To a God Unknown
Product Description
While fulfilling his dead father’s dream of creating a prosperous farm in California, Joseph Wayne comes to believe that a magnificent tree on the farm embodies his father’s spirit. His brothers and their families share in Joseph’s prosperity and the farm flourishes – until one brother, scared by Joseph’s pagan belief, kills the tree and brings disease and famine on the farm. Set in familiar Steinbeck country, “To A God Unknown” is a mystical tale, exploring one man’s attempt to control the forces of nature and to understand the ways of God…. More >>
The novel To a God Unknown, by John Steinbeck is about a man, Joseph Wayne, moving from Vermont to California after his father dies. When he and his family get to the house where his father lived, his relatives meet him there. One of his brothers starts killing trees because of Joseph’s mournings. Joseph is a father of two girls and a boy. Joseph lived in Vermont until he finds out his father dies. When he found out that his father dies, he and his family move from Vermont to California. I didn’t really like the book because of the killing of nature and Joseph’s brother killing the trees. I would not recommend the book.
Rating: 3 / 5
I’ve read most of Steinbeck’s novels and I feel like with this book, he had an idea but didn’t quite get there. Without giving away the ending, you might as well just go rent “Dead Man Walking” because it’s along the same lines. It’s about a man who tries to start a farming “complex” with his family and the trials they endure such as death, birth, drought, etc. There’s also this part about religion and a tree, sounds strange… since this was his second novel, I feel like he went back and developed it into two novels- East of Eden about the religion and God and thou maysest/I brought rain and Grapes of Wrath about drought, plight of farmers, desolation, the land turning bad, etc. I also didn’t care for his misogyny. I’ve found it in many of his works, but this has the most overt example: “I thought he’d pick a wife as he’d pick a cow- to be a good cow, perfect in the activity of cows- to be a good wife and very like a cow” (67). Overall, I’d reccommend reading Grapes of Wrath and/or East of Eden (but with EoE, watch out for the misogyny through the character of evil Cathy the (…) mother/poor wife)
Rating: 2 / 5
I really must dissent here. Steinbeck later in his life made many a pronouncement concerning how it was the duty of the writer to capture the human spirit, in all its greatness and frailty. Unfortunately, in this novel I found few characters that even resembled human beings. It smacks of a young writer trying too hard; so packed with portents, symbols, mysticism, and pseudo-majestic dialog that I almost gave up on it several times. It reads almost like a book of the Old Testament. I feel his later novels, such as “The Wayward Bus” and “The Winter Of Our Discontent” do a much better job of speaking on the human condition.
Rating: 2 / 5
Steinbeck returns to the valleys of California in “To a God Unknown.” Of all of the landscapes he writes in, this most seems like home. He knows every detail of the land in the way only a son could.
He describes the seasons and seasonal changes. Spring being the season of procreation and birth; summer the season of work; fall the season of the harvest; and winter the season of preparation and patience.
It is really in the winter that contains the most detail. The other seasons move so quickly but the idle days of winter seem to inspire the descriptive prose within the pages. I also think this season may be the underlying theme of the book, winter being the season of death in a human’s life.
To combat the fear of death, Steinbeck introduces faith. There is a tree in the yard that Joseph believes embodies the spirit of his father and a moss covered boulder in the woods that represents an ominous fate.
Where I don’t believe that Steinbeck himself is believes in Paganism (I think he is Christian), I do think he has a respect for people whose beliefs were formed based on the land, on his land.
On a side note…
John is always the son of Joseph and Joseph is always the son of John. John’s are very good or very bad, never mediocre. If they are mediocre they are called Jack. I doubt John Steinbeck ever went by Jack.
Rating: 5 / 5
I read this novel shortly after reading East of Eden and maybe that’s why I give a harsh star treatment (I like E of E much more).
The story is a strange intertwining of nature, religion, sacrifice, and nature that I’m surprised has not garnered more interest of late due to the present society’s obsession with the environment and man’s relation to it.
Whereas I found East of Eden to be transparent (which I like), To a God Unknown is much more opaque. East of Eden motivated me to read more Steinbeck but I have to say this book disappointed me.
Rating: 2 / 5