Customer Reviews

The Pastures of Heaven

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

My mother, not a reader herself but trusting that anything sold by the Baptists & titled "The Pastures of Heaven" had to be OK, bought this book from a clearance table at the Baptist Book Store in Dallas TX as a Christmas present for (then) 8-year-old me.

I devoured it at 8 and--except for "Travels With Charley"--still love it more than anything else Steinbeck wrote. The crystal-clear (to a grownup) allusions to prostitution & incest sailed right over my innocent head, but the funny or tragic--usually both--stories of the wildly disparate kinds of people who settled in the Salinas Valley (can anyone flesh out fictional characters like Steinbeck does, and with so few adjectives?), and the image of how that beautiful green valley must have looked to the pioneers after their ordeal of mountains & desert, have stayed with me for almost 60 years.

I'm now going to order a copy to replace the barely-hanging-together one inscribed "From Mom & Dad, Christmas 1944". (Yellowed "Clearance $.25" sticker still on the back.)

You needn't be familiar with Steinbeck's work to enjoy Pastures of Heaven. Indeed, he wasn't a well-known writer at the time of its publication. But you DO need to be familiar with the way books used to be read -- over and over and over, allowing the richness of a work to be revealed after multiple readings. So it is with Pastures of Heaven.

Certainly, a single reading of this work is rewarding and each story alone could serve as a great introduction to Steinbeck's style and grace. But these stories are interrelated in ways that appear only on the second and third and fourth readings. And...the book should probably be read slowly. (Hint: pay VERY close attention to the first story!)

Like other readers, I, too, was disappointed/puzzled after the first reading, but then I found certain images from the book would appear to me weeks and months later. I found the book again in my bags as I traveled cross-country and re-read it slowly, taking two nights to read each story. As I drove the next day, I'd let my mind wander over the textual terrain it had encountered the night before. The story grew in richness and complexity this way and has left me fully satisfied. It remains within close reach on my shelf.

While the book as written is a treasure -- one often neglected in discussions of Steinbeck's portfolio -- I have to say that time is changing its nature. As the book nears its 75th birthday, it gets only more true; the universality every good story has is here exemplified and magnified. Centuries from now, this book may be seen not so much as a portrait of its time, but rather a timeless tale, merely set conveniently in a place and era Steinbeck knew well; in this sense, the work reminds me of Shakespeare's work.

Final thought: the work also grows richer by the reader's extension of it. The reader will inevitably draw parallels with his or her own life; doing a little contemporary research to investigate side avenues also give the book more depth. I was distracted for a week comparing Steinbeck's Tularecito with Shakespeare's Caliban.

In short, if you are an inquisitive, thinking reader, one not afraid to give as much to Steinbeck's novel as he has given to you, then you will enjoy this book immensely.

For me, reading Steinbeck is a hit-and-miss endeavor. So "The Pastures of Heaven," undeservedly one of Steinbeck's least-known works, is a pleasant and affecting surprise--a volume of interlinking stories (simply called "chapters") whose mature style and semi-mystical themes remind me, oddly enough, of Garcia Marquez. This collection is not your typical Steinbeck, but it's memorable and astonishingly elegant nonetheless.

Although every story in the book has something to recommend it (I can't imagine any reader not liking at least several of them), I especially enjoyed one, labeled Chapter VI. (The story must have had particular resonance for Steinbeck as well, since he later published it separately in a private edition entitled "Nothing So Monstrous" and added an epilogue.) About a widower who faces the community's disapproval of the unorthodox way he raises his son, this edisode will haunt me for some time. The price of the book is worth this "chapter" alone.

The novel's structure is a pattern of repetition, but, unlike some things that are repetitious, "The Pastures of Heaven" is by no means boring. Each chapter tells the individual story of an inhabitant of the valley town of Pastures of Heaven. Although each character and situation is different, each chapter follows the same story-line. A Common factor shared in these chapters is the involvement of one man by the name of Burt Munroe. The novel has a general lack of irony (ability to guess the outcome) but this is necessary in order to really understand Steinbeck's intended meaning. Steinbeck is very successful in making the reader experience the feelings of the characters. An emotional connection is built with the reader to the character. When a character is happy, so is the reader. When character is hopeless or empty, the reader is also. At one point in the novel a character is described as being left with "the ghost of a fire" (153), or a former motivation. The reader feels the same dejection as the man. One also developes a strong dislike toward the antagonist in the novel. "Pastures of Heaven" is somewhat depressing and melancholy, but it is a great novel. It's not that long, which is really nice, yet it contains a lot important literary aspects such as a very unique structure and style. I recommend "The Pastures of Heaven" to everyone.

