Haven’t we all, on coming across some beautiful tranquillizing place, dreamt about getting settled there for once and for all. An adobe house by the shore of a Goa’s sea beaches, a green valley in Kashmir filled with wooden houses and beautiful pastures. How many times in our lives we come across such places, and dream such dreams, some of us even start planning; but mostly it just take us an hours journey away from the place and we have already forgotten the place and gotten ourselves consumed in the mundane life and the place becomes nothing but a distant dream.
‘The Pastures of Heaven’ (TPOH) is one such place imagined by John Steinbeck (JS), somewhere in California around Salina. It’s a valley, one look of which could make people dream about settling there and many of them actually do it. With its green pastures, fertile land, live Oak trees and verdant hills, and simple inhabitants – it offers everything that a person could dream of and if you are a nature loving freak it’ll pull you until you are settled there.
TPOH is a book all about this valley and the people that dwells in it. TPOH’s 12 chapters could very well be read separately as 12 short stories in which JS has covered the life in TPOH through its people. One thing that really impresses is the way stories are connected. Protagonist of one tale plays just a helping hand or a minor character in other ones. Isn’t it the way the life goes, with each one being a hero of his/her own life but at the same time playing a supporting act in others life. But these stories are quite independent as well, so can be read in any order, but the best is to go with the flow from chapter 1 to 12. There is nothing exceptional in these stories, no thrill, no horror, not much drama, yet they reach your heart for its characters and John Steinbeck’s exceptional way of telling them.
Stories of TPOH remind one of ‘O Henry’ style of brining a twist in the tale towards the end. Characters are very plausible and many of them remind a reader of people around them through their habits and their doings. Many comes to live in the valley and many leaves it towards the end of their tale, but as the reader moves from one tale to another, it feels like altogether a new tale. Flow of the stories isn’t one directional with many of them folding in centuries and others in days. Language is as simple as it could get and writing style strikes the chord in the beginning itself, so there are no hiccups what so ever for the reader to feel uncomfortable on any aspect. That’s the overall idea about the books lets now get into the stories one by one:
Chapter 1: Only 2 pages long, it tells about how long back in 18th century TPOH was first discovered by a Spanish Corporal, who was on a mission to seize some rebels but on the way back got floored by the beauty of the valley and never returned.
Chapter 2: “There’s something about the place. Everybody who lives there hates to talk.” Story of a cursed farm called Battle farm named after its first owners. It’s a kind of farm people fear to enter and kids visit at nights to get frightened. Even the people that lived in this house, time after time, behaved kind of weird adding to the scariness of the place. When Munroe family arrived from the town and changed the look and oldness of the place, they end the curse on the farm as well as one of their own.
Chapter 3: “No man ever guarded his prize bi+ch when she was in heat more closely than Shark watched his daughter.”Edward Wicks mostly known as Shark finds pleasure in being considered as a rich man. Though he is just a farmer, but through his masterly talks and fake claims of investments, people have the impression that he is quite rich. He has a most beautiful, but somewhat dumb, daughter in the place to whom he is over-protective. He suspects all, so never lets his wife and daughter to e away from his eyes. It’s the story of how these two aspects results in the ruin of Wicks family.
Chapter 4: It was in obscure circumstances that Franklin Gomez found and adopted a baby and named it Tularecito. This baby grows up in quite un-human way and looked more like Gnomes. He turns up to be a brilliant artist/painter but gets angry and irrepressible if someone destroys his pictures. When admitted to school he comes to know of Gnomes and starts believing himself to be a Gnome, so starts his search for them. Will he able to find and be with his people?
Chapter 5: “Seemingly she hungered for tragedy and life had lavishly heaped it upon her.” Helen’s husband is dead and she only has a daughter, Hilda, with mental-illness, to live with. She spends most of her times in mourning and remembering her husband, and taking care of Hilda. With age Hilda’s mental condition keeps getting worse and doctor suggest Helen to put her in a Hospital. To bring in a little change Helen, alongwith Hilda, moves into The Pastures of Heaven. Helen soon falls in love with the place and rediscovers herself but Hilda wants to go back. Helen finds a way out, but a surprising one!
Chapter 6: “They hated him with loathing that busy people have for lazy ones, and sometimes they envied his laziness. No one noticed that he was happy.”It’s for warm and dry climate that Junius Maltby moved to TPOH but then he makes it his permanent place, marrying Mrs. Quaker, a widow with two sons and lots of land. Junius grows lazy and lethargic and uncivilized and with time becomes poor and his wife dies too. But he hardly has any idea as he is busy reading books and enjoying the nature much to the envy of the neighbors. Robbie, Junius’s son, grows up just like him with no proper clothing but lots of knowledge and enthusiasm. When he is made to join school, people of TPOH gets together to help Robbie but it results only in embarrassing the kid and making him conscious of his poverty.
Chapter 7: “Sins were not allowed to pile up. They confessed each one as it was committed” After the death of their father Lopez sisters, Rosa and Maria, to keep the life moving, opens a small place selling Tortillas and Enchiladas. But business didn’t flourish as they expected, so they decide to offer something else alongwith the food to the regular customers, without charging for it. Will that work?
Chapter 8: “Lying with held breaths, in their beds, the children knew what he meant. In the morning he would be gone, and their hearts would be gone with him.”Molly Morgan’s father was a salesman and most of the times stayed away from the home and on his rare visits he brought toys and gifts for all. He’s a big drunkard and once he left for the job and never came back, and the family disintegrated afterwards. Molly’s life hadn’t been good at all until she moved to TPOH and joined the local school. Her life changes and she starts to enjoy TPOH. She still believes her father to be a hero and not yet dead. When a mysterious drunkard arrives in TPOH, Molly finds herself tangled in her deepest fears.
Continued in Comment’s section.................