终于啃完这本书就心血来潮想做点笔记
“A time plashed with interest, wounded with tragedy, crevassed with joy — that’s the time that seems long in the memory. And this is right when you think about it. Eventlessness has no posts to drape duration on. From nothing to nothing is no time at all.”
“…the mountain people were kind as lonesome people are kind.”
“Maybe if I had loved him I would have been jealous of him. You were. Maybe — maybe love makes you suspiscious and doubting. Is it true that when you love a woman you are never sure—never sure of her because you aren’t sure of yourself? I can see it pretty clearly. I can see how you loved him and what it did to you. I did not love him. Maybe he loved me. He tested me and hurt me and punished me and finally sent me out like a sacrifice, maybe to make up for something. But he did not love you, and so he had faith in you. Maybe—why, maybe it’s a kind of reverse.” Book 1 Chapter 7
这是Charles怀疑父亲的获取财富手段不正当时Adam的话。怀疑和猜忌是爱的后果，而不爱则更容易去信任; 父亲的爱让不适合军队的Adam去参军，给他施加惩罚和伤害——把他像祭品一样献出去，而Charles同样被孤独折磨; 最终父亲Cyrus取得了Adam的信任，而此信任却不是源于儿子的“爱”而是“不爱”。这样想有些荒谬的意味。所有人都因爱而负重，引言有一句话总结得很好，East of Eden deals with the inexplicability of the emotion we call love.
“I believe there are monsters born in the world to human parents.” ——Cathy的经典出场，Cathy is a monster. But, “you must not forget that a monster is only a variation, and that to a monster the norm is monstrous.” Book 1 Chapter 8
似乎Cathy成为“怪物”并没有任何来由，她生而如此。但这个女人的storyline太令人着迷了，尤其是她和Charles的互动，“She felt a kinship to Charles. She didn’t mind his suspicion of her.” （从这里开始我大概就猜到他们会sleep together）
关于Cathy这个角色David Wyatt写的introduction里面总结道：
Here is a woman who rapes herslef, incinerates her parents, beds down with her brother-in-law, shoots her husband, and abandons her children. Eve and Tamar and Delilah and Jezebel are rolled into one. She is realized through her actions rather than her motivations. Steinbeck tries once or twice to refer her back to the order of nature, as in the sentence “As though nature concealed a trap, Cathy had from the first a face of innocence.”
他继续还写道：What Steinbeck creates in Cathy is an affront to the interpretative schemes that police the category we call “human”. Cathy的存在似乎确实像对规制人类常态的所有准绳的轻蔑和冒犯，她有自己的一套语言和准则，她的世界不同于其他任何人。不知道Cathy的行为是否能用精神分析法得出什么结论，但后来我也就不去想她的动机了，她的存在本身给故事添了一抹不安而诱惑人的力量，对读者是如此，对其他故事中的人物也是如此。唉，总之好喜欢她的故事线。
“Adam Trask grew up in grayness, and the curtains of his life were like dusty cobwebs, and his days a slow file of half-sorrows and sick dissatisfactions, and then, through Cathy, the glory came to him.” Chapter 13 Book 2
Adam无条件信任Cathy的外表，丝毫不起疑心，想起之前他说“Is it true that when you love a woman you are never sure—never sure of her because you aren’t sure of yourself?” 我想他爱的不是一个女人，而是一个自己堆砌起来的幻影，根据自己心中的灰暗和空缺，他需要东西来弥补，从此而来的光荣让他变得sure of himself.
“The coyotes nuzzled along the slopes and, torn with sorrow-joy, raised their heads and shouted their feeling, half keen, hald laughter, at their goddess mooon.” (写得好美）Chapter 16
Again about Cathy: Who knows but that she tried to tell someone or everyone what she was like and could not, for lack of a common language. Her life may have been her language, formal, developed, indecipherable. Chapter 17
很喜欢这句“her life may have been her language”
妓院和教堂：”The church and the whorehouse arrived in the Far West simultaneously. And each would have been horrified to think it was a different facet of the same thing. But surely they were both intended to accomplish the same thing: the singing, the devotion, the poetry of the churches took a man out of his bleakness for a time, and so did the brothels. ” Chapter 19
timshel: ‘Do thou,’ and throw their weight into obedience. And there are millions more who feel predestination in ‘Thou shalt.’ Nothing they may do can interfere with what will be. But ‘Thou mayest’! Why, that makes a man greatm that gives him stature with the gods, for in his weakness and his filth and his murder of his brother he has still the great choice. Chapter 24
“Nearly everyone preferred Aron with his golden hair and the opennesss that allowed his affection to plunge like a puppy. Cal’s emotions his deep in him and peered out, ready to retreat or attack.”
