Read It In Books:Of Mice And Men.

John Steinbeck's novella Of Mice And Men came out in 1937 (that's eighty seven years) ago and, according to Nick Hornby on the blurb on the cover, is "such a perfect book" although, according to Wikipedia, it "has been a frequent target of censorship and book bans for vulgarity, and what some consider offensive and racist language" which could, in the age of the culture wars and 'woke', make for an interesting/challenging read. It'd been on my bookshelves for many a year and looking for a shortish book to read, it seems its time had come.

George and Lennie are looking for work in California. They're poor - piss poor. They've got nothing but the (double denim) clothes on their backs and they're living off beans (without even any ketchup). The work they're looking for is on a ranch but George is worried that they won't get it if the employers realise Lennie is a "crazy bastard"

George is a small man, the brains of the outfit it seems. Slack jawed Lennie is a big man and very much not the brains of the outfit. He appears to rely on George for directions, not just geographical ones but directions in life as well. Which seems about right for a man who carries a dead mouse around in his pocket and a man who works better than he talks or thinks. To put it mildly, he tests George's patience. Always wanting what he can't have.

But George dreams of a better life, a brighter future, and Lennie is drawn in by George's dreams as is Candy, an older rancher who has lost his hand in an accident. The three of them wile their time away imagining this better life. Running a small farm, visiting travelling carnivals and ball games and, for Lennie specifically, looking after rabbits. Lennie likes their soft fur, he likes stroking them. It's suggested Lennie has never 'known' a woman.

Curley, their bosses son and a former boxer with anger management problems, seems determined to ruin this wistful bonhomie. Curley doesn't trust his wife (the feeling's mutual), he's always spoiling for a fight and sure he gets one soon enough. Poor Lennie gets teased by most of the others but that doesn't seem a very wise move on their parts considering Lennie's physical strength. A physical strength that is quite at odds with his gentle nature. But don't make him angry. You wouldn't like him when he's angry.

It always seems as if Lennie and George, between them - or perhaps separately, are heading for trouble and that trouble is a train that ain't never late. It's big trouble too, but the way it's handled, and the way Steinbeck writes about it, makes it all rather matter of fact. Which is often how it is when bad things happen. Other life continues around you. Think of your worst days. While you're suffering, others are going about their day to day business, smiling, laughing, working. Some are possibly having the best day of their life as you have the worst day of yours.

Of Mice And Men gave me cause to do some research about parts of California that I had to look up on a map (Soledad, Weed, the Gabilan mountains) and it sounds like an area worth visiting. Yellow sands, golden foothill slopes, willows fresh and green with every spring. A fauvist painting come to life and one full of life too. Skittering lizards, water snakes, coyotes, rabbits, raccoons, herons, and deer. Though maybe not while suffering in poverty like George and Lennie.

That offensive and racist language? There's the use of the n word to describe a stable buck (used more than a couple of times too) but that just seems fitting with how characters like this would have actually spoken at the time. Offensive but accurate and surely no need to be censored, a trigger warning at best (but then I'm not black so that's easy for me to say). In fact, if anything Steinbeck imbues Crooks, the black character, with a lot more humility than almost anyone else in the book and has Crooks address racism both in its then present form and in a more historical context. Except, perhaps, in one instance when Steinbeck describes a cowed Crooks retiring into "the terrible protective dignity of the negro". Not sure what to make of that but it doesn't sit well.

There were also more poetic sections. A jerk skinner's hands are described as being "as delicate in their actions as those of a temple dancer", air in a barn is "dusky in advance of the outside day", and a man's slow speech "had overtones not of thought, but of understanding beyond thought".

Of Mice And Men is a short story but it packs quite a punch. To use a cliche, an iron fist hidden in a velvet glove. The setting, and the characters, feel almost as if from ancient history reading it now but the emotions, the events, the humanity, and, indeed, the inhumanity are, of course, timeless. The water snakes, herons, and dogs that populate the story. They're not so different to the people in the book at all really. Everyone just trying to get along. Some managing it better than others.