Book Review: John Steinbeck's Cannery Row: A Time to Remember

This is a photographic look at Cannery Row in Monterrey which was the background for two John Steinbeck books.  "Cannery Row" was set before WWII, and Sweet Thursday after WWII.  The sardines were fished out during the war, and never came back, and the cannery business was doomed.  The fishing boats had to seek other ways to make money, and slowly the cannery fell into decay.

This book is a photographic essay of this decay.  It is written by Tom Weber and published in 1983, meaning after almost 40 years of decay.  There have been thirty more years since these pictures were taken.  This book has few words, but the author wrote a poem.  These are a few lines:



I run to hold these images
before they left no trace at all.
But you can't grab much from running time....

...Here then, are these images
from the time of other men
who came and built and fished the waters
and thought their dream would be "forever".

Here is their "forever" now:
The rotting planks and doorless doors
and window sashes with glassless holes
that sucked in torrents of winter rain
and called each fog like a reckless lover.

And in the bay, the concrete piers
that once held up a stage of life,
now are marker shrines
where canneries stood.

This book makes one realize that change is part of our journey.  Part of that change is decay, but then part of it is rebuilding.  The Monterrey Aquarium is now in this area, and it is more a tourist region than anything else.