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Type of bind: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.52
EAN num: 9780143039488
ISBN number: 0143039482
Label: Penguin Classics
Manufacturer: Penguin Classics
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 304
Printing Date: August 26, 2008
Publishing house: Penguin Classics
Sale Popularity Level: 42578
Studio: Penguin Classics
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From a swashbuckling pirate fantasy to a meditation on American morality—two classic Steinbeck novels make their grey spine debuts
IN AWARDING John Steinbeck the 1962 Nobel Prize in Literature, the Nobel committee stated that with The Winter of Our Discontent, he had “resumed his position as an independent expounder of the truth, with an unbiased instinct for what is genuinely American.”
Ethan Allen Hawley, the protagonist of the novel, works as a clerk in a grocery store that his family once owned. With the decline in their status, his wife is restless, and his teenage children are hungry for the tantalizing material comforts he cannot provide. Then one day, in a moment of moral crisis, Ethan decides to take a holiday from his own scrupulous standards.
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Rated by buyers 
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I was pleased, but not enraptured. Whereas "East of Eden" or "Of Mice and Men" provide the reader with beautifully rich characters wrapped in poetic narrative, "The Winter of Our Discontent" offers an expanded cast encased in a comparatively mediocre prose.
Ethan Hawley--grocery store clerk, heir of a small town American legacy, father, husband, and friend--is the books sole intriguing character. Tempted by greed, lust, violence, and crime--through which he skates unscathed-- Ethan's struggles lead to his near suicide which is prevented by love for his daughter and a desire to see his name thrive.
Ethan's relationship with and attitude toward his children is where this story shines. This alone makes it a novel worth reading. He is brutal in pointing out his children's flaws, but constant in his love and devotion towards them.
Overall, not my favorite Steinbeck, but it was surely interesting. The few brilliantly poetic sentences interspersed in passable prose kept me reading.
Yes, I will deign to give this book a completely subjective letter grade: B+.
Rated by buyers 
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Steinbeck? Oh, right. Steinbeck. THE Steinbeck. I can imagine the man sitting in his study on the eve on his sixth birthday. He opens that letter from his publisher, or maybe James Dean. Whoever. It's the letter same letter he's receiving for the millionth time:
::John, East of Eden was... It was... Gosh! I've just got no words, man. But then again, that's you're job. Really though, you've really done it this time, the pinnacle of your literary carrier. You're golden, now just kick back and have a martini, maybe give the kids a call. Anyway you can take it easy and die in peace `cause I happen to know that Governor Schwarzenegger is going to make an awesome speech about you in like, 50 years when he adds you to the California Hall of Fame... ::
Yeah maybe he's getting pretty old at this point, but he's a writer. He doesn't like playing bingo. He doesn't want to move to Florida and sit on his ass day, he wants to write, even if he's loosing steam.
I think Steinbeck's biggest mistake with this book was simply writing some of the world's most brilliant literary fiction, beforehand and not afterward. He kindof sets himself up for some pretty rigorous criticism.
Ethan Hawley, admittedly, is a pretty interesting guy. His wit matched with an offhanded and loving sense of humour keeps his interactions with anyone, and sometimes even anything (the cans of produce at the Marullo grocery store, the surreptitious jury of his own subconscious) upbeat with a jolly sort of humour that adds flavor to his constant moral introspections.
The rest of New Barrytown though, I couldn't seem to shake the eerie feeling that I'd landed inside a really well written 1960's sitcom. Even Margie, the town floozy, seemed antiquated, repressed, compelled or bound by the book's own courteous tone. The whole reason I love Steinbeck so much is that he usually gives narrative priority to the modalities of commonplace human life before a book's higher social or political motivation. (in Cannery Row he spends nearly an entire chapter delineating mankind's prehistoric relationship with frog hunting) I felt that here, too often, I was getting `American capitalism breeds immorality' smeared around it my face so much, I couldn't see though to what was actually going on, i.e. a portrait of life and money in a very interesting town.
