March 31st, 2011 / 12:17 am
Snippets

Steinbeck on rejection:

“I think everyone in the world to a large or small extent has felt rejection. And with rejection comes anger, and with anger some kind of crime in revenge for the rejection, and with the crime guilt–and there is the story of mankind. I think that if rejection could be amputated, the human would not be what he is. Maybe there would be fewer crazy people. I am sure in myself there would not be many jails.”

–Lee in East of Eden

13 Comments

  1. Tim Horvath

      For whatever reason, this reminds me of Calvino’s story “All at One Point” from Cosmicomics, set just prior to the Big Bang. And the thing is, everything is there, including xenophobia, even before there is a foreignness to be afraid of. And so, rejection, too, must have been there. Maybe the Big Bang was the first rejection. “I’m sorry, but your singularity doesn’t fit our present needs.”

  2. MFBomb

      Interesting. I could’ve sworn that I read a post by an esteemed blogger here who has found a way to avoid rejection because she couldn’t handle the two times it happened to her in her entire life.

  3. MFBomb

      Interesting. I could’ve sworn that I read a post by an esteemed blogger here who has found a way to avoid rejection because she couldn’t handle the two times it happened to her in her entire life.

  4. alexisorgera

      Well, it wasn’t me. I’ve been rejected all over this land. My feeling is there’s no success without risk. And we’re all too precious.

  5. alexisorgera

      Well, it wasn’t me. I’ve been rejected all over this land. My feeling is there’s no success without risk. And we’re all too precious.

  6. MFBomb

      I know it wasn’t you.

  7. MFBomb

      I was referring to another recent post (authored by someone else) on rejection.

  8. deadgod

      Yes. Is Steinbeck here showing how irrational Lee is by making Lee justify his frustration with not getting what he wants?

      If someone, in a bar, made this philosophical point – ‘rejection leads to “crime”‘ – to me, I’d say, “In a universe from which ‘rejection’ had been ‘amputated’, what would you do if I wanted you sexually? I mean, what would you have to do?”

  9. alexisorgera

      Sure, without rejection there IS no rejection. I guess everybody would get what they want; nobody’d be sexually frustrated. This is the scene in which he’s trying to make sense of the Cain and Abel story, having not been born into a Christian tradition. I think there’s a lot to be said about masculinity and living up to a father’s expectations and not knowing how to make the father figure happy. All of which has to do with being [sexually] impotent or not. I don’t think Lee is irrational. I think he’s the voice of reason, at least so far in the novel.

  10. alexisorgera

      Sure, without rejection there IS no rejection. I guess everybody would get what they want; nobody’d be sexually frustrated. This is the scene in which he’s trying to make sense of the Cain and Abel story, having not been born into a Christian tradition. I think there’s a lot to be said about masculinity and living up to a father’s expectations and not knowing how to make the father figure happy. All of which has to do with being [sexually] impotent or not. I don’t think Lee is irrational. I think he’s the voice of reason, at least so far in the novel.

  11. alexisorgera

      Oh, sure. Well, we all have different responses to rejection. I mean, rejection hurts, right? I guess I have forced myself to become inured to it because it feels, to me, like an inevitable part of being a writer.

  12. alexisorgera

      Oh, sure. Well, we all have different responses to rejection. I mean, rejection hurts, right? I guess I have forced myself to become inured to it because it feels, to me, like an inevitable part of being a writer.

  13. MFBomb

      Right, but I took issue with the idea that one could actually avoid rejection. How ridiculous and naive.