Review: “Of Mice and Men” by John Steinbeck

Thumbs up for Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck. Literature.

I am not competent to review John Steinbeck. I am not even competent to construct a laudatory poem in his honor, which would be more appropriate. I cannot even tell you to go read his books: because either you have already, and you know his greatness; or you haven’t yet but mean to, in which case you will encounter them in your own right time; or you haven’t yet and you don’t care, in which case I sincerely hope you may find wisdom in your next life. So never mind.

A tall man stood in the doorway. He held a crushed Stetson hat under his arm while he combed his long, black, damp hair straight back. Like the others he wore blue jeans and a short denim jacket. When he had finished combing his hair he moved into the room, and he moved with a majesty only achieved by royalty and master craftsmen. He was a jerkline skinner, the prince of the ranch, capable of driving ten, sixteen, even twenty mules with a single line to the leaders. He was capable of killing a fly on the wheeler’s butt with a bull whip without touching the mule. There was a gravity in his manner and a quiet so profound that all talk stopped when he spoke. His authority was so great that his word was taken on any subject, be it politics or love. This was Slim, the jerkline skinner. His hatchet face was ageless. He might have been thirty-five or fifty. His ear heard more than was said to him, and his slow speech had overtones not of thought, but of understanding beyond thought. His hands, large and lean, were as delicate in action as those of a temple dancer.