u/chefgrinderMcD

I'm sitting in my seat waiting for the start, I've read the book and seen the Liam Nieson movie but never the musical. I recalled the whole story to my 9 year old on the ride In.

So excited to see this

Update: I really loved it though I will say had I not read the book I would have had no idea what was going on. The performances were pretty good though the diction was really lacking for some stretches. The sets were amazing the little boy that played Gavroche absolutely CRUSHED! And I knew that there was no way to get all of that story into a musical but I think there were a few songs left on the table, especially in Marius' family story but I get why that didn't make it. Overall it was a great way to relive the reading, makes me want to read it again.

I recently completed In Search of Lost Time, and I loved it, and it is still top of mind despite reading two other books since I finished it. So here I am reading East of Eden 170 some odd pages in, and there is a sequence where Samuel, after meeting Cathy, is riding away thinking about her eyes, and that they seemed so familiar. He then relates a memory of witnessing a hanging as a young boy and recognizing that the "Golden Man" who was executed had eyes with "no depth," not "eyes of a man" and wondering of that is where he recognized in Cathy. Samuel's memory is very detailed and very in-depth, then we get the line

"there it was mined put of the dusty past"

and followed immediately by

"Doxology was climbing the last rise before the hollow of the home ranch and the big feet stumbled over stones in the roadway."

That right there is what triggered me, the horse stumbling over the stones in the middle of a mining of a memory felt very similar to the narrator, about halfway through Finding Time Again, stumbling over some uneven paving stones and that triggering a flood of memories not unlike the bite of the Madeline, in Swanns Way.

I know if you walk around with a Hammer everything looks like a nail, so will everything feel like a Proust reference if you just spent 5 months reading him, but Steinbeck's choice to mention the horse stumbling in the middle of a memory and revelation for Samuel feels to coincidental to be accidental.

What do you think??

Also I have NOT advanced far past this part in East of Eden so please so spoilers.