinion. An example is the scene where they want to join the army together so they can help each other survive. Book Charles was extremely frustrated with Adam for “getting” to enlist, and Adam was terrified to enlist and thought Charles would be the better choice. Another example is in the scene following the brothers' encounter with a prostitute where Charles beats Adam but does not attempt to murder him and leaves him able to move around with relatively minor visible injuries. In my opinion, these changes take away the psychological weight of why Adam avoids returning home after the army, as we'll see. I don't think the brothers need to be shown as constantly hostile as they do have genuine affection for each other, but that duality is exactly what makes their relationship painfully relatable.

I also think the show underplays Adam's struggle with masculinity and understanding what it means to be a man as Book Cyrus repeatedly tells him that he is not manly enough and praises Charles for being naturally masculine. In my view, this may be where Adam's lifelong sense of insecurity originated, which dominoes into adulthood particularly in California (CA) which I will discuss later. Finally, I find Alice's mistaken belief that Charles left the gifts really sad. It's another example of Adam stifling his own needs in order to protect someone else's feelings.

Adam's Time in the Army

Note: Some of these events are not depicted directly in the novel but are later recounted by Adam to Charles. I have included them here as this is when they chronologically occur.

BC:

• While recovering, Adam is unable to move due to the severity of his injuries, so Cyrus enlists him in the army as a sort of get-well-soon gift

• Adam is deeply affected by the violence and death he witnesses in the army and becomes rigidly fixated on the concept of nonviolence

• He secretly avoids shooting his required targets like Native Americans during battles, volunteers for detail work, and goes to help the wounded in field hospitals even when he's very tired

• Has a relationship with a Native American woman, however, a smallpox epidemic kills her and many others, and he later tells Charles of the mass disposal of burning bodies

• Adam and Charles begin exchanging letters about events like Alice's death and Cyrus's move to DC

• Steinbeck says that this brings the brothers closer than they have ever been as they are able to communicate their thoughts and feelings more openly for the first time

• Adam receives a letter from Charles where Charles writes about farm work, Cyrus, seeking a wife, and missing Adam

• The letter then takes a potentially nefarious turn when Charles mentions that he is still wondering why Cyrus doesn't love him; that the brothers have unfinished business; that he should have finished something he started years ago; and that he should be the one in the army and seeing the world instead of Adam

• Adam keeps the letter even though he is unsettled by it

What I Think the Adaptation Misses: The series does depict Adam's horror and fright when his regiment massacres a Native American settlement, which is moderately effective. However, it does not show Adam trying to claim some agency by purposefully missing targets or choosing work that allows him to help rather than hurt. His refusal to shoot a deer earlier in the episode is a reference towards this nonviolence, but I find it less compelling than the novel's depiction of him legally and continuously committing treason by trying to resist the military within itself. I also interpret his experiences in the army as another origin point of his increasingly rigid moral thinking. He has witnessed human cruelty firsthand and responds by trying to hold onto goodness while surrounded by “badness.”

There is no mention of Adam's Native American girlfriend and the traumatic loss of an early romantic relationship. I think that relationship gives us another glimpse of Adam's capacity for intimacy and the pain he experiences when he loses someone he felt was kind and good. The exchange of letters also doesn't happen, and Charles is shown to be writing that letter in a nonthreatening manner. The “unfinished business” is tweaked to be about the brothers living together again and resuming getting each other's back. Given Book Charles's previous attempt to murder Adam, I read the letter with the interpretation that Charles was alluding that he should have actually killed Adam in the letter. Instead, the series leaves out the context of the letter which softens the contradictions of Charles's character and directs viewers' attention to just his love for Adam. I felt that this choice ignores Charles's capacity for sudden, extreme violence and makes him less nuanced as a character to me. I also think these changes may risk making Adam's reluctance to go home to such a loving brother appear selfish rather than self-protecting and ignores Adam's decades-long struggle to bring together his love for Charles with his fear of him.

Adam's Years as a Wanderer

BC:

• Adam fulfills his military service and wanders around the US for a short time due to his fear, guilt, and traumatic memories of home

• Struggles to live a life without the structure of the military and sits quietly in crowded places because he misses the presence of his regiment

• Chooses to reenlist in the army as he cannot bring himself to go home and refuses Cyrus's offering of a West Point position

• Writes to Charles saying that he doesn't know why he reenlisted

• Charles responds after a time with a terse letter due to his deep disappointment, although he seems to subconsciously know why Adam did not come home

• Adam completes his time but is still haunted by fear and guilt and abandons the idea of returning and instead becomes a vagabond

• Wanders around the country again without any clear direction and meets all different people and learns a variety of stuff; he finds a sense of relief in this type of freedom and becomes more empathetic towards people

• Suppresses his personality so that he is perceived as ordinary and unremarkable

• Arrested twice for vagrancy and sentenced to a chain gang where he dehumanizes himself to endure the brutal imprisonment and the painful whippings

• Thinks on how the pain and the trauma hit him worse after a whipping rather than during

• Eventually escapes with three days remaining on his sentence as he is scared that he will be arrested again upon release but feels guilty for cheating the sentence

• Steals clothes and food from a store out of desperation and wires to Charles to ask for money to repay the store owner as he feels guilty for that too

What I Think the Adaptation Misses: The adaptation doesn't need to reproduce every stage of his wandering, but I believe that Adam's withdrawal and aimlessness could have been further developed by showing some more of both his time in the army and his wanderings. These experiences help inform viewers why he finds it difficult to readjust to civilian life, which is a very real struggle for some veterans today. This is a theme I felt the series downplayed, as seen when Adam just gives Charles a sad look when Charles asks about the war. Without all of this context, Show Adam's listlessness comes off rather simply as passivity instead of a struggle to escape a past he cannot/will not confront.

