Wednesday, May 06, 2009

James Dean, East of Eden and my wife

We watched part of a documentary on James Dean last night. It mentioned that one of the three films that James Dean starred in before his death was an adaptation of Steinbeck's East of Eden... one of my favorite novels of all time. A lot of people are disturbed by the dark themes in the book, but I find it a fascinating and beautiful re-telling of the story of humanity's Fall.

Krista knows the book is my favorite (I've read it at least once a year since she originally forced me to read it). So she suggested, "You should add that to our Netflix cue."

"That would be fun," I said. "I'll do it."

"Oh, I'm sure that will be fun," she said. Implying, of course, that the content of the story is not something most people would describe as a joyride of free hilarity.

"Now you're just making fun of me," I said.

"Yes," she said.

I'm glad you're home, Krista. I missed you!

4 comments:

  1. My abiding memory of the film is that I went into labor (I think with Laura)while I was watching it and I don't think I ever saw the end. Maybe that explains some things. I should watch it again.

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  2. Ha ha. That's a better story than my blog post.

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  3. Lurker here, via the Dennis family at Omnivore Digest(s). East of Eden is one of my favorite novels of all time, too, though Grapes of Wrath bores me to tears. Umm...I'll go ahead and bow out now and thank myself for sharing.

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  4. Hey Gypmar! You know, I feel exctly the same way about Grapes of Wrath. It was actually toward the end of my initial Steinbeck run and I remember reading about that dumb turtle for pages and pages and then going WHAT THE HECK IS GOING ON HERE? I pushed through it like it was a homework assignment. I can't believe so many people like it better than EoE.

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