The Pastures of Heaven Book

If there is something that will remain embedded in my mind about this collection of short stories is that there is no such thing as an earthly paradise but rather a barren land brought to life by the joys and miseries of its inhabitants.
In his second book, Steinbeck manages to demystify the natural resources of the physical place in favor of the characters that populate it with all their prejudices and superstitions, generosity and disinterested fellowship, idealized aspirations and humble dreams. Community can become a safe haven, but it can also be the origin of ruthless intolerance. The consequences of unrequited love, the constant struggle between fate and chance that leaves track through generations, the shameful secrets people try to conceal with whitewashed camaraderie to convey an appearance of dignity or control… these are the kind of issues that give and take from the characters in Steinbeck's portrait of rural life in California at the beginning of the twentieth century.

Even though the stories stand on their own and can be tackled independently, they build on each other if read in succession. The same protagonists keep reappearing shown through the eyes of secondary characters, whose perspectives blend harmonically with inner thoughts and concealed yearnings disclosed in later chapters, constructing three-dimensional and psychologically rich character portrayals that transcend the formal boundaries of the narration.

Steinbeck's descriptive prose is powerful without being overwritten, sober and efficient but with the required poetic brushstrokes that tint the stories with that evocative glimmer so typical of his style. The overall tone is darker and less humorous than other of his works, maybe closer to the Southern Gothic tradition but with a not so gloomy stance on the vicissitudes and hypocrisies of life.
At the end of the day, dreams tend to collapse under the heavy weight of reality, but what would be of us without them? Steinbeck chooses a hotchpot of serendipity and optimism to keep the spark alive in spite of the overwhelming odds and the indignities of everyday life, something that will keep me returning to his books for years to come.