Wow!
In his book "To A God Unknown" John Steinbeck has created an unforgettable character. Joseph Wayne is a man who comes to feel so close to the earth and all that is thereof, that one might think him to be a native American, but not so. He is the patriarch of a family of brothers who, upon the death of their father, follow him to a valley where, with their help, he builds a fairly self contained ranch.
Each brother is married or does marry including Joseph and though he is but the 3rd eldest of the 4 brothers, they all look up to him for decisions.
When Joseph first comes to the valley and overlooks it, he sees a huge oak tree and decides to build his house at that site with the tree overshadowing the house. He is fascinated by this tree. He talks to it, he pours wine over it, he places meat in it and over time the tree comes to overshadow everything within Joseph's life. When his son is born, the scene which played out in my mind was that of Kunta Kinte in "Roots" when he held his newborn son up to the sky to be blessed. Joseph does exactly the same thing with his newborn son, but holds him up to the oak tree instead of to the sky. It is as if he were thanking the tree and giving over the nurturing of his son to the tree.
When the oak tree dies, things begin to go awry. Deaths, lack of water, feed shortages for the animals, a murder occurs, among many other things. Joseph turns his fixation to a pine grove on the ranch where there is a large moss covered stone with a small but constant spring of fresh water emerging from it. Joseph remains with the rock and while he attempts to keep the moss covering it moist and healthy, eventually the spring dries up as well and the moss dies also.
This is not a happy book. But it is a fascinating and thought provoking book. It is a book full of symbolic challenges and a very dark book . I was unable to put it down. I highly recommend it for those not in need of a happy, joyful book. If that is what you are looking for you will not find it here. What you will find is something (if you are like me) the likes of which you have never read before, excepting perhaps in the Bible. This will most likely be one of my top ten of the year. It is, in my mind, a masterful piece of work. ( )

Blurp: Aan een onbekende God is de geschiedenis van Joseph Wayne, een boerenzoon die met zijn broers en hun vrouwen wegtrekt uit het noorden van de Verenigde Staten naar de uitgestrekte, vruchtbare streken van Californië, om daar in een vallei een nieuw bedrijf te beginnen. Het is her verhaal over de kracht van pioniers, de gebondenheid met de grond, die een middel, maar vooral een reden van bestaan voor hen is. Gefascineerd door de raadselen van de aarde en intensiteit waarmee deze mensen haar bewerken, bewonen en vooral beléven, schreeft John Steinbeck met Aan een onbekende God een van zijn boeiendste romans.
Samenv.: Verhaal over het leven van een boerenzoon, die met zijn broers en hun vrouwen wegtrekt uit het Noorden van de Verenigde Staten om in een Californische vallei een nieuw bestaan op te bouwen.
Samenv.: After receiving a blessing from his dying father, Joseph moves to central California and settles in a valley near a town called Nuestra Señora. Shortly after beginning to build his homestead, he receives a letter from one of his brothers that their father had died, and in that moment Joseph feels that his father's soul enters the large oak tree by his homesite. Joseph's three brothers subsequently move out to the valley with their families, and homestead the adjacent land. One day, the brothers come across a pine forest, and in the center is a quiet, circular glade with a stream flowing out of the large rock. Juanito, a ranch-hand, tells them that it is a sacred place to the indios. Joseph then marries a school-teacher from Monterey named Elizabeth. Upon returning to the farm from the wedding, they find that the youngest brother, Benjy, an alcoholic, had been stabbed and killed by Juanito when he discovered him seducing his wife. When they meet later that night at the sacred rock, Juanito asks Joseph to kill him in revenge for his brother, but Joseph refuses. Joseph wants to pass it off as an accident, and for him to stay, but Juanito flees the farm. For a time, the farm prospers, and Elizabeth bears a child. Joseph's brother, Burton, a devout Christian, becomes increasingly concerned with Joseph's late night 'talks' with the tree. The farm is then the site of a New Year's fiesta, and Burton decides to leave the farm after seeing the 'pagan' activities. After he leaves, the remaining brothers discover that Burton had girdled the tree to kill it. In the following rainless winter everything begins to die as a severe drought sets in. One day, Joseph and Elizabeth visit the glade. Elizabeth decides to climb on the mossy rock, when she falls and breaks her neck, dying instantly. Soon thereafter, Joseph and Thomas decide to drive the cattle out to San Joaquin to find green pastures. At the last minute, Joseph decides to stay, then lives by the rock and watches the stream dry up. Juanito returns and convinces Joseph to visit the town's priest to enlist his help in breaking the drought. The priest refuses to pray for rain, saying that his concern is the salvation of human souls. Joseph returns to the rock to find the stream dry. When trying to saddle his horse, he frightens the animal and receives a cut on the arm from a saddle buckle. Joseph then climbs to the top of the rock and slits his wrists. As he sacrifices himself to some mysterious higher power, he feels the rain begin falling down.

