If
The Great Gatsby could be described
the drunken party of the 1920s, then Of
Mice and Men is the working-class hangover of the ‘30s. It tells the story
of two wandering ranch-workers in 1930s California, George and his powerfully
built though child-like companion Lennie. The prospects of such people in the
time of the Great Depression are bleak, though George and Lennie are pulled on
by their dream of one day owning a small plot of land for themselves. The book
details their time on one particular ranch, and their interactions with the
other labourers.
I
will admit that I am prejudiced against this book, because it was one of those
things I was subjected to during English lessons at school many years in the
past – though I have to say that it one of the few things I didn’t end up
completely hating after the exams. When I got my hands on the book again a few
days ago, I was able to recount the entire plot, name and summarise 90% of the
characters, and detail the main themes of the story all in my head. The
struggle of the labouring-class in depression-era California and the
impossibility of achieving the ‘American Dream’ being the major themes, with
side-issues being attitudes to racism, women, the elderly and physically
disabled, and of course attitudes to the mentally impaired. Each of these later
points is the main reason for the existence for the various characters, in
order being Crooks, Curley’s Wife, Candy, and the Lennie and George duo. Each
of the characters exists primarily to illustrate a point, and in a minor way to
drive the basic plot of the book forwards one step at a time. The naming of the
characters I personally find irritating, because a majority of them have names
starting with the letter ‘c’: Candy, Carlson, Crooks, Curley, Curley’s Wife. On
the subject of this last name, Candy’s Wife, the only female character, doesn’t
get her own name, and I actually think it was a poor choice on the part of the
author to only refer to her by this rather unflattering title – she’s not a
character in her own right, it seems to say, just something that belongs to
another, more important character. This of course is codswallop, because she’s
one of the most important and interesting characters in the book – her lack of
name annoyed me in the past, and it still annoys me today.
Reading
it now, I can see why it was chosen to be in the school curriculum; it has a
fair few complex messages to convey, but primarily it is A Very Short Book and
is written in an incredibly simple way. So simple in fact that I didn’t
particularly enjoy it. Most of the text is actually in the form of dialogue,
and being working-class labourers they always speak to each other in the most
basic of language, albeit with a stumbling colloquial twist. Much of what they
say to one another is broad and barefaced; the characters all tell the reader
what they’re thinking, and if they’re being a bit more closed about it then the
narrator goes and states what’s going on in the next line. There’s no actual
complexity to it; Steinbeck implies nothing, he tells you by having one of the
characters say it, or else if there are gaps in the explanation then he has the
narrator fill in the blanks. Maybe it was just because I’m initially prejudiced
to this book, but this oversimplified narrative style practically spoiled my
experience of reading Of Mice and Men.
It was boring, is what it was. Boring. Bearing in mind that this is a very
short, uncomplicated book, something that ought to work in its favour, but in
this case it just didn’t work. Maybe it’s better off being left to GCSE
students, who can appreciate its straightforward nature without fussing for
something a bit more substantial. Me, it seems I enjoy something with a little
more depth.
I
could have ended it there, but I suppose I should say something positive about
the book. The central characters of George and Lennie are the main strength of
this novel, and Lennie is just interesting enough of an entity to make it
actually worth reading. He’s basically a man with a child’s mind in the body of
a weight-lifter, (something that Steinbeck again blatantly tells the reader
when he suspects he’s been a bit too subtle), a factor that somehow manages to
drive the plot to something of a conclusion at the end. The reader is left only
able to feel sorry for Lennie, whose state of mind is unable to be happily
melded to his own physicality (Or to put it more simply, ‘he doesn’t know his
own strength’, which is a lot). George on the other hand is a less complicated
character, but his purpose of guarding Lennie and guiding them towards their
eventual goal makes him also worth appreciating. In the end this is all the
story needs, and no amount of oversimplified writing or wooden characters
spoils this.
Bibliography
– Maybe it was a mistake to end up reading a copy specifically designed for
GCSE students, as it brought back a load of old, hated memories
Steinbeck,
John. Of Mice and Men. Pearson –
Longman: China. (2000 [First Published 1937])
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