My TED Talk will include some modest spoilers. So if you haven't read John Steinbeck's East of Eden yet, bookmark this thread and we can reconvene in a month or two.
Eden's narrator is supposed to be "John Steinbeck" — a character that is tangentially involved with the plot. He's the grandson of a family friend of the main characters… that level of integral.
However, this "John Steinbeck" is functionally omniscient and might as well just be John Steinbeck — the writer, not the character. This unnecessary narrator introduces enough plotholes to fill a subreddit.
The most egregious example: "John Steinbeck" describes a private conversation between two characters who die almost immediately after the conversation. There's no way for "Steinbeck" to know what Steinbeck's writing.
These are the exact sort of lazy plotholes that Nobel laureates could get away with before we had the internet!
And here's the real rub — having a first-person narrator adds NOTHING to East of Eden. Whether you love or despise the book, it's not because of the narrator.
Adding "John Steinbeck" is an Easter Egg on par with shoehorning Starfox into the Guardians of the Galaxy sequel… or Starfox into the Super Mario sequel.
In fact, if the Steinbeck estate ever produces a sequel to East of Eden, they should rename the narrator Starfox.
by Sneakerboxxxx
2 Comments
Bookmarking this thread and hoping I come back to this discussion bec I haven’t started East of Eden (but intended to since I enjoyed his previous works).
Oh, that last line! I’m crying!😂