Discovered, like most things I now treasure, in high school Steinbeck never ceases to disappoint the desire to be drawn into the personalities of a world wholly unlike one's own. Although the strange charmed painting of brothel life in a small town in Sweet Thursdayheld my intrigue, it was the overarching truths of narrative that continue to compel my admiration of Steinbeck.
At one point he diverges from the main story to weave a sidebar narrative about a little town in which the competition fostered in a simple croquette-like game turns the town into two groups of warring factions that cannot imagine intermarrying or using the same drinking fountain. Throughout the description of each increased expression of animosity I found myself thinking that while the story seemed outrageous, there was something right about what he was suggesting. The chapter ends with the thought that things don't have to have happened to be true.
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