I can't believe the average rating I see for this book (currently 3.91). I thought it was pretty bad and only of interest because Steinbeck wrote it. Unfortunately, it's Steinbeck in larval form. I can't believe he spent 4 years on this book. Great title, not much else. ( )

A wonderful novel that could be called neo-mythology, it is about a family of homesteaders who go to California to establish a ranch. The family patriarch, Joseph Wayne, develops a profound love for the land, and he eventually associates a great oak tree on his ranch with the spirit of his dead father. After the oak tree is destroyed, the land begins to sour.

Although more rigid, in terms of dialog and narrative voice, than Steinbeck's later prose, the novel nonetheless utilizes its mythological material to beautifully depict man's relationship to the land. ( )

Steinbeck wrote a number of California novels. The early ones feature lyrical descriptive prose of the land, whether of the Salinas Valley or the Pacific Coast. Clearly Steinbeck loved the area, had a real passion for the valleys, the vegetation, the animals—and the people who lived there. But while almost all of his other California novels that focused on the land and the people who lived on it were gently affectionate, To A God Unknown is a very different bird. The title is taken from an adaptation of a hymn to the god Prajapati from the Hindu Rig-Veda. And while the hymn is innocuous enough, it really is a foreshadowing of what is to come.

Steinbeck used his initial chapters and prefaces to set the emotional mood of his works. In To A God Unknown, practically from the first chapter, the mood is one of a foreboding, as Joseph Wayne takes leave of his father who blesses him in a vaguely described but clearly unusual way, deliberately meant, I’m sure, to evoke Hebrew Testament patriarchs. From there on, the mood just intensifies, as Wayne finds land that is his—so much so that there is a passage that can easily be interpreted as his copulation with the earth.

From old-timers, Indian/Hispanic residents of the valley, Joseph learns of years when there was a terrible drought—when the land died and the cattle died and the people left. But Wayne is convinced that it will never happen again to his land. There is an old oak on the land, underneath which Wayne builds his house. One day, he feels a presence in the oak, and is convinced that somehow his father is there. He receives a letter from his brothers telling of the passing of the old man and how at the end there was nothing more the father wanted than to see John’s new land. The brothers, two of whom are married, come out to join Joseph in California, buy adjacent land, and jointly farm. One brother, Burton, is a fundamentalist Christian, and in his religious fanaticism lie the seeds of the outcome of this story.

The years pass—Joseph takes a wife, Elizabeth—the farms prosper—but still there is no relief from the absolute certainty that disaster is ahead, that some appalling calamity awaits. Partially, Steinbeck achieves this in his dialogue, which seems perfectly natural to the characters but is “off”—somehow not right, strange.

The tension becomes practically unbearable; the catastrophe strikes. And the resolution is both inevitable, satisfying, and unsettling at the same time.

I did not find To A God Unknown an easy read—on the contrary, I had to put it down for a while because I just could not bear what I knew was coming. This is one of Steinbeck’s most powerful and disturbing works, and will throw off those who are used to his more affectionate books such as Tortilla Flat. Yet it is an outstanding example of how mood can be determined and sustained by great writing. ( )