“He had forgotten—if he had ever known—that he punished because he wished he could be loved as Aron was loved. It had gone so far that he preferred what he had to what Aron had.” Chapter 27
又是两兄弟的竞争。可以说Cal是我最喜欢的角色，他让人感受到一种很真实的挣扎。对于Aron来说一切都仿佛太容易了，他是被爱的，所以可以软弱，而Cal只能变得坚硬而警惕，难以敞开。
“Indeed, most of their vices are attempted short chuts to love.” Chapter 34
“The quick pain of truth can pass away, but the slow, eating agony of a lie is never lost. That’s a running sore.” Chapter 36
“And once a boy has suffered rejection, he will find rejection even where it does not exist—orm worse, will draw it forth from people simply by expecting it.”
“When he was quite small Cal had discovered a secret. If he moved very quietly to where his father was sitting and if he learned very lightly against his father’s knee, Adam’ s hand would rise automatically and his fingers would caress Cal’s shoulder. It is probable that Adam did not even know he did it, but the caress brought such a raging flood of emotion to the boy that he saved this special joy and used it only when he needed it. It was a magic to be depended upon. It was the ceremonial symbol of a dogged adoration.” Chapter 38
看这段哭了。。。好心疼Cal，这真的是全书最动人的部分了。后来Cal坦诚地承认他想用钱买父亲的爱并为此努力，但Adam还是喜欢Aron, 因为Aron要上大学他很骄傲， 并觉得Cal没有志向。但我看来Aron的所做大多是想要逃避，逃避罪恶和污秽，而Cal则面对了所有的黑暗，承受它们，对爱进行在我看来是如此直白的“讨要”。当然承认爱就是承认弱点，在Cal心墙里父亲的爱是最柔软的也是最软弱的部分，因此父亲拒绝他的礼物才带来毁灭性的打击。很有意思的是Adam之前还对《圣经》里的该隐打抱不平，说：“I remember being a little outraged at God. Both Cain and Abel gave what they had, and God accepted Abel and rejected Cain. I never thought that was a just thing.” 接着他就做了上帝一样的选择。可能生活就是这样，发生着一切我们早已知道的故事，但作为当事人我们却常不自知。当时看这一章的时候我都替Cal紧张啊，虽然能感觉到Cal胜算不大，但Adam的拒绝还是让人一下心灰意冷。我甚至认为Adam的拒绝比Cal以及Charles因嫉妒而生出的暴力更加残忍。Adam这个角色太过于passive, 有时觉得他被困在自己的世界里一意孤行，就像当时他沉浸在自己设想出的伊甸里一样。
Aron参军之后，Adam问Cal: “He hasn’t been home for two nights. Where is he?”
“How do I know?” said Cal. “Am I supposed to look after him?”
这句很显然是在指向该隐的“Am I my brother’s keeper?”由此该隐不仅成为了世上第一个杀人犯，还成了世上第一个说谎的人。John Steinbeck在故事中安插的关于《圣经》的暗示比较明显，但也很微妙，比如Charles和Cathy额头上都有伤，就像该隐被上帝做了记号一样。并且Charles, Cathy, Cal名字都以C开头，Adam, Aron, Abra都以A, 与Cain and Abel对应。但是Cal的身上没有象征性的印记，会不会是因为对于timshel的实践体现在Cal的抉择之中，或者说，对于Charles和Cathy更多的是“呈现”和“描述”，他被作者“赋予”了选择，而不是板上钉钉的性格和命运，这就是为什么他的人物看起来最为生动。就如Lee说：“He’s crammed full to the top with every good thing and every bad thing.”而你需要一个很大的心来盛装所有这些相互矛盾的东西。
关于成长：“When you’re a child you’re the center of everything. Everything happens for you. Other people? They’re only ghosts furnished for you to talk to. But when you grow up you take your place and you’re your own size and shape. Things go out of you to others and come in from other people. It’s worse, but its’s much better too.”
最终Abra和Cal的爱情是非常宽慰人的情节。但整个故事仍不可避免地充斥着死亡和遗憾。这本书对我来说有种意味深长的感觉，很多地方不能完全理解，大概和阅历有关。尽管如此故事中讲述的那些感觉很真实。Sins are ultimately the result of love’s absence. And love is something that needs a lifetime to decipher.
（我天我居然写了这么长的笔记，是我寒假最勤奋的行为了