Cannery Row (1945) (edit title/settings)

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Summary edit see section history

Characters/People edit see section history

• Doc: Owner of the Western Biological Laboratory. Everyone in Monterey really likes him.
• Mack: He is the elder, leader, mentor, and to a small extent exploiter of a little group of men who have in common no families, no money, and no amitions beyond food, drink, and contentment. They are known as Mack and the boys.
• Lee Chong: Chinese grocery store owner. He is generous.
• Hazel: Part of "Mack and the boys" he was named Hazel because his mother was exhausted
• Eddie: Part of "Mack and the boys" he is a fill in bar tender at La Ida.
• Dora Flood: Madame and a great big woman with flaming red hear and a taste for Nile green evening dresses. She ownes the Bear Flag Restaurant.
• Frankie: A mentally and emotionally challenge young man that started working for Doc when he was 11 years old.
• Henri: He is an artistic painter, but has never been to France. He also is building a boat he will never finish because he loves boats but is afraid of the water.
• Hughie: Part of "Mack and the boys"
• Willard: A mean little boy that hangs out with Joey.
• Red Williams: Owner of a service station.
• Mack: Add a description of this character.
• Alfred: Bouncer at the Bear Flag Restaurant
• Jones: Part of "Mack and the boys"
• Mary Talbot: Working poor. Likes to throw parties even if it is a tea party for the neighboring cats.
• Mrs. Tom Talbot: Mary's husband. Working poor.
• Mrs. Sam Malloy: Married to Sam and once they start renting out pipes she decides to make the broiler a proper home.
• Phyllis Mae: Works for Dora. She broke her leg.
• Richard Frost: He finds out answers to questions that distrub him.
• Mr. Carriaga: A resident of Monterey.
• Horace Abbeville: He had two wives and six children. He had owned the Palace Flophouse and Grill and used it for fish mill storage. He traded it to Lee Chong.
• William: Former bouncer at the Bear Flag. He wanted to join Mack and the boys but they wouldn't accept him.
• Eva Flanegan: Works for Dora. She is a drunk, spiritual, and from a big family.
• Whitey: The regular bartender at the La Ida.
• Gay: Leaves his wife to join Mack and the boys. He is an excellent mechanic.
• Mr. Randolph: On the Board of Directors for the Hediondo Cannery.
• Sam Malloy: Rents out the old pipes for single men to sleep.
• Captain: Land owner in Carmel.
• Elsie Doublebottom: Works for Dora.
• Hughie: Part of Mack and the boys.
• The Greek: Dora's cook. His first name might actually be Lou.
• Darling: The pointer pup of Mack and the boys
• Chinaman: Wonders through Cannery Row, and people pretty much leave him alone.
• Louie
• Doris
• Josh Billings
• St. Francis
• Joey
• Andy
• Jimmy Brucia
• Mr. Rattle
• Johnnie

Quotes edit see section history

• “Dora who, madam and girl for fifty years, has through the exercise of special gifts of tact and honesty, charity and a certain relaism, made herself respected by the intelligent, the learned, and the kind. And by the same token she is hated by the twisted and lascivious sisterhood of married spinsters whose husbands respect the home but don't like it very much”

• “When anyone asked a question, Doc thought he wanted to know the answer. That was the way with Doc. He never sked unless he wanted to know and he could not conceive of the brain that would ask without wanting to know. But Hazel, who simply wanted to hear talk, had developed a system of making the answer to one question the basis of another. It kept conversation going”

• “Someone should write an erudite essay on the moral, physical, and esthetic effect of the Model T Ford on the American nation. Two generations of Americans knew more about that Ford coil than the clitoris, about the plantary system of gears than the solar system of stars. With the Model T, part of the concept of private property disappeared. Pliers ceased to be privately owned and a tire pump belonged to the last man who had picked it up. Most of the babies of the period were conceived in Model T Fords and not a few were born in them. The theory of the Anglo Saxon home became so warped that it never quite recovered”

• “It has always seemed strange to me,” said Doc. “The things we admire in men, kindness and generosity, openness, honesty, understanding and feeling are the concomitants of failure in our system. And those traits we detest, sharpness, greed, acquisitiveness, meanness, egotism and self-interest are the traits of success. And while men admire the quality of the first they love the produce of the second.”