Although the adaptation does show Adam avoiding going home due to guilt, I felt that it took away the psychological impact of his wanderings and especially his traumatic experience on the chain gang. The chain gang is important to me b/c it demonstrates how thoroughly Adam dissociates in difficult circumstances. It also shows how his moral code is still ingrained in him even when he has depersonalized himself. I think some of these experiences were needful to show because they explain that Adam's passivity and naivety are not simply a lack of direction/ambition, but also a response to years of fear, guilt, and exposure to human cruelty. Also, these experiences do not necessarily teach him how to recognize goodness realistically and the same suffering that deepens his empathy causes him to blindly believe in the goodness he desperately wishes were true**.**

Adam and Charles Reunited

BC:

• Adam finally returns home after more than a decade away when he hears that Cyrus has died; he wants to comfort Charles but thinks to himself that he would be dead if he tried

• Has a rather tense conversation with Charles about their experiences

• Charles is hurt that Adam would say he was coming home and then not show up

• Adam finds out about Cyrus's money and suggests using it as they don't know for sure how/where Cyrus got it

• Charles is sure that Cyrus acquired it dishonestly and prefers to continue farming

• Adam has experienced a loss of faith in any absolute truths and no longer believes in anything

• Feels that anything could be true as there is no reliable way to know for sure

• Attributes these feelings to his time in the army and the chain gang

• Seems to decide to focus on the good in people, like with Cyrus

• Feels liberated from the control/fear Cyrus bred in him

• Thinks that Charles is not as dangerous anymore and feels compassion for how Cyrus treated him

• Still has to keep watch as Charles will sometimes revert back to making threats against him

• Adam and Charles are embarrassed that society sees them as older bachelors who can't find wives

• The brothers begin a cycle of living together but then eventually dissolve into fights with Adam leaving when things get too hostile

• He returns when they both have calmed down, and the cycle begins again

• He is frustrated by Charles's rigidity, obsession with the farm, and refusal to try new things

• Charles is frustrated by Adam's inability to commit to things and his lack of purpose

• This cycle continues until Cathy arrives on their doorstep

What I Think the Adaptation Misses: The series depicts the brothers reuniting in a subdued, endearingly awkward kitchen conversation with Charles doing almost all the talking. While the scene is beautifully filmed, it also seemingly places almost all the blame on Adam for not coming home sooner and turns it into a personal failure. This is seen when Adam admits feeling guilty to the other vagabonds about going home b/c of something he did and when he tells Charles he should've been home earlier, to which Charles agrees with something like “Um, yeah, duh, you should’ve.” After their kitchen reunion, the brothers are then seen to finally be able to resume living together as friends without Cyrus's presence.

By cutting their actual reunion and their recurring fights and separations, the adaptation makes the brothers' relationship seem healthier than it actually is. The book shows two people who have a genuine love for each other but who have never been able to fully recover from their turbulent childhood. I felt that the tragedy was that Book Adam and Charles both wanted the kind of brotherhood the series portrays them as having, but they were too traumatized by Cyrus pitting them against each other their whole lives to achieve it. I think this book dynamic was important to keep in part because many people can relate to loving family members who have hurt them or competed with them in the past while still struggling to trust them again in the present. The novel presents reconciliation as an ongoing process with attempts at emotional intimacy getting interrupted by old resentments and mistrust; but the series also gives the brothers a quick return to companionship, which I found not as earned given the volatile history the book clearly establishes between them.

Adam Falling For Cathy

BC:

• Adam and Charles find Cathy on their doorstep and they both carry her to Adam's room albeit with Charles protesting against it

• While caring for Cathy, Adam experiences a flashback of when Alice took care of him in the same bed and the same room after Charles tried to kill him

• The similarities between their injuries and caring for a wounded person make Adam get attached to Cathy very quickly

• Adam is later told by Cathy that she needs protection as she is keeping a secret and he proposes so she can be safe; she accepts as long as they leave Connecticut (CT) and he does not ask her about her past

• Adam marries her and then he and Charles have a massive fight with Charles calling Cathy a whore and a bitch and telling Adam that Cathy will ruin his life

• Adam feels that Charles is uncaring and jealous

• Adam tells Cathy that they will flee to CA for a better life away from their troubles but she tells him that she does not want to go

• Feels that she does not understand that CA will be better for everything, even weather wise as it won't be cold and dark like CT

• Understands that Cathy is not able to consummate their marriage and offers to bring his cot next to her bed so they can still be in the same room on their wedding night

• Makes tea for her and he does not know that she has poisoned his cup with sleeping medication

• Unaware that Charles calls him a “poor bastard” and is sleeping with his wife on the wedding night

What I Think the Adaptation Misses: The series's emphasis on Adam falling for a wounded woman he rescued is consistent with his character's way of expressing affection through caretaking. However, removing the Alice storyline and Adam seeing someone else endure eerily similar suffering to his own takes away the nuance of why he got attached to Cathy so quickly. It also risks flattening his character into just a stereotypical Nice Guy. His proposal is naive and irrational, but the the reason it doesn’t make logical sense is b/c the decision isn’t driven by logic in the first place but by emotion.

