How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
Cannery Row in Monterey in California is a poem, a stink, a grating noise, a quality of light, a tone, a habit, a nostalgia, a dream (0.1)
Steinbeck didn't mess around with the first line of the book. Instead of "Cannery Row in Monterey in California is a run-down part of town near the sardine canning factories," he comes out of left field with a bunch of words that you wouldn't necessarily pick to describe a place. Like, none of words he chooses are concrete: you can't touch a poem, and you definitely can't lay your hands on a "quality of light."
Quote #2
Cannery Row is the gathered and scattered, tin and iron and rust and splintered wood, chipped pavement and weedy lots and junk heaps, sardine canneries of corrugated iron, honky tonks, restaurants and whore houses, and little crowded groceries, and laboratories, and flophouses (0.1)
This is the second sentence of the book and the second one about what Cannery Row is. This time, Cannery Row is a collection of places and things, so we go from the abstract—qualities of light and so forth—straight to stuff. And still, no word on who actually lives and works here.
Quote #3
Its 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 (0.1)
Steinbeck started with ideas about Cannery Row, moved on to places and things, and now in the third sentence he's filling the place with people. Does that mean that the people are less important than the idea of Cannery Row and the physical place? Or is it possible to separate them at all?
Quote #4
Then cannery whistles scream and all over town men and women scramble into their clothes and come running down to the Row to work (0.2)
So Cannery Row is the spot where the jobs are, but workers don't seem to think they need to actually live there. Why? Well, it might be convenient—but we bet it doesn't smell too nice. So, why do the people on Cannery Row live there? And where do they go to make a living?
Quote #5
They come running to clean and cut and pack and cook and can the fish. The whole street rumbles and groans and screams and rattles while the silver rivers of fish pour in and out of the boats and the boats rise higher and higher in the water until they are empty (0.2)
It's madness when the sardine boats come in. Notice that Steinbeck keeps using "and" to give us an inkling of all the fuss. It's like he doesn't even have time to divide things into separate sentences, just like the people don't have time to stop and even breathe while they're dealing with the influx of fish. We're caught up in it too, reading faster and faster without any pesky punctuation to tell us to take a break.
Quote #6
[After the canning] Cannery Row becomes itself again—quiet and magical. Its normal life returns (0.2)
For Steinbeck, Cannery Row's magic seems to have something to do with how calm it normally is. So when the canneries are active, the magic's gone.
Quote #7
Lee Chong's is to the right of the vacant lot. [ . . . ] Up in the back of the vacant lot is the railroad track and the Palace Flophouse. But on the left-hand boundary of the lot is the stern and stately whorehouse of Dora Flood (3.1)
Get out your colored pencils! It's super easy to draw a map of Cannery Row, probably because it's actually based on a real place. (Check out "Setting" for more of this.) You get the sense that people could actually live here—since they did.
Quote #8
Monterey is a city with a long and brilliant literary tradition (12.1)
Okay, when you read this sentence, did you think the chapter would end with a man picking sand out of the guts of an author? We didn't. When we hear stuff like "a long and brilliant literary tradition," we expect to hear a bit about all of the different great authors who've lived in the city. Here, most of the chapter is taken up with the fate of Josh Billings, but not a word about his writing. Very funny, Mr. Steinbeck.
Quote #9
There is a beautiful view from the Carmel grade, the curving bay with the waves creaming on the sand, the dune country around Seaside and right at the bottom of the hill, the warm intimacy of the town (13.2)
This is Mack's view when he wakes up next to the broken down Model T. Steinbeck doesn't get all squeamish about saying something is beautiful: from a distance, Cannery Row looks a lot more like a poem than a stink.
Quote #10
Early morning is a time of magic in Cannery Row. In the gray time after the light has come and before the sun has risen, the Row seems to hang suspended out of time in a silvery light. [ . . . ] It is the hour of the pearl—the interval between day and night when time stops to examine itself (14.1)
This is the time each day when the old Chinaman walks back up the hill (4.1), and boy is it gorgeous. We're talking pearls and silvery light—so is it possible that the people on Cannery Row live there because they actually like it?