6 - Of Mice and Men (the novel, 1937)

Summary

Charles A. Wagner.

“Books.”

New York Mirror, 24

February 1937, p. 25.

Of the two selections for March made by the Book-of-the-Month Club, and just published, we like best the young American Steinbeck's novel, though the veteran Britisher Wells, who shares the selection, has returned to the grand manner.

John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men… is just about the closest thing to a little prose masterpiece in the social stir we have seen in years.

It is the story of two barley bucker pals who migrate from job to job along the grain belt. One is a towering giant with the strength of ten men but the brain of a child. The other hasn't the heart to get rid of him, for fear he will come to harm; to which, of course, he does.

But the cycle of friendship, even in tragedy, remains unbroken. And in the course of his swift-moving tale, Mr. Steinbeck gives us a holiday pageantry of portraits in toil, in men's passions and repressions, in workers’ dreams and devilments, told with a poet's eye to sounds and silences which makes his book a memorable thing indeed, and something at last to cheer about.

Lewis Gannett.

“Books and Things.”

New York Herald Tribune,

25 February 1937, p. 17.

“Guys like us, that work on ranches,” George told Lennie, “are the loneliest guys in the world. They got no family. They don't belong no place.