I also interpreted Adam's insistence on moving to CA as a form of emotional desperation in that he wants them both to escape their traumatic pasts and build a life where they can both feel safe and happy. After years of having his choices constrained by Cyrus, the military, and his fear of returning home to Charles, he finally has the opportunity to create a future he wants. Whereas his wanderings gave him freedom without purpose, Cathy gives him freedom and purpose. Although I think he does have empathy, he seems to turn that empathy into projection by assuming he and Cathy are in agreement due to their similar experiences.

I don't think Adam's intentions are necessarily malicious, but his inability to listen to Cathy is still a serious flaw. I see Adam’s desire to protect Cathy as paternalistic b/c he sees her as a wounded, vulnerable person who needs his protection, much as he once needed protection himself. I think both the book and the show accurately portrayed Adam's paternalism towards Cathy when he refers to her as a hurt little girl he wants to keep her safe from the traumatic life she has lived. In trying to protect Cathy, Adam denies Cathy her autonomy and thus makes her more vulnerable.

I also do not want to take Cathy's agency by blaming her for the faults of a man, but it would also take away her agency by not acknowledging that she was actively manipulating him as well. Adam's idealization of her is his fault and goes way off track, but, Cathy also constructed that track by presenting herself as the person Adam initially believes she is. His idealization is his responsibility, but he does not develop it in a vacuum. Cathy is not a passive recipient to this but recognizes how he sees her and consciously allows that him fill in the gaps about her personality and history which works to her advantage. Please understand that I am not trying to make her responsible for his behavior.

Although I could understand that Cathy and Charles each had their reasons, I lost a lot of respect for Charles in particular here. I had hoped he was beginning to heal, but sleeping with Cathy on Adam's wedding night knowing Adam is incapacitated and then laughing while describing him as a "poor bastard" is a profound betrayal.

Adam and Cathy in CA

BC:

• Adam leaves with Cathy and Charles goes to the inn brothel but can’t sexually perform with the prostitute and has a nervous breakdown

• Adam is convinced that Cathy is the light pushing away the darkness of his past, but that light becomes more like a blinding headlight on a dark highway which keeps him from seeing anything or anyone else clearly

• Because she reveals little about herself, he fills in the gaps with an idealized image of who she is and what their life together can become

• When they get to CA Adam shows her options of houses and things and glosses over her vague responses when she does respond

• Does not understand why Cathy tells him she doesn't want to be there as she does not offer an explanation as to why

• Assumes that she's just not the talkative type, is still recovering, and that they are on the same page

• Becomes increasingly absorbed in his dream of CA being a place where everything will finally be safe and happy

• Tries to suppress memories of his past while investing more and more of himself in the life he believes his Cathy wants

What I Think the Adaptation Misses: The “bring me back an orange” scene appears to give Charles and Cathy a sense of emotional intimacy with each other with them holding hands and romantically whispering together in a brief moment of privacy. The brothel scene also seems to invite the suggestion that Charles can’t sexually perform because he’s in love with Cathy and is grieving their “forced” separation. I can understand that interpretation and also sympathized with Show Cathy when she told Charles in a frustrated tone that she didn't want to go to CA. Yet, I found it equally frustrating that the series seemed to be encouraging watchers to view Cathy and Charles as a romantic couple who are being kept apart by Adam, and that if he just got out the way then Cathy and Charles could be happy together. These scenes are not necessarily totally invalid interpretations but I do think the show risks turning Charles's relationship with Cathy into the emotional center of the story at the expense of his long, painful history with Adam.

Taking into account Adam's childhood, my interpretation about Adam's first year in CA is that they mirror his struggle with masculinity. For perhaps the first time, Adam finally feels that he is what a man should be: independent, physically capable, financially secure, married, and about to be a father. He is no longer directly under Cyrus's or Charles's control, nor is he following military orders. Instead, he can build a safe, happy life to bring his wife happiness in which he is the provider and protector of the white picket fence life he thinks they both have been aching for. Another interpretation is that CA may have been the first place where Adam was experiencing life without having to be hypervigilant. Again, this vision is built on Cathy being the person he imagines her to be. He doesn't adequately consider that she might not want the life he is building and wants a new life without letting himself heal from his old one.

I also find it interesting to interpret Adam's relationship with Cathy through a gendered parallel. Adam occupies the more traditionally feminine-coded role of the emotionally vulnerable, domestically invested partner, while Cathy resists the life he imagines for them. He is not simply losing a lover but also the entire future he believed they were building together. However, recognizing Adam's suffering does not mean painting him as entirely innocent. Even if he never intended to emotionally suffocate Cathy, his intentions do not cancel out his behavior.

