(Maybe you can sit in one of his bedroom chairs. You can even sign up for a tour of Doc's lab. If want to hear some secret history, check out this story on the Chinese laborers who built the Western railroads.ĭon't know a limpet from an anemone? The Oceana Marine Wildlife Encyclopedia is here to help.Ĭannery Row is a real place in Monterey, California. If you've already seen Shmoop's guide to Steinbeck, but you still can't get enough, check out The Center for Steinbeck Studies. His big message is that a real community is tied together by guys who value friendship way more than money.Ĭannery Row might not be Steinbeck's masterpiece-but hey. Steinbeck still manages to squeeze in some important stuff between frog-catching expeditions and raucous parties. In other words (beer milkshake aside), we're not saying you should put down Cannery Row and watch Jersey Shore instead. Steinbeck's book is a love letter to a time and a place that had almost already disappeared by the time it was published. After all the horrors of World War II, people looked back wistfully on a world like the one in Cannery Row, where a broken-down truck might be your biggest problem. Which means that we really can't understand all of this humor and nostalgia and everything without thinking about, well, the war. So the book might be about all kinds of things, but it's Not About the War. Write something for us to read-we're sick of war' ( source) In his own words, it was:Ī kind of nostalgic thing, written for a group of soldiers who said to me, 'Write something funny that isn't about the war. The book came out in 1945, just a few months before World War II ended. Why? Basically, Cannery Row takes itself a lot less seriously. Sure, John Steinbeck won a bunch of awards for his work, but Cannery Row wasn't exactly major literary award bait like The Grapes of Wrath. Once there's a beer milkshake involved, you've pretty much written off your chances at a Pulitzer.

Cannery row full book