During my first year at university I only read
a couple of books. Shame on me, but I had other priorities: trying to prove to
the kids in my class that, despite my funny accent, I was as smart as them,
washing dishes as I already mentioned, and playing basketball for my university
team. Of Mice and Men was one of the
few books I read that year, it was lent to me by my Singaporean roommate and I
read it while travelling for an international friendly match in Barcelona.
How I suffered. Despite the brevity of the
novel, I was quite shattered by the end of it. Over the final few pages I was
so desperate for George to find a solution like he always seemed to do. And in
the end he does find a solution, even in that dramatic situation. To me that’s
one of the greatest displays of love in 20th century literature. I
just still wish he had found another solution, another way to run away and
finally have “their little place”.
A dislikeable teammate of mine saw me finishing
the novel on the flight back to London. He told me he hated Steinbeck because
he had to read Grapes of Wrath in
high school. I hadn’t read it at the time, but as soon as I did his comment
became another reason to have fairly bad opinion of the guy.
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