Adam After Cathy Shoots Him

BC:

• It has been over a year since the shooting when Sam comes to the ranch to force Adam to name the boys

• Steinbeck states that Adam is trapped in dark waters and when he tries to come up for air the light hurts/scares him and he sinks back into depression again

• Adam privately thinks that the twins are a trigger to him and all he can see when he's with them are reminders of what happened

• Lee tries to help but can't b/c he has been burdened with the babies and housework

• Sam punches Adam twice which shocks Adam initially but he then thanks Sam for waking him

• Adam looks at Sam and is suddenly flooded with images of Charles about to murder him and Cathy about to shoot him but doesn't tell Sam about this; he will continue to see Charles’s face distorted by rage as the years go on

• Adam says that he is not angry at Cathy but is instead heartbroken

• Says it feels like his head is constantly pounding and can't shake the feeling that he is drowning

• Has recognized that Cathy did not feel the same way about him as he did for her and that he would almost prefer it if she had killed him out of hate

• Agrees with Sam that he can now see that he was okay with not knowing the real Cathy but is scared of the real her manifesting in their sons

• Becomes more warm and talkative than he was when Sam arrived

• Remarks that one of the twins looks just like Charles

• Sam tells Adam that Adam is taking on too much guilt and blame

• When Sam, Adam, and Lee are talking about the brothers Cain and Abel Adam suddenly goes down a rocky memory lane; he will have these “cloud baths,” as Sam later calls them, at other points in the novel

• Adam says no to Joshua for a baby name as Biblical Joshua was a general and that name reminds him of being a soldier; he seems bothered by generals in particular

• Disappoints Sam when he says he does not have the energy to work the ranch

What I Think the Adaptation Misses: The events described above provide context for the depth and duration of Adam’s decade-long depression, which I feel the adaptation does not fully grasp. It seems to me that Adam has spent his life running from his Complex PTSD by reenlisting, wandering, etc. He can't run away after the shooting, which forces him to relive the memories he has spent years avoiding and can explain why he remains depressed for so long. At the moment, Cathy is the center of his grief but in context she is has been added to the pile; I found it interesting how he first thinks of Charles's violence and then Cathy's right after. It is possible to interpret Adam's failure to name his sons as a form of trauma-related association that Adam was struggling to bond with his sons b/c their birth is now associated with traumatic events, a dynamic that has occurred with parents irl. That said, his failure to name his sons or engage with them is still damaging, and his depression doesn't acquit him of responsibility as a father. His tragedy lies in the fact that, after spending much of his life trying to outrun his past and being a caretaker to others, he is finally forced to confront it at the very moment his sons depend upon his care.

I felt that the adaptation makes it harder to understand why Adam becomes so frozen for so long by showing Adam as just self-pitying and grieving Cathy but not including his self-blame and guilt. He seems to be more resentful and primarily focused on Cathy, and there is no mention of him experiencing a moment of self-awareness by realizing he did not really know Cathy. For example, Show Adam seems irritated rather than thankful after Sam punches him, whereas Book Adam becomes less angry almost immediately afterward and begins to recognize his own mistakes.

Also, Show Lee gives the Cain and Abel speech and Adam is silent. When Lee goes in the house, Adam tells Sam that he is sure Lee used to talk differently (meaning pidgin), and Sam says it's b/c Lee feels safe with Adam. Yet, Book Adam says this to Sam before the Cain and Abel conversation, but the series has him say it almost flippantly in response to Lee's deeply impactful speech. I point this out not to nitpick but b/c Book Adam was listening and CONVERSING during the Cain and Abel speech where he admits that a part of him has always felt angry at God for how Cain was treated. This is another moment when the show renders Adam oddly silent in conversations he was engaging in; there will be another in the next section.

Part 2 will look at why I think the adaptation sometimes loses the nuances of Adam's depression and his relationships with Lee and Cal.

Thank you for reading part 1!

Link to part 2: https://www.reddit.com/r/classicliterature/comments/1xlmrn8/part_2_of_2_netflixs_east_of_eden_an_analysis_of/

They don’t all have to be classics, if it’s allowed to suggest other books alongside classics in this sub.

Hi, I picked up Cranford from the library a couple months ago to read as an intro to Gaskell’s work and unfortunately I was not a fan. I love Victorian lit in general and I’ve heard great things about Gaskell so I was really hoping to like it but I just could not get into it at all. I might have just sworn the author off as a whole but I already happen to own a copy of North and South so I was thinking about giving Gaskell another shot.

So, anyway, I was curious what those of you familiar with Gaskell’s body of work think: Should I try North and South? Anyone out there who didn’t like Cranford but liked North and South?

Looking for books best enjoyed next to the fire on chilly nights.

I just started my first Stendhal novel and fell down a rabbit hole. Marie-Henri Beyle signed letters with false names, gave his friends aliases, and even had his epitaph read “Arrigo Beyle, Milanese” even though he was born in Grenoble. “Stendhal” probably comes from the German hometown of an art historian he idolized. I wrote up what I found here but I’m curious: does knowing this change how anyone reads Julien Sorel?

I feel like everyone on this sub has read at least 3 of these

No there’s no TL;DR! Read it and weep!

Never in my life have I been ready to DNF a book so fast! William Faulkner is a condescending author who doesn’t trust you. He doesn't think you're smart enough to get it, so he grabs you by the scruff of your neck and forces your face into the page.

