The four stories of The Long Valley included in The Portable Steinbeck seem to me to be an excellent samples of John Steinbeck's art , but my favorite is The Chrysanthemums due to his masterful, poetic description of the Salinas Valley. This description and that of the house of the woman who is trapped by the loneliness and the routine, cause a sense of claustrophobia.
Elisa Allen is a woman who longs to live intensely and the presence of the stranger who comes to her home awakens her desire to leave her confinement and live in freedom.
The cultivation of chrysanthemums is for her an escape valve, so the outcome of this story is moving indeed.
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The Snake is another excellent story. It seems to me that it anticipates the movement known as "realismo mágico".
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