How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
[Cannery Row's] inhabitants are, as the man once said, "whores, pimps, gamblers, and sons of bitches," by which he meant Everybody. Had the man looked through another peephole he might have said, "Saints and angels and martyrs and holy men," and he would have meant the same thing (1.1)
Let's break this down. Whores, pimps, etc. = Everybody = saints, angels, etc. So everyone is a "son of bitch" and at the same time a "saint." Whoa. That makes us feel a little better about ourselves.
Quote #2
Lee Chong [...] sent his boxed and brittle grandfather over the western sea to lie at last in the ground made holy by his ancestors (2.1)
Lee Chong may have money concerns, but it seems like his people concerns are even stronger. He's so devoted to his religious practices that he had his grandfather dug up and shipped to China so he could be buried properly. Now that's commitment to your faith.
Quote #3
Mack and the boys, too, spinning in their orbits. They are the Virtues, the Graces, the Beauties of the hurried mangled craziness of Monterey and the cosmic Monterey where men in fear and hunger destroy their stomachs in the fight to secure certain food (2.2)
First let's pause a second to imagine Mack and the boys in getups like this or—ahem—this. And then go get some bleach for your brain. Okay, now that we're all done with that: Mack and the boys are somehow above all the misery of Monterey, because they're just not interested in "certain food," i.e. money. (Although they are interested in whiskey. Definitely whiskey.)
Quote #4
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 (2.2)
The "Our Father" business is Steinbeck's version of the Christian Lord's Prayer, which starts, "Our father who art in heaven." But check out where Steinbeck puts God: not in heaven, but in the earth. What does it matter where "our father" "art"? What does that mean about nature? Is Steinbeck saying that God is in everything?
Quote #5
People, sleeping, heard [the old Chinaman's] flapping shoe go by and they awakened for a moment. It had been happening for years but no one ever got used to him. Some people thought he was God and very old people thought he was Death and children thought he was a very funny old Chinaman" (4.2)
God? Death? An old guy who needs to visit the shoe store? If you were ever looking for a good example of how an author drops a symbol into a text, you've found it. Want to know more about this guy? Check out the "Symbols" section. In the meantime, think about this: what does it say that one of the only constants in Cannery Row is an old Chinese dude?
Quote #6
Hazel turned one of the stink bugs over with the toe of his wet tennis shoe and the shining black beetle strove madly with floundering legs to get upright again. "Well, why do you think they do it?"
"I think they're praying," said Doc. [. . .] "If we did something as inexplicable and strange we'd probably be praying—so maybe they're praying" (6.43-6.46)
We don't know about you, but stinkbugs don't exactly conjure up images of praying. But if God is in nature, like the narrator says in Chapter 2, then we guess that stinkbugs are as likely to pray as anyone else.
Quote #7
He was such a wonder, Gay was—the little mechanic of God, the St. Francis of all things that turn and twist and explode, the St. Francis of coils and armatures and gears. And if at some time all the heaps of jalopies, cut-down Dusenbergs, Buicks, De Sotos and Plymouths, American Austins and Isotto Fraschinis praise God in a great chorus—it will be largely due to Gay and his brotherhood (11.19)
Okay, we're pretty sure Steinbeck's just having a little fun here. But it does make the point that Gay's car repair skills are eerie, and he may have some sort of spiritual connection to cars. Again: if everything is holy, why not a jailbird mechanic?
Quote #8
And the girl's face went ahead of him. [. . . ] Music sounded in Doc's ears, a high thin piercingly sweet flute carrying a melody he could never remember, and against this, a pounding, surf-like wood-wind section. The flute went up into regions beyond the hearing range and even there carried its unbelievable melody (18.8)
In the Doc passages, Steinbeck makes more references to music than a DJ with a short attention span. (And that's saying something.) Here, though, the music doesn't have a name. It can't even be heard. How's that for a philosophical puzzle? We're putting this passage in the spirituality section because, well, the "unbelievable melody" sure sounds like a religious experience to us.
Quote #9
Doc said, "Look at them. 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. [ . . . ] 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" (23.11)
Ha! See, when we think of philosophers, we think of guys in ancient Greece who sat around shooting the breeze and happened to come up with some smart stuff … Hey, wait a minute. That does sound a lot like Mack and the boys. Maybe these guys are philosophers—in which case, what's their philosophy?
Quote #10
Certainly all of Cannery Row and probably all of Monterey felt that a change had come. It's all right not to believe in luck and omens. Nobody believes in them. But it doesn't do to take chances with them and no one takes chances (25.1)
It's not that Mack and the boys' time in the doghouse somehow gave the whole town bad luck ... but it did. Yeah, it sounds crazy. But we think Steinbeck's point is that everything—and we mean everything—is connected.