East of Eden
Steinbeck's family saga in the Salinas Valley explicitly parallels Cain and Abel. The word "timshel" (thou mayest) becomes the philosophical anchor: choice, not fate, not God, is the gift and burden of human life. Readers consistently name it the book they think about most. Steinbeck called it his magnum opus; critics disagreed. The readers were right.
"Ponderous, pretentious, melodramatic, self-satisfied, patronizing to its readers." The women get two settings, "one evil and exaggerated to the point of absurdity" or plot service; "the men are various superlatives (greatest, kindest, wisest)" rather than people shown earning any of it. Lee delivers seminar lectures nobody onstage finds unusual, in "stilted and unnatural dialogue, which in no way resembles conversation." A second family, the Hamiltons, wanders in and out without serving the theme, the narrator slides between omniscience and a sudden first-person I, and the fatigue sets in on schedule around the two-thirds mark of seven hundred pages. The valley is gorgeous. The sermon never ends.
The case for it and the rest of the canon open with Pro.
