Wasn't expecting this book to go so hard since it's a "school book" in my headcanon. The forward to the edition I got explains that it's Steinbeck's magnum opus and all his other books were just warm ups for this one. About halfway through, I'd say it might be the textbook example of great modernist American fiction (hence taught in schools, go figure).

The character vignettes are so good. W/o spoiling: the first quarter gives some heavy shades of American Beauty, and the back half is unlike anything else I've ever read.

So many banger quotables too:

(in reference to the turn of the century):

"Oh, strawberries don’t taste as they used to and the thighs of women have lost their clutch!"

"There was a wall against learning. A man wanted his children to read, to figure, and that was enough. More might make them dissatisfied and flighty. And there were plenty of examples to prove that learning made a boy leave the farm to live in the city—to consider himself better than his father. Enough arithmetic to measure land and lumber and to keep accounts, enough writing to order goods and write to relatives, enough reading for newspapers, almanacs, and farm journals, enough music for religious and patriotic display—that was enough to help a boy and not to lead him astray"

(talking about his mom):

If the Germans had known Olive and had been sensible they would have gone out of their way not to anger her. But they didn’t know or they were stupid. When they killed Martin Hopps they lost the war because that made my mother mad and she took out after them. She had liked Martin Hopps. He had never hurt anyone. When they killed him Olive declared war on the German empire.

The self-aware, but not too pompous musings of the characters on whether or not suffering (as a concept) has been taken a look at as the basis for a novel

Doxology is a hard asf name, especially for a horse

While the final part of the book is comparatively boring to the first 2, it serves its purpose of illustrating the cycle of Trask's, and the imagery / meta-commentary on Cain and Abel –including a verbatim statement of "I am not my brother's keeper" brings the saga to a close.

So cool in a dark way how the familial neuroses of 19th century still shine through today, and the final words did nearly bring a tear to my eye.

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