Review of Cannery Row

 Review of "Cannery Row" by John Steinbeck

Since I’ve been reading several books by John Steinbeck, I decided to choose “Cannery Row” because I read it in high school and remember enjoying it. It wasn’t the story that I remembered, but I was surprised to see that it was similar to “Tortilla Flat” now that I’ve read that book.

The story is about the people of cannery row, whereas I had only remembered the character of Doc and a boy named Hazel and them collecting specimens in the tide pools. While the Doc is a big, important part of the book, the main character is Mack, who runs the local “gang,” which is just a collection of unemployed men with too much time on their hands. Other important key players in the town are Lee Chong, the grocery store owner; Hazel, and Dora, the proprietor of the local brothel. The main plot is that Mack and his boys want to do something nice for Doc and throw him a party that fails, but then throw him a party at the end of the book.

Like some of his other works (“The Grapes of Wrath,” “Tortilla Flat,” etc.) Steinbeck uses vignettes interspersed throughout the novel to show different aspects and people of the area of cannery row. Just like “Tortilla Flat” depicts the lives of people in a specific area of Monterrey, California, “Cannery Row” shines a light on the people that live in the fish packing district who are poor and struggling for work. The vignettes that break up the chapters on the main plot “allows Steinbeck to keep his anti-utopian commentary subtle” by injecting darkness and violence into the story. This allows Steinbeck to address dark issues that occur amongst his utopian society (Sparknotes.com, 2021).

In this book, Steinbeck “idealizes the values of the lower classes,” such as good fellowship and warm-heartedness, and says that is all that is needed to create a paradise anywhere you live (Sparknotes.com, 2021). Steinbeck has created a sort of utopia in this sense. Even though Steinbeck writes a realistic description of cannery row, he uses moments of linguistic free-wheeling to maintain an optimistic outlook despite the undeniable presence of sorrow and misfortune in the world (Sparknotes.com, 2021).
Often compared to other writers around his era, Steinbeck uses a writing style derived from modernism and writers like F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway. His strengths lie in his ability to capture the scenery and people that inhabit his stories, down to dialects and lifestyles (Sparknotes.com, 2021).

Steinbeck’s writing style is on full display in “Cannery Row,” and while Steinbeck contends that this book doesn’t deal with the “American dream,” a theme common in his other works, I’d argue that it is here. The difference is that this town’s “American dream” is very different from the dreams of the characters in his other works. The Doc is a marine biologist that runs a biological research lab; one could argue that is Doc’s American dream. 

While this isn’t the book that I remembered from high school, I have come to appreciate it on a new level after having read more of Steinbeck’s works. The only author I’ve read more books from is Rick Riordan. I’m not sure if Steinbeck is my favorite author, but he is ONE of my favorite authors, and while I didn’t like his classic work, “The Grapes of Wrath,” I have enjoyed everything else I’ve read. I was surprised by how much I enjoyed “In Dubious Battle” and “The Red Pony,” but I loved his short story “The Chrysanthemums.” I have had a great time reading and reviewing all of these books by John Steinbeck, and I have come to appreciate his writing and storytelling style. There are still some other novels of his that I might want to read someday, but I am done with this series for now. Lots of good stuff is coming soon to the blog, including reviews of the Harry Potter series. Until then, go back and catch up on old posts and look forward to more short story reviews.

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Works Cited

Sparknotes.com, https://www.sparknotes.com/lit/canneryrow/section9/