After reading the Grapes of Wrath recently, I became an instant fan of John Steinbeck. So much that while at the used bookstore last week I bought several more of his novels. It would be strange to call his writing a breath of fresh air since he's hardly current but that's the best way that I can describe it. After reading his work you feel like you truly know his fictional characters. You also feel like you've been exploring a wonderful new region. And if you've actually been to the region he's writing about, the memories and thoughts that are rekindled are so amazingly vivid. Could anything be better. Its like a breath of fresh air! This book was a great collection of short stories that focused certain events in the lives of the residents of the Pastures of Heaven. Each short story focused on only one resident or family but main characters from each of the other short stories would show up in supporting roles. It was an interesting structure that I'd never seen before and I loved it. As usual Steinbeck focused on painting a picture of a region and he did a great job of it here. I've actually been to the Pastures of Heaven at Salinas and I'm sure that I've stood in the very same spot in the hills between Carmel and Salinas where John Steinbeck described the awesome view of the valley. I remember looking over the valley with the same awe when I was there. This isn't a gripping and moving tale like Grapes or Wrath. It's much lighter. But its such a fine piece of writing that I'd recommend it to anyone.

Pastures of Heaven is not so much a novel as a collection of thematically linked stories all taking place in the same California valley in the early 20th century. Nevertheless, this is a satisfying work from one of the giants of our age. In the very first chapter we get hints that there's something haunted about this idyllic little valley, and while one wouldn't call these horror stories (they're all very true-to-life) each of them seems to conclude with the protagonists feeling greatly diminished by what has occurred. Of course everyone faces trouble at some point in their lives, and a story with a happy ending is just one that leaves off before the really bad stuff happens. Clearly Steinbeck wants to show that even in an earthly paradise, people still have serious problems.

Steinbeck's prose is flawless, and he refuses to editorialize on the behavior of his characters, allowing the reader to judge which are wise and which are foolish. There's only a hint of the yearning for social justice that motivated so many of his more famous works. The collection offers a fair amount of variety despite the unities of time and place and mood (a pall of fatalism hangs over every vignette) but ultimately the individual stories weren't all that memorable. A few weeks after reading this book, the only entries this reviewer can recall are the boy who was enjoying the simple life until others decided it wasn't good for him; and the sisters who hoped to make their living selling home cooking and wound up selling something else. The rest was certainly well-written, but didn't leave a very lasting impression. The regional color is all there, but we can be glad that Steinbeck eventually found more cogent means to express his passion for his beloved central California. Three and a half stars.

Steinbeck at his best.

This is a collection of short stories loosely connected that paint a picture of a California slowly maturing from its infancy to its adolescence.

Well worth the read.

Steinbeck's book comes with this comment on the back cover: "Each of these self-contained stories is linked to the others by the presence of the Munroes, a family whose misguided behavior and lack of sensitivity precipitate disasters and tragedies." This opinion, which the author of the Introduction seems to endorse, strikes me as a very surface take on the deeper significance of these stories.

The Munroes do show up in all of them; but when they do, a bubble of fantasy is punctured. They are the Nemesis principle, the breath of reality, among people lost in delusions and deceptions. Because of it, a man nicknamed Shark loses his social mask and finds his backbone, a father is forced to give up custody of his wild son, another father realizes the wrongness of raising his son in isolated poverty, a woman lets go of the insane daughter she's emotionally dependent on and stands up for her own life, two sisters face a crucial choice about their future, a daughter is given the chance to face her long-lost father...

These are not tragedies so much as consequences that puncture the psychic insulation of people living in a kind of Californian Eden. Their stories are not Steinbeck's finest, but they reflect the lucid writing and psychological acumen that characterize his later work.

More a book of short stories than a real novel, The Pastures of Heaven is one of my favorite of Johnny Steinbeck's. The book consists of ten stories centered around the very different and very realistic groups of people living in the California valley. Bittersweet is a good way to describe most of the stories as most seem to end tragically and hit where it hurts.

Steinbeck, as always, tells the stories as a passive observer with a great eye for detail and leaves it to us to form our own opinions on the characters and events. Each story will have you debating the characters' motives and actions. Easy to read and hard to put down.

I read this book at the recommendation of a friend who named it as his very favorite book... I wouldn't name it as my favorite but it was definitely worth reading at the time, the collection of short stories is captivating and touching if you are interested in human psychology, it is very sad and bittersweet in many parts... a little slow all-around though.