Of Mice and Men

Here's a classic novella. Two things made me interested in reading it. One was the numerous references to it made by Sawyer, a character in ABC's Lost. Another was the fact that according to Facebook, this was the book that most frequently appears on "favorite books" lists for people who are part of the "Lowell, MA" network. Call me intrigued. Anyway, I just finished the book (it's another short one that barely cracks 100 pages) and can now judge it accordingly. Let me start with the beginning. It was wonderful. The first ten pages or so introduced the two main characters of Lennie and George with a vivid clarity of who both men are and where both men have been. Kudos to Steinbeck for an excellent display of character introduction. Lennie is a giant, simple man with dangerous physical strength but the desires and feelings of a dimwitted five-year-old girl. He reminded me of Michael Clarke Duncan in The Green Mile, which was especially weird, because I made this connection before Lennie started displaying an affinity for holding and stroking dead mice. George is Lennie's brother-and-caretaker figure. Both are poor migrant workers in California either during or just before the Great Depression. George looks after Lennie, but it gives him great anguish to do so; Lennie is always getting himself into trouble and it's always on George to stand by him and find new work for the pair. To keep Lennie happy, George is always reminding him about their goal: to one day live on a farm together, off the fat of the land, and look after a garden and some rabbits. It's enough to appease Lennie and keep him well-behaved, but George knows full well that as long as Lennie's in his life, wealth and happiness won't be. I pictured George as an interesting cross between Jimmy Stewart and Nathan Lane. Now, the next seventy pages or so - the entire bulk of the book - was really pretty boring. And that was too bad, because I had become so invested in the beginning. Fortunately, the final twenty pages were great, setting up a real climax that was definitely one for the ages. Here's something I need to complain about though - Lost ruined the ending for me! Just a few episodes ago, which granted was well before I started reading the book at all, Sawyer explains the ending of Of Mice and Men in detail to the "Man in Black," just to make a point about something. Gyah! I suppose I can't fault Lost for referencing a seventy-three year old story, but that doesn't mean I wasn't disappointed when it happened. It makes me wonder if I'd have read the book any differently had I not known from the first few pages what the conclusion was going to be like. I guess I'll never know. Oh well. Anyway, this makes for five books read in the month of April. Unfortunately, none of those five books exceeded 160 pages in length, so the number is a bit deceiving. Furthermore, four of those five books were recent purchases. It seems I've sort of lost my way when it comes to the main purpose of the Back-Blogged project. I'm not supposed to be buying and reading new books, but instead, finishing up old ones. I need to finish two more this month, as it is, in order to maintain my goal of having net progress every month. So allow me to declare it now - it is time for a return (at least temporarily) to my kids' books and science books. These classic works of literature are great, and I'll never regret reading the Alice books or Of Mice and Men instead of some Newbery winner where talking animals team up to get some small task accomplished. But for now, it's time to kick it back to an "old school" gear and knock some acquisitions from the 1990s off of my list.