“Of Mice and Men” was first published in 1937 and has been adapted for the stage and screen. It’s set in mid-1930s California and opens beside the Salinas river, a few miles outside Soledad. The book focuses on Lennie and George, a pair of migrant workers who earn a living on the state’s farms. George is the dominant character of the pair, as Lennie isn’t quite capable of looking after himself properly. Although big and strong, he has a poor memory, panics easily and doesn’t always understand what’s happening around him. All he wants out of life is to have his own farm with George, look after some rabbits and “live of the fatta the lan’”. As the book opens, the pair are on their way to a new job; they had to leave their previous job and go on the run after Lennie was (falsely) accused to rape. Things don’t go smoothly for the pair when they arrive at their new place of work. It’s clear that the farm owner’s son, Curley, and his wife are going to be the source of a great deal of trouble.

“Of Mice and Men” is a very short book – a great deal shorter and much easier than I’d expected. I had a great deal of sympathy for Lennie, who was based on a real person : in an ideal world, he shouldn’t have been leading the life he was living. Similarly, I think George was placed in an impossible position at the end of the book – though I couldn’t help but wonder how George himself saw things. As I was reading the book’s climax, I couldn’t help but think of something Candy had said to George earlier in the book, regarding his dog.