Status Updates From The Long Valley

The Red Pony stories are all kind of sad.

"Saint Katy the Virgin" is a hilarious story of a really bad pig that gets converted and venerated. Quite the satirical piece about the Church.

"The Murder" is probably the most memorable of the stories so far. A man finds his wife with another (her cousin) and shoots him. The he punishes her.

It seems one theme through most of these stories is a man that's somehow suppressed, sometimes sexually by a woman. And then it comes out.

"Johnny Bear" is the story of the big bear-like man that has a snack for remembering conversations. He becomes the town's gossip mill - due the price of whiskey at the local drinking hole. Steinbeck seems to use the swamp and fog to indicate the ongoing mystery and doom.

Mike "The Vigilante" has just taken part in a lynching and is trying to process what he participated in.

"The Harness" is the story of a farmer who had been under the control of his wife. He has been fairly successful. When she dies, we find he's been controlled in more ways than one. He finally takes control and lives free from her control, or does he?