Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #12612 in Books
• Published on: 2000-09-07
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 144 pages

Customer Reviews

A wonderful story
I first read this book at school and I really enjoyed it. I found it very moving and the friendship between George and Lenny was well written. All in all this is a wonderful story and it's one of the few books that I could read again and again.

A confession.
I must have been one of the few people who never studied Of Mice and Men at school so came across it rather later in life. It wasn't the first Steinbeck I'd read - that accolade goes to Cannery Row (one of the few books I've read and read again!) so I approached this with a bit of trepidation wondering why it was such a popular "school text"

Well it's now obvious why. There is so much to be drawn out of this, short, novel that resonates today and which today's students can expand upon.

As a by the by, a current TV news item is covering internet plagiarism for school exams, and the example they are using is -you've guessed it - Of Mice and Men

And so to my confession. I got into this book so much that I read three quarters of it in one sitting and finished it whilst on my tube journey into work. And yes, those of you on the Central Line all those years ago, I was the ugly big bloke crying his eyes out in the corner (having gone three stops past the one I wanted).

This is the only book that has made such an emotional impact on me and if no one has read it yet please do so and also read ALL of Steinbeck's books. My favourites are the classics, East of Eden and Grapes of Wrath of course, but also lesser known works - Cannery Row and Sweet Thursday, both set in Monterey and The Wayward Bus, a compelling tale using an unlikely premise, but drawing out superb descriptions of place and character.

He wrote many other novels, travelogues, journalistic pieces and copious letters which have been collected in varying forms. - PLEASE READ THEM ALL! They put most (all?) of today's literature into the shade.

I believe everything he wrote is published in one form or another except "Bombs Away" a wartime Airforce recruitment book - and I am still kicking myself for not getting a copy I saw when in Monterey myself, believing that I could pick it up cheaper in the UK - What a fool!

And to finish, a brief quotation from where I believe Steinbeck drew his title

" The best laid schemes o' mice an' men
Gang aft agley (often go wrong)
An' lea'e us nought but grief an'pain,
For promised joy.

Robert Burns To a Mouse (1785)

A parable of loneliness and poverty
Two penniless itinerant workers arrive in California's Salinas Valley with dreams of owning their own farm and settling down in peace. But first they must hold down a job and get some money together. George Milton and his giant, dim-witted friend Lennie Small have nothing in the world except each other and each acts as the other's protector in different ways. Unfortunately, although gentle and child-like, Lennie's emotional instability and immense strength are a constant source of trouble and George has to keep baling him out of trouble. Arriving late on their first day of employment at a ranch, things begin ominously when the boss's son takes a dislike to Lennie, and then slide inexorably into heart-breaking tragedy. Powerful and poignant, Of Mice and Men is one of the twentieth century's great parables of loneliness and poverty.