The Snake

by John Steinbeck

Genres: Short Stories, Classics, Horror, Audiobook, American, 20th Century, Fiction

MP3 CD

Published June 1, 1934

About the author

John Ernst Steinbeck was an American writer. He won the 1962 Nobel Prize in Literature "for his realistic and imaginative writings, combining as they do sympathetic humor and keen social perception". He has been called "a giant of American letters."
During his writing career, he authored 33 books, with one book coauthored alongside Edward F. Ricketts, including 16 novels, six non-fiction books, and two collections of short stories. He is widely known for the comic novels Tortilla Flat (1935) and Cannery Row (1945), the multi-generation epic East of Eden (1952), and the novellas The Red Pony (1933) and Of Mice and Men (1937). The Pulitzer Prize–winning The Grapes of Wrath (1939) is considered Steinbeck's masterpiece and part of the American literary canon. By the 75th anniversary of its publishing date, it had sold 14 million copies.
Most of Steinbeck's work is set in central California, particularly in the Salinas Valley and the California Coast Ranges region. His works frequently explored the themes of fate and injustice, especially as applied to downtrodden or everyman protagonists.

Reviews

[Mohajerino]

نوشته شده در حدود 1935
ومنتشر شده در حدود 1938

داستان مار، درمورد پزشک جوان (دکتر فیلیپس) وآزمایشگاهش است.در این آزمایشگاه،برای مطالعات زیست شناسی ،بروی حیواناتی همچون گربه،موش،مار وحتی موجودات آبزی مثل ستاره دریایی ،آزمایشات وبررسی هایی انجام میگیرد.
روزی زنی برای خرید یک مار نر به نزد او می آید و در این بین اتفاقاتی رخ میدهد . .


بنظر داستان کمی روانشناسانه وبراساس اتفاقی درگذشته است ودر نقدهایش،از اسم فروید ویانگ آمده
به هرحال متوجه چیز زیادی نشدم

[Chris Aldridge · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mindwebs audiobook 20 part one contains this. From "The Long Valley" 1938. A rather unsettling but vivid description of a biologist who is visited in his lab by a strange woman, with a bizarre request. His work involves the euthanasing of various animals, most horrifically a cat and it is described in graphic detail. The Author explains that he gets no sadistic pleasure from it, it's simply a routine process necessary to advance scientific knowledge (and it might even be essential if a cure for some human disease like cancer or is ever to be discovered). When the woman requests that he feed what he explains is an already recently fed animal with another prey animal while she watches, he starts to feel pity for the prey and disgust at the woman's empathy with the predator, despite having performed the same procedure countless times before.
(Personally I'm a conservationist and animal lover, to the extreme extent that I think keeping cats and dogs as pets is cruel and selfish, but I am also a supporter of science and know that most animal experiments are done ethically. Eg Neurologists once put electrodes into cats brains, it was controversial but now we have better non invasive techniques so there is no longer any need. We may have learned valuable lessons from such procedures, I for one, if forced by some dread disease would still value my life higher than a cats, but not an endangered snow leopards. I guess everyone has to decide where they would draw the line..)

[Willows in the Wind · Rating 3 out of 5]

I listened to the story read by John Steinbeck himself in this link. The text can be found here as well. The story seems quite creepy, and Steinbeck mentions in the beginning that this is not a story, it is just an anecdote of what has happened. But I do recommend reading an analysis of it on this website.

And I just want to add a nice quote from John Steinbeck, that may relate to the dark theme of The Snake:

The mind plays. And the gulls are sweeping off the sky. And I wish I knew. Last night the sky was clear and the story was . . . deep, buried in the sky. I was lonelier than I’ve ever been. Sky over ocean is so black. It isn’t when you are out on the ocean. Not nearly so. Then you feel a rhythm with the sky.

. . . the silence is very wearing on the soul. I just have to break this deadlock with a hammer effect. I’ve done that before and I’ll do it again.

[Jared Standefer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nature eludes understanding. Also John Steinbeck was horny.

[Riku · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's a pretty good short story. It's creepy but not scary, which I liked. The characters are well written and the plot is easy to follow.

[Dave · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was just so dang creepy!