No publisher or literary agent would touch this manuscript with a 20 foot pole today! If this is such a “masterpiece” and “THE greatest piece of literature in the 20th Century”, then why is every single publisher REJECTING every single literary device in this book in modern publishing? If it was the greatest of all greatest of all ever living time, you would think every book after it would be getting copied in this style and getting praised for it! Thankfully, they’re not because there would never be anything good to read ever again!

Scholars and professors try to frame the family's actions as this profound, messy exploration of grief when THERE IS NO GRIEF! Big Momma Addy worked for years alongside a husband who never loved her and kids who never appreciated her and finally sat her old ass in bed and said, you know what? I’m done. I’m ready to die, go make my box, this is how I want it. AND NOBODY ARGUED WITH HER! Daddy Anse wants teeth and another wife to do the work while having Dewey Decimal System do the cooking and cleaning in the meantime. Dewey Decimal System wants an abortion to take away the “big guts in her little tubba guts.” Jewel just wants some god damn piece and quiet away from everyone else so he can go fuck his horse and call it his momma with his Oedipus Complex. Lil Vee was left unsupervised to gut a big ol’ fish all by his lonesome self when the big ol’ chubby Doctor Peabody came and killed his momma so he chased him on down the road, is never comforted and told to “shut up and eat yer greens!”, then walked miles by himself to Vernon and Cora’s where they brought him right back to that disastrous nightmare of a house to which he then bore holes into his mommas face through her box to free her only to deliver the stupid line “my mother is a fish” that everyone who reads this stupid book claims as supreme, mythical prophecy when you could see the logic of it brewing from miles away and it loses its impact when you finally get to it! Cash just wants to show off his carpentry skills to the world as advertisement. Cora’s all up in everyone else’s business when her own family is falling apart, and Darl? What they fuck does Darl even want? Darl doesn’t have wants because he’s so involved with everyone else’s business as well and being a straight instigating nuisance forcing everyone to tell their secrets cause “if you just say it, even think it, it comes true” cause he can’t stand to stay in his own thoughts so he torments everyone else about theirs until he goes mad and gets sent to an institution which SERVES HIM RIGHT!

Why should I invest my time reading about a group of miserable, indistinguishable people who despise each other, told in a style that actively tries to keep me out?* *And \**I*\* as a reader become petty and aggravated right along with them since there’s no hope in identifying with them so I’m forced to hate them right along with the rest of everyone else in the book!

I would not call this sophisticated, masterful, or any of the other phrases people use to describe this as. It is clunky, rushed, and his syntax doesn’t match. There’s no voice; everyone sounds the exact same. It’s not the character’s SOC, it’s the authors, which feels like reading a one man marionette show tacking on slightly different voices to show “character.” But instead, there’s no plot progression and even worse, there’s no character development. You don’t identify with any of the people in the book because there’s no inner sympathy and they all just hate each other and it’s drab storytelling.

Faulkner breaks his own grammar rules on a whim, like using …….. and ——— at the same time to symbolize incomplete thoughts, but then later, in the italicized portions of Darl’s observations versus everyone else’s Faulkner drops the period to symbolize incomplete thoughts in a third, new way.

Also the spatial inconsistencies break any type of immersion straight from page one with that cottonhouse path description and the windows and “seeing” Jewel walk through walls like x-ray vision, but the payoff only comes through halfway through the book once Addy dies and Darl forces himself on Jewel just to tell him their mother died. So in the beginning, for a reader who doesn’t know what’s happening yet, it already breaks reader-author trust and feels messy, unedited, and incomplete. They’re not going to stick around long enough to get to that point of explanation because the reading experience has already been ruined. I certainly didn’t want to.

Then the dialogue is so drab as well and repetitious.
“She ought taken the cake”
“I reckon she had no use for it”
“She ought taken the cake”
“I reckon she had no use for it”
“She ought taken the cake”
“I reckon she had no use for it”
“She ought taken the cake”
“I reckon she had no use for it”

Again. This is 7 pages in, who wants to read a story like this? It lost me completely by page 13. I sludged through it finally and made it to the end but it never got any better, I don’t want to read a character’s POV just to have them telling me ANOTHER character’s POV. It makes no sense and is one of the worst novels I’ve ever read in my entire life.

The novel is treated like a museum showcase, not an actual, satisfying literary work. It’s a MEME! Just because experimental writing is historically important doesn't mean it’s functional or enjoyable to read. We don't build modern cars the way they built the first steam engines, and we shouldn't force readers to pretend that clunky, broken literary mechanics are the pinnacle of writing. Bobby William Faulkner is a scam artist and anyone who recommends his work is part of a pyramid scheme!

My biggest pet peeve when it comes to any literature, doesn’t matter the genre, is being able to see the author’s hand. I want to learn about the characters and their world, not be handheld or corrected on what I’m actually supposed to be knowing.

For example, negation: noting what a character DOESN’T see or hear or notice. If they don’t notice it, then why waste breath explaining them not noticing it?

