East of Eden

Once again, I have finished a long book that I fell into deeply. The characters, the landscape, the scenes Steinbeck painted for me, the ones I filled out in my imagination, all found a special place in me and they’re permanent. They’re like snapshots, I can go back and put myself there, under the willow with Aron and Abra, in the wagon with Lee and Sam. I can see it like I lived it. This is one thing I love about reading. Those scenes are mine, no one else can see inside my imagination when I read, no one can imagine those like I did. It’s between me and the text, it gives a reader a feeling of ownership.

Anyway, this is one of my favorite lines from a discussion between the Chinese servant Lee and the inventor Sam Hamilton:

“I don’t know where being a servant came into such disrepute. It is the refuge of a philosopher, the food of the lazy, and, properly carried out, it is a position of power, even love. I can’t understand why more intelligent people don’t take it as a career—learn to do it well and reap its benefits […] I don’t know any profession where the field is so cluttered with incompetents and where excellence is so rare.”