Books : Of Mice and Men (Steinbeck Centennial Edition)

Rating: - The Greatest 20th Century Novella?
Although you can read this book in just a few short hours, the relatively few words found in "Of Mice and Men" carry tremendous weight. From the first paragraph Steinbeck manages to paint a vivid picture of the environment, taking great care to simultaneously describe both the beauty of nature and the agony of the story's characters.

I'd long considered Hemingway's "The Sun Also Rises" to be the greatest American 20th century novel, and after reading "Of Mice and Men" last evening it's clear this story has assumed the #1 spot in my personal list of greatest novellas.

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Rating: - Depression-era Greek Tragedy
John Steinbeck's powerful Depression-era novel weaves together timeless themes of work, kindness, cruelty, loneliness and longing. George Milton and Lennie Small are poor migrant workers in California during the Great Depression. George is intelligent and looks after Lennie, a mentally-challenged man of brute size and strength, but whose lack of sense causes trouble. Sharing a bare cabin with other migrant workers, George and Lennie have little more than their dreams of owning a rabbit farm - an unlikely goal for migrants. Their companions include an aging ranch hand (Candy) minus a hand from a work accident, and a black man (Crooks) with a bad back forced to sleep alone and seek solace in books. All try to avoid trouble, particularly from the boss's hot-headed son Curly and his flirtatious young wife. Steinbeck uses foreshadowing to lead to the inevitable (if slightly contrived) ending, when Lennie becomes violent and George administers final justice. The result is a powerful Greek-style tragedy.

John Steinbeck (1902-1968) wrote from his hobo experiences, and claimed that Lennie was based on a real-life migrant he once worked with. Published in 1937, OF MICE AND MEN was quickly performed on stage and in the movies. Not suprisingly, this story has faced censorship for its raw language, treatment of mental retardation, sex and violence, etc.

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Rating: - easy, short, to the point
steinbeck is awesome for pulling this through.....he was able to pack so much information in this short book.....that is some REAL talent right there!

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Rating: - Great book! One of my favorites.
I love this book. This was my first Steinbeck novel, and I thought it was great

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Rating: - I Was Not Left Speechless; In Fact, I Have a Lot to Say
Before I begin my criticisms, I will mention that my focus of this review is not on my personal preferences regarding characterizations, settings, themes, authors, etc. I understand that I cannot expect all authors to write a story that I personally enjoy and can relate to. Even if the subject matter of Of Mice and Men had interested me, I still would have given the novel a one star rating because of my criticism that I will explain in this review.

I am giving this novel a one star rating because it has a lot of vulgar dialogue. There is an average of about 4 profanities per page.

Secondly, even if I were to set aside my moral views of this novel, I still would choose to give this novel a one star rating. In my opinion, the plot structure is not all that good. The climax and resolution could have followed directly after the first 1/3 of the novel. There are too many conversations that seem to fill up space with unnecessary dialogue which describes the backgrounds of characters and personalities that do not play a significant role (if even a role at all) in the outcome of the story.

Furthermore, Of Mice and Men has too many characters for its very simple plot. In my opinion, the advantage to having a lot of characters is to create intricate subplots which play a significant role in the outcome of the story

I do not insist on reading action-packed stories. In fact, I sometimes prefer stories that are mainly comprised of dialogue. However, I do always want to see that there is a CLEAR DIRECTION in the conversations that progressively leads to the climax. In my opinion, the dialogue in Of Mice and Men did not meet these criteria. In fact, mid-way through the novel, I really felt as though the story was approaching a dead-end, and I think that John Steinbeck probably felt the same way. Therefore, he made the climax take a sharp turn off course just so the plot would not slam into a wall.

Due to the offensive content and weak plot structure, I do not recommend Of Mice and Men.