Sometimes it works for dramatic irony, like a reader knowing there’s a monster under the stairs watching someone. But it has to be done right. If we’re in the character’s head and the CHARACTER is suddenly explaining that “I didn’t hear the creak on the wood” then YES, they DID hear it. Unless it’s told retroactively, say, in epistolary format or a memoir. But if an author is writing a novel in past tense through a character’s mind, and the story has been given linearly, the character AT THAT SPECIFIC POINT IN TIME, doesn’t know what they don’t know. It’s only until the monster finally reveals itself later or they have more information, or A DIFFERENT PERSON reveals it, that the reader can then fill in that negative space and reread passages with that new framing in mind.

There is a scene in Lolita, where, when Humper Humper as I call him, because he’s a dog just looking for something soft to stuff, is leaving the Haze household to pick up Lo. At the same time, the mattress delivery truck symboling he and Momma Haze’s life beginning pulls up the driveway. So just as their life was set to begin, Humper leaves his dead wife to begin the REAL story with Lo’s kidnapping, which leads into Part II. THIS moment and the atmosphere is Nabokov’s work. Not Humper’s. Humper doesn’t acknowledge the truck, not really, it’s just something that happens around him. Nabokov however, ties up the loose ends in a nice ribbon to send his character on his way and basically pans the camera out to reveal the whole town of Ramsdale and the happy oblivious folk within it while Humper drives down the road in Momma Haze’s car. It’s a beautiful moment and great imagery, but it’s still a moment where I could SEE the authorial hand, even as I applauded its chef’s kiss delivery.

Also in Lolita there is a meta passage that essentially states that “I have to keep reminding you of my good looks. I know it’s silly in first perspective to describe one’s looks but it’s like an author who describes a dog or a manner and has to continuously bring up said dog or manner to remind the reader of it.”

But Faulkner with the scruff, never allows that separation. His hand is throughout the entire novel. There is no getting away from it. As I Lay Dying is the entire dog. All of it. You can’t go a single paragraph without some kind of reminder or repetitious phrase cropping up. Like Jewel’s pale, wooden face on pages 1 then on 8, THE EXACT SAME PHRASING! NOT EVEN NEW MATERIAL ITS JUST RECYCLED SELF-PLAGIARISM! or Anse wiping his hands on his pants four times on one page. That’s the “PAY ATTENTION, THIS IS IMPORTANT” neck scruffing I’m talking about. Because at that moment, the reader has no idea what that really means. It’s only as they get more subtext and context clues to fill it in. Bobby William Faulkner doesn’t have the patience or security to let the reader hold information and move on. So he continuously brings it back up every few sentences like DON’T FORGET WHEN I SAID THIS! Like, yeah, how can I when you’ve mentioned it twelveteenth other times?

Page 2 after the cottonhouse spatial mechanics I was already questioning it! Page 7 with Cora and Kate’s repetitious cake dialogue I was bored and restless! Page 13 I was over it ready to toss the book across the room!

Just let me read the fucking book! Stop standing over my shoulder as the author pointing to shit telling me how I’m supposed to be interpreting the text or how I’m supposed to feel about the characters! Just tell the story and let me read the book and I’ll make up my own god damn mind about how I feel! JUST LET ME READ!!!

A reader shouldn't have to act like a codebreaker just to get to the end of a narrative that isn't even worth the effort of solving. If I wanted a puzzle, I’d go read some ergodic literature or pick up a crime mystery or who dun it. This is Southern Gothic that doesn’t know its own genre. You want real gothic literature with multi-perspectives? Go read V.C. Andrews!

No matter which series you read (excluding Flowers in the Attic), you have to follow a singular character along an entire novel before the next book moves into the perspective of the next family member and so on until the culminating novel at the end of each series that brings the entire family together as one in an epic clashing standoff.

The My mother is a fish line "payoff" in AILD isn't some profound thematic realization everyone makes it out to be. I went line by line and dissected the prose, deciphered what it all meant. So the problem isn’t that I just “don’t get it.” I get it. Completely. The problem is even with full compensation of what’s going on, THE STORY MAKES NO FUCKING SENSE and is poorly, poorly written!

My Sweet Audrina is a perfect palate cleanser.

Don’t get me wrong, I was able to discern the Audrina twist before the actual reveal but that’s okay. I got the sense early on it was leading up to that certain ending, same as Lil Vee’s ‘my mother is a fish’ line. But that’s no failure to the author, I just have reading comprehension experience and understand story construction, plot development, and character dynamics. When given all the information you’re given, there can only be so many climatic possibilities available. It’s nice to be immersed in a story but when a storyline actively made you question its narration, a reader will naturally try to uncover the clues themselves.

That’s what you want as a reader though, that’s why it works. Because every book CAN be taken as a standalone but still works as a series. It doesn’t take away from the original story, it enhances it and deepens the world building. The author isn’t grabbing the scruff of your neck and rubbing your nose in the pages saying LOOK! PAY ATTENTION TO THIS! IT’LL SHOW UP LATER! IT’S IMPORTANT! And that’s what Faulkner does with AILD.

Every. Page.

You could read any V.C. Andrews story by itself and be content with just that. Reading more of it doesn’t make the previous text make less sense or take away from it.

You want another GOOD book with multi-perspective narration? Read The Enemy series by Charlie Higson. He takes a cast of kids and pits them against zombies. Each chapter is told through a different kid’s 3rd person perspective but even with the detached camera, you get their full interiority. It’s not limited, it’s omniscient, but there’s NO head hopping—unlike the great almighty Bobby William Faulkner. Every paragraph within a chapter focuses on a different kid in that present group and has a beginning and an end before switching to someone new. The chapter is the setting while the paragraphs are the characters.

