A piece of jewelery. Set in sunny California - Salinas, during the Great Depression, "Of Mice and Men" is a story of friendship, dreams and loneliness. I have a long history with it. First I saw the film (excellent, btw), more than 10 years ago, then, a few years later, while writing an essay on Burns, I discovered the connection between "To a Mouse" and "Of Mice...". I was determined to write my final paper based on this, but I eventually gave up.

I felt like re-reading it yesterday and I feel anything but sorry about that. As I said, the strongest feeling I've got while reading it was the utmost admiration for the characters' friendship. There's no reason whatsoever for George to be Lennie's friend, take care of him and get him out of trouble all the time. Because Lennie is mentally disabled and has a weird tendency of petting soft things. He's getting in George's way and somehow prevents him from having a better life. Yet, he sticks to Lennie till the end. They both dream of a better life, George wants to be independent and get to be somebody. Lennie dreams to live on the fatta the lan together with George and tend the rabbits they're going to have.
Despite their optimism and dreams, there's a feeling of loneliness throughout the novella. George and Lennie are friends because they're lonely. Candy's lonely since his dog is shot and Crooks is lonely because he's black. He has this line that says everything: "A guy goes nuts if he ain't got nobody. Don't make no difference who the guy is, long's he's with you."

Highly recommend it.

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Interesting fact: in the 90s, the book was banned in some US schools because of "profane language, moral statement, treatment of the retarded, and the violent ending."