sweet thursday blog #2

Back in Monterrey, the Fauna and the boys have arranged for the party to happen, and everybody in Cannery Row has been invited and given a costume assignment. They have really tried hard to make Doc and Suzy a couple. The play will have a Romeo and Juliet theme, with a wedding and all kinds of suggestions for the two to get together. Suzy has been going and hanging out with Doc, and he has been secretly enjoying her company.

Old Jingle, one of Doc's older friends has started to visit Doc frequently. They drink together, and think of old times. So far, everything was going great for the party, but it flops, and all the work that Fauna did to make Suzy one of her Golden Girls is lost. (girls that she has helped graduate from the Bear Flag to a husband) Suzy, very upset to know that she was set up with Doc up and leaves the Bear Flag.

With nowhere to go she stays in one of the empty boilers, and with no place to make money, she takes a position at the Golden Poppy. (I think that Steinbeck is emphasizing gold with "gold girls" and the "golden poppy" because gold is a symbol of quality and wealth. He is showing that though Suzy did not become a wedded woman, she took the opportunity to be independent)

Sweet thursday blog (independent reading)

Before I start by summary of the first half of Sweet Thursday, by John Steinbeck, I want to inform the reader that I am a great fan of all literature by Steinbeck, including Cannery Row, The Grapes of Wrath, and Of Mice and Men. I like these books because they are for the universal audience, meaning that anyone, no matter their social stature or cultural background, can appreciate the simplicity of life in Monterrey. These books showed me that you don't need to have all kinds of literary complexity to make a great read. Steinbeck uses only the essential words to shape a scene, and by the time that I have read the first page, I cannot wait to read another.

Sweet Thursday is a book about the life of Doc, the resident scientist/biologist that works at Western Biological Laboratories, in Monterrey. He collects all kinds of oceanic life, and doesn't have many friends. Every evening, he goes over to the local grocery store, and buys a six-pack of beer. He doesn’t have any hobbies except for drinking, and sometimes, paying an expensive hooker to come into his apartment and listen to opera music. While his story is being told, another story of a lonely girl coming to Monterrey is taking place too. This new girl is kind of lost, and she is very mysterious. Her name is Suzy, and she comes into town to stay at the Bear Flag, the local prostitute house. At the house, we learn that Dora, the leader/caretaker of the establishment has a sister, and that sister, names Fauna starts an etiquette process that makes it possible for the prostitutes to get married easier because they will be able to be presentable to the future husbands and the future families.

The Boys that have lived in the Palace Flophouse with the help of Fauna want to arrange a date with Suzy and Doc because the Boys wrecked his Lab and want to make it up to him in the only means that they know of, women.

This is as far as I have gotten in the book, and there are a lot of specifics that I will cover in the next blog about the arranging of Doc and Suzy.(the idea, the plan, the events leading up to the arrangement)