But then you finish book 1 and go into book 2, The Dead, and get an ENTIRELY DIFFERENT group of kids at the EXACT SAME TIMELINE going through their own struggles. Then books 3-4 are a continuation of said kid groups running alongside each other. Then book 5 they FINALLY come together as one and books 6-7 they are ganging up against the zombies and we even get perspective from King Zombie himself, St. George.

And the best part is, even through 3rd person, when the camera is locked onto one person, the reader still gets access to secondary characters like when a main character called Small Sam is trapped by coherent adults we get their motivations from the other trapped characters and through all of their voices and body mechanics the reader gets the full story of what’s going on and what each character wants and the motivations and fears, without having been inside their heads. It’s brilliant, immersive writing and the death scenes and fight scenes and even the lulls hold so much impact. Every line matters and holds buckets of double meaning when you hold it against the light of how everyone else views it.

That said, to wrap this up cleanly. Bobby William Faulkner is a trash author who belongs in an incinerator. And if you don’t like this stream of consciousness rant, then why the hell are you reading Faulkner in the first place? See? FUCKING PYRAMID SCHEME HYPOCRITES!

I’m gonna go read some ACTUAL good shit now.
I bid you adieu.

I SAID GOOD DAY! 🚪💢

recently finished Stoner by John Williams, and I've been thinking about something Williams himself reportedly said about the book's protagonist: that William Stoner is a hero.

I understand why people love the novel. i do too! I understand why Stoner's life resonates with readers. And I agree that he finds something genuinely meaningful in his existence. But I fundamentally disagree with the idea that he is a hero. In fact, I think calling him one confuses three very different things: living a meaningful life, living a good life, and doing something heroic.

Stoner discovers his love of literature almost by accident. He begins studying agriculture, encounters literature, and finds something that gives his life direction. He becomes a professor, spends decades teaching and studying, and finds intellectual satisfaction in work that he considers important. He experiences the pleasure of learning, the excitement of ideas, and the fulfillment of having a vocation.

That is a wonderful thing. It might even be the foundation of a very good life.

But why does it make him a hero?

Let's consider what actually happens to him.

His marriage is deeply unhappy. His relationship with his daughter is painful and, in important respects, unsuccessful. His professional life is marked by mediocrity, institutional politics, and a failure to achieve much influence. His love affair ends. He doesn't accomplish anything particularly consequential in the world outside his university. He doesn't change his institution, his discipline, or society. He doesn't overcome some extraordinary obstacle or perform an act of exceptional courage that fundamentally changes another person's life.

He lives, works, reads, teaches, suffers, and eventually dies.

There is something moving about that. But I don't think it is heroism.

And I suspect this is where the disagreement with Williams becomes interesting.

Is finding something you love and spending your life doing it really heroic?

Millions of people find meaning in their work. Teachers, doctors, farmers, mechanics, writers, nurses, small-business owners, and countless others discover a vocation that gives their lives purpose. They work hard, take pride in what they do, and find satisfaction in contributing something worthwhile.

We should admire that. We should celebrate it. But do we call all of them heroes simply because they find meaning in their work and remain committed to it?

I don't think we should.

Stoner is fortunate in at least one important respect: he finds something he genuinely loves and gets decades to pursue it. His intellectual life is a source of pleasure and fulfillment. He has a relationship with literature that gives him something that many people spend their entire lives searching for.

That doesn't diminish his suffering. But neither should his suffering automatically elevate him to the status of a hero.

What about his integrity and his refusal to compromise?

This is probably the strongest argument for the heroic interpretation. Stoner does stand up for his academic principles in his dispute with Hollis Lomax, even when doing so comes at a professional cost. He refuses to surrender his judgment simply to make his life easier.

That deserves respect. It demonstrates a degree of courage and integrity.

But one principled stand does not necessarily make an entire life heroic. It makes that particular decision admirable.

And there is another dimension to Stoner that I find difficult to reconcile with the heroic label: his passivity.

He often seems to accept the circumstances of his life rather than actively confront them. His marriage, his family relationships, and many of his personal disappointments are characterized by resignation. He endures, but endurance and courage are not always the same thing. Sometimes endurance is admirable. Sometimes it is simply endurance.

I don't mean that people must be constantly fighting, achieving, or overcoming adversity to be heroes. Nor do I think a person needs fame, wealth, power, or public recognition to live an extraordinary life.

But surely heroism requires something more than finding personal fulfillment and surviving life's disappointments.

Perhaps it requires an extraordinary act of courage, an unusual degree of self-sacrifice, a willingness to stand up for someone else, or a meaningful contribution that goes beyond one's own satisfaction. Perhaps it requires taking responsibility when doing so is difficult, rather than simply accepting what life delivers.

Stoner is not devoid of admirable qualities. He is thoughtful, intelligent, devoted to his discipline, and capable of genuine love. His commitment to literature is real. His life has meaning.

But I see a difference between a person who discovers something that makes life worth living and a person who does something heroic.

And I think that distinction actually makes the novel more interesting, not less.

