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Anyone else love it? For those who haven't read it, I can't recommend it enough. The first time I read it I was not a mum. This time I think I got even more out of it because I understood the parenting aspect better.
Oh god - I loved it but could never read it again; it is the bleakest book I have ever read and I howled and felt utterly desolate when I finished it. I still have a copy but I can't even bring myself to touch it, let alone read it (and normally I am tough!).
I loved it too. Went to California at Easter & highlight of trip for me was visiting Steinbeck Museum in Monterey. They show excerpts of the Fonda film there, which brought it all back. Will never forget Rosasharn suckling the dying man - such a strong image!
Just read it for the first time. It's one of the most powerful books I've ever read and I am so glad I did. (And, in retrospect, I wonder whether Cormac McCarthy used it for inspiration for The Road, which is similarly bleak).
I read it when I was 17 and we were driving across Mexico for 3 weeks. The landscape around us was so reminiscent of the book and I was totally absorbed. One day we broke down in teh middle of nowhere and my Mum had to walk miles to the nearest town, I sat by the pot-holed road reading and I just felt I was with the family on the road. I still remember it as one of my most enjoyable reads ever.
Yes I love it. I've had my copy 25 years and its more sellotape now than paper but I still read it again every so often.
It was the grandma on top of the car after she died, but they had to keep going, that gets me every time.
I have East of Eden on the shelf above me, I could never get into it but I'll give it another go when I've finished my current read if its being recommended on mumsnet!
I always remembered my mum telling me to wait until I was a mother to read it - she was right. Amazing book but wouldn't have had half as much effect on me if I wasn't a parent.
I had just watched carnivale at the time, so could picture the landscape etc
this is one of my favourite books of all time. I don't agree that it is depressing though, I think the ending offers a transforming, miraculous gift of life amidst the most squalid and terrible poverty.
I have always thought Rose of Sharon a most beautiful name.