  Doc

• “It is the hour of the pearl—the interval between day and night when time stops and examines itself.”

• “Henri the painter was not French and his name was not Henri. Also he was not really a painter. Henri has so steeped himself in stories of the Left Bank in Paris that he lived there although he had never been there.”

• “The party had all the best qualities of a riot and a night on the barricades.”

• “For there are two possible reactions to social ostracism - either a man emerges determined to be better, purer, and kindlier or he goes bad, challenges the world and does even worse things. The last is by far the commonest reaction to stigma.”

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• “It has always seemed strange to me,” said Doc. “The things we admire in men, kindness and generosity, openness, honesty, understanding and feeling are the concomitants of failure in our system. And those traits we detest, sharpness, greed, acquisitiveness, meanness, egotism and self-interest are the traits of success. And while men admire the quality of the first they love the produce of the second.”

  Highlighted by 158 Kindle customers

• It is the hour of the pearl—the interval between day and night when time stops and examines itself.

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• What can it profit a man to gain the whole world and to come to his property with a gastric ulcer, a blown prostate, and bifocals?

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• It’s all fine to say, “Time will heal everything, this too shall pass away. People will forget”—and things like that when you are not involved, but when you are there is no passage of time, people do not forget and you are in the middle of something that does not change.

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• He can kill anything for need but he could not even hurt a feeling for pleasure.

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• There are your true philosophers. I think,” he went on, “that Mack and the boys know everything that has ever happened in the world and possibly everything that will happen. I think they survive in this particular world better than other people. In a time when people tear themselves to pieces with ambition and nervousness and covetousness, they are relaxed. All of our so-called successful men are sick men, with bad stomachs, and bad souls, but Mack and the boys are healthy and curiously clean. They can do what they want. They can satisfy their appetites without calling them something else.”

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• Someone should write an erudite essay on the moral, physical, and esthetic effect of the Model T Ford on the American nation. Two generations of Americans knew more about the Ford coil than the clitoris, about the planetary system of gears than the solar system of stars.

  Highlighted by 48 Kindle customers

• Our Father who art in nature, who has given the gift of survival to the coyote, the common brown rat, the English sparrow, the house fly and the moth, must have a great and overwhelming love for no-goods and blots-on-the-town and bums, and Mack and the boys. Virtues and graces and laziness and zest. Our Father who art in nature.

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• Doc still loved true things but he knew it was not a general love and it could be a very dangerous mistress.

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• concupiscent as a rabbit and gentle as hell. Everyone who knew him was indebted to him. And everyone who thought of him thought next, “I really must do something nice for Doc.”

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Setting & Locations edit see section history

• Monterey, California: Where the majority of the novel takes place.
• Cannery Row: An area of Monterery where the sardine canneries were located.
• Lee Chong's Grocery: A Chinese grocery near Cannery Row
• Western Biological Laboratory: Owned by Doc. It is located near Cannery Row
• Palace Flophouse and Grill: Technically owned by Lee Chong. It is the residence of Mack and the boys.
• La Ida: Bar where Eddie sometimes works.
• Bear Flag Restaurant: Whore house that Dora Flood owns.
• Carmel, California: A good place to go frog hunting.
• La Jolla: A good place to go octopus hunting.
• Hediondo Cannery: One of the Canneries at Cannery Row.
• Holman's Department Store: In the community and it draws attention by having a flag pole skater trying to break a world record.
• Morden's Cannery: One of the canneries on Cannery Row.
• Jacob's Jewelry Store: A local business.

First Sentence edit see section history

Table of Contents edit see section history

Series & Lists edit see section history

Authors & Contributors edit see section history

1. John Steinbeck (Author)

Other Contributors:

1. Ross MacDonald (Cover Artist) - of 1992-1993 Penguin Editions
2. Michael Ian Kaye (Designer) - Cover Designer of 1992-1993 Penguin Editions

First Edition edit see section history

Classification edit see section history

• Library of Congress: PS3537.T3234 C3 1945
• Dewey: 813.52

Subjects edit see section history

• Books › Literature & Fiction › Classics
• Books › Literature & Fiction › Literary

Movie Connections edit see section history

• Cannery Row (1982) (IMDb): Staring Nick Nolte and Debra Winger

More Books Like This edit see section history