
This selection is the first chapter from Steinbeck's book, in which he introduces the multiple cultures and industrial setting of the Monterey waterfront during the mid-20th century.
Cannery Row, pictured here, has evolved from being a "poem, a stink, a grating noise, a quality of light, a tone, a habit, a nostalgia, a dream," as Steinbeck described (reader page 147). But is it really all that different? The old industry was fishing (sardines), but the new industry of tourism offers its own grotesque slice of humanity. What is your impression from the short introductory chapter Steinbeck wrote in 1945? [Read
here about the collapse of the California sardine fishery].
--Brent W.