John Steinbeck wasn’t a favorite of mine during the grade-school years. We were forced to read The Pearl and Of Mice and Men at some point in the curriculum, and it surely felt like homework. Knowing me, I’m sure I falsified my way through multiple essays, book reports, and literature journals about the struggle between good and evil, the paradoxes of good fortune, and whatever else my teachers expected me to extract from them. And so, upon graduation, I assumed I’d closed the chapter on Steinbeck and his connection to my life. Alas, I’m an old bitch now, and things have a way of coming full circle.
When a dusty old copy of East of Eden ended up on my desk, a small part of me shriveled at the sight of John Steinbeck’s name printed across the cover. A week later, I had finished the entire thing. I then slipped into the 1955 Hollywood adaptation, directed by Elia Kazan and starring James Dean. I have watched approximately one other James Dean movie in my life—the obvious one, Rebel Without a Cause, which leaves only Giant. And a small part of me wants to save that one for another time. There are only so many James Dean performances in the world, after all, and I’ve apparently reached the age where I’ve begun rationing them.
His take on Cal Trask was downright phenomenal. Dean gave the character a nervous, wounded quality that made him difficult to look away from, even when the movie itself felt constrained by how much of Steinbeck’s enormous novel it was attempting to squeeze onto the screen. He did what he could with the material he was given, and in several places, considerably more.
And with that said, I'm considering to give The Pearl another glance. We have to start somewhere, right?