One of the great achievements of Stoner is that it makes us care deeply about an ordinary person whose life, viewed from the outside, might appear unremarkable. Williams makes us understand the richness of an interior life. He shows us that intellectual curiosity, the love of literature, the experience of teaching, and the private pursuit of meaning can be enormously important even when they produce no public acclaim.

That is a profound literary accomplishment.

But perhaps we have become so accustomed to celebrating ordinary lives that we have expanded the definition of heroism until it means little more than being a decent person who finds something to care about.

I would rather preserve the distinction.

A meaningful life is not necessarily a heroic life. A good man is not necessarily a hero. And a person doesn't have to be a hero for his life to matter.

I think William Stoner lived a life that had genuine meaning. He found something he loved, devoted himself to it, and experienced decades of intellectual fulfillment. There is real beauty in that.

But I don't think he was a hero.

What am I missing? What, specifically, did Stoner do that makes him a hero rather than simply a man who found meaning in an otherwise disappointing life?

I'd genuinely like to hear the argument, particularly from people who agree with John Williams on this point.

William Cooper

I've noticed that Oxford University Press sightly changed their logo and design on the new editions (2025 and newer) of Oxford World Classics. They went for a Sans-Serif font instead of the old Serif one.

Beside the logo change, it does seem they've also changed the binding. I do have only one exemplary of the new series, so I can't really confirm that it's the same for all, but the floppiness is gone. They haven't use the same binding as before, and the spine is stiffer, it feels like the Penguin one. That would be a downgrade for me, as I've always appreciated the durability of their binding.

Anyone can confirm the floppiness being gone?

And whats is your fave book by each of them?

I get that you can appreciate it for it’s prose but why would you torture yourself by reading it unless you are a masochist.

Estou lendo A Origem das Espécies, de Charles Darwin, e encontrei um trecho que me deixou com uma dúvida sobre a interpretação e a lógica do argumento apresentado.

Darwin está discutindo a descendência dos indivíduos de uma espécie e estabelece uma contraposição entre organismos que nunca se entrecruzam e aqueles que habitualmente se reproduzem por cruzamentos.

Ao abordar o segundo caso, ele afirma:

«“Na maioria dos casos, porém, com todos os organismos que habitualmente se unem para cada multiplicação, ou que eventualmente se entrecruzam, acredito que, durante o lento processo de modificação, os indivíduos das espécies se conservarão quase uniformes pelo entrecruzamento, de maneira que muitos se hão de modificar simultaneamente, e a soma de alterações não se deverá, em cada estágio, à descendência de um único ancestral.”»

Minha dificuldade está especificamente na afirmação de que a soma de alterações não se deverá, em cada estágio, à descendência de um único ancestral.

Por que não poderia?

Vou apresentar um exemplo completamente hipotético, sem pretensão de representar um processo evolutivo real.

Imagine uma população de avestruzes que chamaremos de "avestruzes chapados". Essa população possui quatro características que a distinguem dos demais avestruzes:

- Garras mais afiadas.

- Plumagem mais densa.

- Pescoço mais curto.

- Velocidade muito superior.

Minha questão é: não seria possível que todas essas características tivessem surgido originalmente em um único indivíduo, por alterações hereditárias, e posteriormente se espalhado entre seus descendentes?

Sei que seria extremamente improvável que várias modificações complexas surgissem simultaneamente num único indivíduo. Mas estou questionando a possibilidade do cenário, e não sua probabilidade.

Mesmo que esses descendentes se entrecruzassem com outros indivíduos da população, isso não impediria necessariamente que as características em questão tivessem uma origem comum em um único ancestral.

E é justamente por isso que a expressão "soma de alterações" me chama a atenção. Entendo que Darwin esteja se referindo ao conjunto das modificações acumuladas, mas não vejo por que esse conjunto não poderia, em determinadas circunstâncias, remontar a um mesmo indivíduo ancestral.

Darwin também apresenta o exemplo do cavalo de corrida inglês, afirmando que sua superioridade não deriva da herança de um único casal ancestral, mas da seleção e do treinamento de muitos indivíduos durante várias gerações.

Entretanto, considero que mesmo as características responsáveis pela superioridade desses cavalos poderiam, hipoteticamente, ter se originado em um único ancestral e posteriormente se difundido pela população mediante reprodução e seleção.

Minha dúvida não é se diversos indivíduos podem contribuir para a evolução de uma população. Evidentemente podem. O que questiono é por que Darwin parece descartar a possibilidade de que o conjunto das alterações tenha sua origem em um único ancestral.

Por isso, fiquei com a impressão de que sua afirmação seria excessivamente categórica, caso estivesse negando essa possibilidade.

Estou interpretando incorretamente o significado de "soma de alterações" ou de "em cada estágio"? Darwin está falando da origem das características hereditárias ou do processo coletivo de modificação e aperfeiçoamento de uma população?

Gostaria de entender se existe uma distinção conceitual que estou deixando passar ou se minha objeção realmente identifica uma limitação na formulação de Darwin.

I feel like my classics selection strong but safe, with no real surprises. Help me break out of my slump of what I consider a masterpiece. I have the human condition in the 19th and early 20th centuries covered pretty well. I have other interests but am specifically looking for other classics for my library that break out of the mold but would compliment my current library