Review 4/29/2026 10/10

This is a short story about an incredible amount of hard emotions and questions. It is written in such a way to give you a short insight into these characters lives. Just long enough to make you fall in love with them before ripping your heart out. There are a few things I'd like to mention, and of course this book is a classic so reviews have been done to death on it and I won't be coming up with anything new that nobody has thought of before. First I'd like to look at the direct comparison the book makes between putting down a suffering old dog and Lenny. Fairly early on we have a scene in which Candy's dog gets put down. He's an old dog, without teeth who can't eat and can barely walk. The other men make it sound like a mercy to put down this dog, and it does seem to be that way. Another man offers Candy a pistol but Candy doesn't want to kill his dog so the other man takes it outside and shoots it while a second digs him a small grave. It is a tense scene and Candy cries softly in the corner before telling George that he wishes he would have done it himself. He should have done it himself.

When George kills lenny he puts him down with the same gun. Lenny had accidentally killed another man's wife. Lenny never meant anyone harm, but he could get spooked and it had caused them trouble before. George likely would have ran with Lenny again if Lenny hadn't killed the wife. But now the men were out for blood and the two would be hunted until they were caught. I think that George killed Lenny how he did because the other men would have tortured him before they killed him and strung him up in a tree. They wouldn't have cared about causing him pain and Lenny would have died full of fear. George showed him mercy by killing him, and he learned from Candy's regret by doing it himself. Like I said I probably didn't break anyones brain with this, its fairly obvious and there are much more subtle parts of this book that made me fall in love with it. Please do yourself the favor of reading it.