I’ve read three of his short stories. They werw amazing. But the American country style text confuses me a good bit. Anyone else feels the same? I find myself re reading the sentences and having to piece together what in the world they are saying. I’m not american and definitely not from the country
Of Mice and Men – Whenever George and Lennie talk about their dream they say ” An’ live off the fatta the lan’ ” I still have no clue what they are saying. Amongst all the other sentences the characters say. For a famous classic, this was painful to follow.
Cannery Row was somewhat more followable. Sure there were a few bits that were confusing, but it was easily googled
The Pearl was probably the easiest to read, they didn’t use the country slang (or maybe there is an edition where they do? idk)
I plan on reading The Red Pony and Sweet Thursday before my book loan expires on them so we’ll see if I enjoy it or not. Then its back to Russian literature for me
by NommingFood
3 Comments
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the fat of the land is what they meant. to have money and good things.
Yeah, I can see how Steinbeck’s use of vernacular can be problematic for a non-native speaker. I guess the best thing to do would be to see if you can find a version translated into your native tongue and compare.
To help with your specific example, “An’ live offa the fatta the lan’” is “And live off of the fat of the land.” It’s pretty common in southern vernacular to drop d’s and mush together “of” into the preceding word. “Offa” from “off of”, “fatta” from “fat of”, and so on.
“Fat of the land” means to live well surrounded by abundance.