Heroes

An actual 1945 publication copy of the book. It's one of the most beautiful things I've ever laid eyes on.

I don't know if any of you remember, but I remember telling many of you that the Road Trip I recently returned from was indeed partially inspired by the book "Travels with Charley" by John Steinbeck (also from when I was reading "Dark Star: The oral biography of Jerry Garcia" and its references to the Merry Pranksters). Anyway, back to the point.

John Steinbeck is my new hero. Sitting in my all time top five authors, he is creeping his way up and possibly sitting at number one right now because I just finished "Cannery Row" and am overwhelmed with his grace in capturing human beauty. I cried twice when reading it and on my way to work finished it on the Subway. On my way home that night I opened it back up and started over from the beginning. That's a rarity for me.

One character in the book I found myself really identifying with (or at least hoping to), though she is only written about for one brief chapter is Mary Talbot. Of her he says this:

"...she seemed never to touch the ground when she walked. When she was excited, and she was excited a good deal of the time, her face was flushed with gold. Her great-great-great-great-great grandmother had been burned a witch."

"In the afternoons when Tom was at work Mary sometimes gave tea parties for the neighborhood cats. She set a footstool with doll cups and saucers. She gathered the cats, and there were plenty of them, and then she held long and detailed conversations with them...it concealed from Mary the fact that the Talbots didn't have any money. They were pretty near absolute bottom most of the time, and when they really scraped, Mary managed to give some kind of party. She could do that. She used her gift as a weapon against the despondency that lurked always around outside the house waiting to get in at Tom."

"Tom said, 'Why don't we face it for once? We're down. We're going under. What's the good kidding ourselves?' 'No we're not', said Mary. 'We're magic people. We always have been.'"

And we are indeed.

This book has a character for everybody too, Doc is super dreamy to me, especially when he actually orders the Beer Milkshake- anybody would fall in love with him at that point. Oh, you don't know what I'm talking about? Why don't you find out.

What's a book that has really effected you (or is it affected, god damn grammar)? Please share!