Ben Eastman’s Reviews > East of Eden > Status Update

The famous timshel section. I have a deep memory of being profoundly influenced by this section - my first experience of Biblical Criticism, regardless of how accurate it is.

"Seems like to me there's something not finished. Seems like when you half finished a job and can't think what it was. Something didn't get done. I shouldn't be here. I ought to be wandering around the world instead of sitting here on a good farm looking for a wife."
- Charles to Adam in a letter

Very interesting. Charles almost killed Adam, but didn't. Now he feels like he's missing what comes next - the wandering.

"When a child first catches adults out- when it first walks into his grave little head that adults do not have divine intelligence, that their judgements are not always wise, their thinking true, their sentences just- his world falls into panic desolation. The gods are fallen and all safety gone."