The Winter of our Discontent

This is definitely not one of my most favorite Steinbeck books ever.  In fact, it was quite agonizing to get through.  But since it’s Steinbeck, I willed myself to finish it.  Now that I’m done, I have no idea what it was about.  I just didn’t get it.  So how do I explain this book?  I do not know.

Ethan Allen Hawley is the main character.   The year is 1960 and Ethan is a simple store clerk at a small town market.  The owner of the store is Marullo, a native Italian who we come to find out is an illegal.

Ethan in married to Mary and has two teenage children, Ellen and Allan.  They are just the typical happy family of the sixties, although his children resent him for being only a store clerk and for being “poor.”

One day Mary’s friend Margie Young-Hunt, who is a fortune-teller, reads Mary’s tarot cards and announces that Ethan is going to become a rich and powerful man.  Although Ethan doesn’t believe in that kind of thing, he realizes the next day that a change has come over him.  He therefore starts his journey of becoming a rich and powerful man.

That’s what I got out of it.  To me, it was a story of a tormented father and husband trying to overcome his self-pity and find a way to better provide for his family.  There was a lot going on in this book, and I’m sure there was some other deeper meaning hidden in there somewhere, but I must be too dense to figure it out right now.  I guess I could say in this book there were in place the themes of morality, familial love, and honesty.  Ethan struggles with the idea of robbing a bank while his son similarly struggles with the task of writing an essay without plagiarizing.  In the end, both do something very dishonest and humiliating. 

Of course it wouldn’t be a Steinbeck novel without his lovely descriptions and beautiful imagery.  For phrases like these, I was deeply satisfied with this novel.

“How strange the sound of heel-taps on pavement, striking in anger.” (20)

“A man who tells secrets or stories must think of who is hearing or reading, for a story has an many version as it has readers.  Everyone takes what he wants or can from it and thus changes it to his measure.  some pick out parts and reject the rest, some strain the story through their mesh or prejudice, some paint it with their own delight.  A story must have some points of contact with the read to make him feel at home in it.” (75)

“Even if teen-age children aren’t making a sound, it’s quieter when they’re gone.  They put a boiling in the air around them.  As they left, the whole house seemed to sign and settle.  No wonder poltergeists infest only houses with adolescent children.” (82)

“In poverty she is envious.  In riches she may be a snob.  Money does not change the sickness, only the symptoms.” (109)

“Farewell has a sweet sound of reluctance.  Good-by is short and final, a word with teeth sharp to bite through the string that ties past to the future.” (218)