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Who knows how many times you have seen those rural interiors painted in low-value paintings: the rough wooden table, the chairs, the poor lighting, and those sun-baked faces intent on drinking wine, nibbling on a piece of bread, or playing cards.
“Of Mice and Men”, published in 1937, is a quick fresco of rural California in the thirties, post-Great Depression. It is a familiar scene, perhaps from some old Hollywood western, with laborers gathered on a large estate, managed and coordinated by an old-style owner, with a foolish son married to a half-harlot (the theme of the tempting woman is fundamental in the story and will be developed by Steinbeck in "East of Eden", much more voluminous and cinematographically important).
"Of Mice and Men" is a wonderful and tragic story of friendship between Lennie, big and strong and mentally retarded, and George, small and intelligent, who has always taken care of and managed his friend’s life. Their strong bond is the result of the American dream, that ideal of freedom built on the ownership of a small piece of land where they can free themselves from the worker's “slavery” of laborers.
It’s a hundred pages of human lives that unfold before the reader, illuminated by both the scorching sun of the West in the fields and the dim candlelight of the dormitory shack. It is a strong indictment of the indiscriminate exploitation of economic immigrants who left the poorest central states for the Californian Eldorado (does it remind you of something? If anyone is interested in the topic, I recommend reading “The Harvest Gypsies”, a collection of journalistic reports written by Steinbeck that will be the historical-social foundation of his masterpiece “The Grapes of Wrath”).
“Of Mice and Men”, in the translation by Cesare Pavese, enchants with its naturalistic brushstrokes, leaves you speechless after the final pages, invites a quick second reading, flows gently on a simple yet rich and meticulous prose, mercilessly bashes the racial issues related to the colored stable hand Crooks, segregated from the rest of the group. We are in the realm of the masterpiece, accessible to any type of reader who has a minimum of conscience to be tickled.
John Steinbeck facets a jewel that, from every perspective, offers dazzling reflections. And even in the dim light of the bedside lamp in your bedroom, it will be able to grant you a bit of internal clarity so precious in these dark times of ours.
Enlighten yourselves...
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