I read this novel shortly after reading East of Eden and maybe that's why I give a harsh star treatment (I like E of E much more).

The story is a strange intertwining of nature, religion, sacrifice, and nature that I'm surprised has not garnered more interest of late due to the present society's obsession with the environment and man's relation to it.

Whereas I found East of Eden to be transparent (which I like), To a God Unknown is much more opaque. East of Eden motivated me to read more Steinbeck but I have to say this book disappointed me.

To a God Unknown is a book full of powerful images. Reading about the mossy stone in its lonely pine grove still makes me shudder, and I am not a superstitious or particularly spiritual person. To the protagonist Joseph, the land is god and god is everything, and it exacts great and terrible payments for the fertility and life that Joseph craves. Like almost of all of Steinbeck's novels, it is beautifully written and full of vividly drawn people. However in other ways it is very unlike most of his novels. It isn't funny, not even a little, and it isn't quite about people. I can't quite describe what it is about (the interconnectedness of all life? human longing for kinship with nature? fate?), or adequately explain the feelings it evokes in me.

Even though I loved Steinbeck's prior book, The Pastures of Heaven, I had trouble getting traction in this one. A Vermont patriarch dies and his favored son goes West to Northern California. There he buys land and builds a farm and it flourishes. His three brothers eventually follow him, and there are four families on 640 acres of land between the river and a ridge. He gets married to a school teacher whom he more or less takes as a willing prisoner back to his farm. Practically all of the dialogue in the book is stilted, cerebral, portentous, awkward, silly-sounding. The characters are archetypes: Joseph, the protagonist, worships the earth and its fruitfulness. Thomas, the brother with whom he is closest (if it is possible for any of these people to be close to each other) has an uncanny affinity with animals. Burton, another brother, is a fundamental Christian obsessed with righteousness and religion. And the last brother is a drunkard. My initial impression was that it was like a fable or fairy tale and therefore it was not possible or designed so that the reader could identify with and enjoy the characters other than as oddities. This all changed as I became gradually more and more immersed in the book. When a devastating dry spell strikes their previously flourishing farm, Joseph begins to do some very strange things in response as the farm withers and the cattle starve to death. I began to identify more strongly with the obsessions of the characters, and began to realize how deeply that I too am governed by impulses and inexplicable irrational internal beliefs that determine what I do and how I live. While I am driven by a "God unknown" different than Joseph's, I am still driven by it. In fact, my efforts to find God are in a way to free me from my obsessions, or at least understand and channel them better. As the book draws to a close, it appears that salvation (in the form of a rainy season and therefore escape from total ruin) may come -- but is it because of Joseph's strange actions in the wild grotto to which he retreats? The gentle priest who prays for rain? The old man who is the last person in the country to see the sun set every night from his high cliff, when he sacrifices one of his beloved little animals? From having to force myself to continue reading, this became a true page-turner for me in its second half.

I believe that many people fear reading Steinbeck, mainly because of the length and complexity of his two best known works, The Grapes of Wrath and East of Eden. But To a God Unknown is not only my favorite Steinbeck book, it is my favorite fiction book of all time. And it is shorter (a novella) and has fewer characters than either Eden or Wrath. As a result, the story is straight forward, but beautifully conveyed:

Joseph, the protaganist, successfully begins his life anew after moving across the continent to California. He works hard. His farm is prospering. He is happy and satisfied. Until, that is, his siblings and their families follow him and move nearby. One brother, who is overtly religious, is troubled because he believes Joseph "worships" a tree on Joseph's property. The brother stuns Joseph by cutting down the tree, leading to dire consequences.

If you've avoided Steinbeck in the past, this novella is a good place to start. A wonderful book.

As an aside, I've always believed that the many (not all) of the titles of Steinbeck and Hemingway books are wonderful, and this is one example - To a God Unknown. Also consider titles such as The Winter of Our Discontent, For Whom the Bell Tolls, Death in the Afternoon, etc.

I opened this book for the first time - one of the few Steinbeck novels I had not yet read - shortly after completing my own first attempt at writing a novel. The little book is one of Steinbeck's earliest published works and, interestingly enough, the one that took him the longest to complete. It was in this context that I found the book most provoking: myself an aspiring writer, it was interesting to witness part of the development of one of my favorite novelists. Although not yet as strong and defined as in his later works, the classic Steinbeck tone is still there, and, of course, it is set against the oft-revisited setting of the fertile farmlands of Central California.

What prevents me from giving this book a higher rating is that, in the scope of Steinbeck's literary career, it is not very impressive. The characters do not gel together as flawlessly as those in most of his later works and the classical allusions to parallel stories and characters in the Bible are a bit shaky and somewhat inconsistent. Nevertheless, what prevents me from giving this book a lower rating is that it remains a thoughtful, intriguing, and insightful piece on the nature of man's relationship to the land and to God.

Overall, it is certainly a worthwhile read. In both its length and the complexity of its symbolism, To a God Unknown is certainly more accessible than Steinbeck's more celebrated longer works, such as The Grapes of Wrath or East of Eden, but it is in no way a comprehensive sample of Steinbeck's essential style and literary voice.