Long story short, it's a good read, but nowhere as good as some of his others. Unless you just have to have it all, I'd recommend very first sampling the Grapes or the Mice or the Cans.
Rated by buyers 
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exactly what we were looking for. great condition, great transaction. would highly recommend!!!
Rated by buyers -
I was strolling the bookshop at the Monterey Bay aquarium and saw that book that I hadn't read in many years. I am recommending it, because as a seasoned adult I was able to get a whole different reading experience from it, this second time around!
Rated by buyers -
If I had never read so many of his other works, I would probably rate this fine classic five stars. I rate it just under four and a half stars solely because I don't think it quite compares to "East of Eden" and "The Grapes of Wrath". These are times in which I wish Amazon had a ten point scale rating system instead of five. How can I honestly give this novel the same rating as the two above referenced classics? Yet, please don't get wrong, I did thoroughly enjoy this book, especially the second half. What I love most about Steinbeck is that he is truly an American through and through. Which makes him very easy for me, an American, to identify with. I also enjoy the fact that he was an artist that lived among the people (just like, and arguably even more so than Mr. Hemingway). This is a very attractive trait, in my opinion, when it comes to writing the dialogue between the characters. Steinbeck has the language and the mannerisms of the common man down to a tee.
Three quotes I would like to add here. The very first quote, will be the best I can think of when it comes to defining the story of Steinbeck's hero in the novel - Ethan Hawley. The second two quotes are two of my personal favorites from this novel, while they also aid in re-defining the book's main message.
"For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?" Mark 8:36
"Any man of reasonable intelligence can make money if that's what he wants. Mostly it's women or clothes or admiration he really wants and they deflect him. The great artists of finance like Morgan and Rockefeller weren't deflected. They wanted and got money, just simple money. What they did with it afterward is another matter." (p. 45)
"Strength and sucess - they are above morality, above criticism. It seems, then, that it is not what you do, but how you do it and what you call it. Is there a check in men, deep in them, that stops or punishes? There doesn't seem to be. The only punishment is failure. In effect no crime is committed unless a criminal is caught." (p. 187)
I am huge Steinbeck fan, and I have read quite a bit of his work. In "The Winter of Our Discontent", he has definitely created in Ethan Hawley a main character that I myself can relate with like none other. I have just become a husband and father. I work in the world of real estate (not as a broker or agent) in the Silicon Valley in Northern California (a.k.a. hades, everlasting fire, nether world, etc...) where attempting to be a man of morality, a man with principals and ethics, is not very easy to say the least. Especially when you are the only breadwinner and you live in one of the most expensive towns. Like Ethan, I am plagued daily by temptations that could easily make me richer and 'more successful' such as kick backs, grey mail, cougar women (i.e. Margie Young-Hunt), shady deals, etc... yet, so far, I have been able to hold my ground. For those of you who haven't read this fine novel, that is what you must now find out for yourself. Will Ethan, after years upon years of being Mr. Nice Guy, a man who is going nowhere fast as a grocery clerk, a man that can barely manage to make ends meet for his family, will Ethan finally throw in the towel and join them? God knows he has the pedigree, the smarts, the wherewithal to be a success, the question is whether or not he wants to sell his soul to do so.
Fans of Steinbeck's I can assure you that you will find this novel more enjoyable as long as you don't have the expectations of it being in the same league as those two above referenced classics. I still easily put this in my top ten favorites of all his work. My two only knocks (which are in no way a deterrent for reading this) are one, the lack of character development for everyone but Ethan and Margie, you really only get to know the other characters on more of a superficial, less than penetrating level. Which was a bit disheartening, because I really wanted to get to know some of these people more than he allowed me to. The other knock is that much of the book's plot was a bit too transparent for me. I was almost able to forecast everything that was going to transpire in the novel after reading the very first forty pages. However, those are two very minor distasteful details when you consider who the author is. John Steinbeck could write a story about professional fly swatters and make it interesting. So I hope you all enjoy another little treasure from one of America's greatest twentieth century writers and definitely one of my personal favorites. Damn it! I really want to give this five stars!
ENJOY!
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