The winter of my unease

Títutulu Original: The winter of our discontent
Translation: Miguel Martínez-Lage
Year of publication: 1961
Valoración: Advisable

Now is the winter of our discontent

Made glorious summer by this sun of York;

And all the clouds that lour’d upon our house

In the deep bosom of the ocean buried.

The winter of my unease It is the Shakesperian title of what was the latest novel by the American John Steinbeck, Nobel Prize for Literature in 1962. A good novel, without a doubt, although somewhat far from works such as works such as The anger grapes, The vagabundos of the harvest, Of mice and men o East of Eden. This is due, in my opinion, to The winter of my unease It lacks the strength and almost epic touch of the previous ones, partly because the prominence of the novel falls on a more earthly character.

Let’s recap. Ethan Allen Hawley, “selfless” husband and father of two “sympathetic” teenagers, is the almost absolute protagonist of this novel. It is a man who descends from one of the great families of New Baytown, a family of pioneers and wealthy shipowners, among other things, to which various circumstances lead to lose much of their fortune, which makes us find an Ethan who currently works as a dependent in which it was his own store. For more inri, the store is now owned by an Italian!

As you can imagine, all this is something that neither Ethan nor his family gets too well. Luckily (or not), Ethan is presented with the opportunity to progress in a not too honest way, which will make it a kind of modern Raskolnikov, full of doubts, dilemmas and regrets caused by the pressures he receives, in one sense or another, by family and friends.

Thus, Steinbeck builds the entire novel based on characters and opposite options or options. Some examples: Hawley’s wife (Mary) and her friend (Margie), the old and the new friends, the new rich and the usual families come unless, traditional values and new “values”, etc. Both throw them out of a Hawley who will be faced with the need to make decisions.

As a whole, The winter of the unease It is a hard criticism of the values of American society. The action takes place between the days of Easter, days of recollection and exaltation of values such as sacrifice or redemption, and on July 4, National Festival and the day of glorification of the “American values”, but the characters that star in the novel pass some values and others through the arc of triumph. To top it off, the novel reaches its climax, apparently quite contrary to the “American values”, on July 4.

In addition to the above, and although individualism seems one of those “American values”, I would like to highlight the importance that Steinbeck grants to this “value.” The vast majority of the characters, despite being respected members of the community, live in solitude. And those who do not live in solitude are barely able to recognize the outer layer of their closest beings. At times, they are even unable to know themselves.

In summary, and as I said at the beginning of the review, perhaps this is not the best novel by John Steinbeck, it may seem something “Light” compared to other works by the author, but it is a novel fully in force at present, solid, well constructed and absolutely enjoyable and recommended.