[Charlie Chesney · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of Steinbeck's best short stories - another look into Doc's life!

[Martin · Rating 2 out of 5]

Zeitverlust

[Liam James · Rating 3 out of 5]

Yeah, this creeped me out a bit. That woman was intimidating to say the least. The way she came up those stairs, the sounds of her steps, before he could even see her... Yeah, he seemed so detached, so locked in as they say, but then she comes in and orders that snake. This might sound crazy but the way he never sees her again, I wondered for a second if maybe she was his own sort of visceral seething behind all that scientific detachment but I don't know. Either way, it shook the hell out him. I don't blame him. It would've shook me. It was a cold, cold story and if that's what you're looking for I'd say go for it. Perhaps I'm getting old, and getting older is making me sentimental and sad, and thus I give only three stars, despite the fact that it's spot-on with what it aims to do.

[Andreia · Rating 5 out of 5]

“The Snake” is an unsettling story that I've read during lunch and still lingers on my shoulders. A simple encounter between two people and a snake is turned into a minutious study of cruelty, power, and moral (and even physical) discomfort, using sober language that sharpens every moment.
I love how little he explains. He trusts the reader to feel the unease and draw their own conclusions, and maybe even to filter the readers, why not? Quality over quantity.
It’s brief, precise (just like a snake killing and eating its prey, amiright Mr. S?), proof that Steinbeck can say something profound in just a few pages.

[Byron Willis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dark, creepy, unsettling. My skin crawled with fascination and disgust.

I imagine it as quasi-supernatural—the woman being a ghost. The whole things feels like a brush with evil.

Every word is powerful. Lean and mean.

A powerful ghost story. Highly recommended!

[Jennifer · Rating 2 out of 5]

I am not sure what I read! Creepy and gross all at the same time between the milking of starfish and the suggested swaying woman with a rattlesnake. Real question, was the woman real or was the young scientist daydreaming? Hoping for the latter.

[Sytze Hiemstra · Rating 3 out of 5]

Listened to the audioobook read by the author himself. Nice short story.

[Lori · Rating 4 out of 5]

A short story worth reading. Kinda creepy. Masterfully told. The setting is amazing - I feel like I'm back in Monterey's Cannery Row.

[Ryan Zandi · Rating 4 out of 5]

داستانی عجیب و بسیار مرموز

[Andy Hickman · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Snake – Biting observation of a creepy conversation in a laboratory. “You have snakes?” ****

[Mario Dante · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful man I’m just like this guy

[Drasko · Rating 4 out of 5]

Definitely weird !

[Suzanne Abou Reslan · Rating 5 out of 5]

القتل
اشترك فيها ثلاثة
رَجُل، امرأة، وثعبان!!
رواية غامضة في داخلها رسائل خفية...
ماذا كانت غاية الفتاة؟!
ولماذا خضع لرغبتها العالِم؟!
هل القتل غاية؟!
اهو للانتقام، للعلم، ام للتسلية؟!

[Marine · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.7

[Hayden Hayes · Rating 4 out of 5]

Unsettling, but not my favorite. Best of The Long Valley so far

[Greg · Rating 3 out of 5]

Is the woman real or an apparition? After all, she does not in anyway touch anything in a scientist's lab.. And is this simply "serpent-fed-Eve-knowledge, now Eve-feeds-snake"? Is the scientist God?. Will his lab, on a pier, survive a deluge? LOTS to think about... or is it all meaningless?

[Alireza Khan · Rating 3 out of 5]

«مار» با روایت نمادین و فلسفی، مبارزه انسان با طبیعت،
سرنوشت و درون خود را نشان می‌دهد
و ارزش خرد، شجاعت و مسئولیت انسانی را برجسته می‌کند.

[ｓｉｍ ✪ · Rating 5 out of 5]

In passato ho adottato la stessa tecnica che usa uno dei due protagonisti del racconto. Solo che l'ho fatto con una capra e mi è costato parecchio di più. Se tutti gli umani lo facessero almeno una volta nella vita il mondo sarebbe molto diverso. È un po' come pagare la cauzione ad un innocente!

[hannah ⋆౨ৎ˚⟡˖ ࣪ · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5 stars