Florence Pugh is hailed as 'magnificent' in a 'pungent retelling' of East Of Eden - but viewers criticise Netflix's Steinbeck adaptation for 'reducing a multi-generational epic into girlbossing the villain'

Netflix's adaptation of John Steinbeck's epic 1952 novel East Of Eden, starring Florence Pugh, has been hailed as 'magnificent' by critics.

But whilst the critical reviews have been almost universal in their praise, loyal fans of the beloved book have been busy voicing their concerns on social media. 

Written and executive produced by Zoe Kazan, granddaughter of Elia Kazan, the director of the Oscar-winning 1955 film adaptation, East Of Eden is a multigenerational saga following the interwoven lives of the Trasks and the Hamiltons.

The seven-part series reimagines the vast 600-page novel, omitting certain plotlines and key characters and focusing on Florence's character Cathy Ames.

Set over the course of several decades, from the American Civil War to the First World War, the series draws from Cathy's relationships which create a family rift that carries through two generations, as the characters struggle with love and betrayal, and whether people are born good or evil.  

This new adaptation promises to be much closer to the original source material than the 1955 film adaptation which omitted the first two-thirds of the novel and focused on the lives of Cal and Aron, the twin sons of Cathy. 

Netflix and Kazan instead turn the focus to Cathy and her marriage to Adam (Christopher Abbott), giving her a more sympathetic backstory to set up her villainous decisions later in the story, whilst propping up the philosophical heart of the novel – humanity has the free will to choose between goodness and sin.

Nick Hilton writing for The Independent calls Florence's performance 'magnificent', writing that the British actress 'slides between the two sides of the character – the vulnerable sylph in need of rescue, and the wicked murderer removing all obstacles – with trademark elegance'. 

Ben Travers for Indiewire calls the series 'a smart, gorgeous, and richly provocative adaptation which will knock you over'.

The Guardian awards it four stars but Lucy Mangan cautions that whilst it is 'as a high-quality family saga, brilliant, compelling entertainment. As an excoriation of human nature, as an examination of how helpless we are before our inborn proclivities, it perhaps cannot help but lack the heft it needs.'

Ben Dowell for The Times also has his concerns with Kazan's decision to refocus the novel. Awarding the show three stars, he wrote: 'Credit to Kazan for embracing the bleak messiness of Steinbeck’s saga.'

'But her creative decisions — including the slight underplaying of the kindly, well-meaning Hamilton family in the later stages — are questionable. But it’s her feminist gloss that smacks most of special pleading, even sugarcoating.' 

Anita Singh for The Telegraph gave the adaptation four stars but ultimately advised that the book will always triumph. 

'It’s all very well made, but it lacks something. Steinbeck’s novel was devastating – not for nothing is he regarded as one of America’s greatest writers – and what destroys the reader when it is written on the page simply doesn’t have the same power on TV. Go out and buy the book,' she writes.

Outspoken fans of the novel have been voicing their disapproval for weeks, adding a flurry of outraged messages to the comments section on the YouTube page for the show's trailer. 

'I fear we're going to reduce a multigenerational epic into girlbossing the villain,' wrote one unconvinced Steinbeck loyalist.  

'Quite the angle to tell this story from, Cathy Ames' perspective! One of the vilest villains in literary history,' agreed another.

'Cathy is a sociopath who ruins the lives of everyone around her. She is NOT the main character and to make her 'misunderstood' or sympathetic is against everything Steinbeck wrote', said one more.

Others pointed out that pinning the series on the star power of Florence was most likely a commercial decision.

'I hope that this is a marketing choice based on Florence Pugh's popularity rather than an indication that the narrative POV is shifted to Cathy. The book is about human nature and what parts of it are passed down generationally. To shift the narrative center away from the Trask family would be an enormous mistake,' said one. 

Showrunner Zoe Kazan, who has been working on the script for years, spoke with PEOPLE at the show's London premiere, and was keen to explain her creative choices.   

'The 1955 film took on only a small part of the book, and I think it's a fairly loose adaptation,' she said of the film, starring James Dean. 'The things that I loved most about the book were the intergenerational aspect of it, and then all of these rich characters.'

She explained that whilst she set out with the goal of writing a 'very faithful adaptation,' 'there's so much in this book, I couldn't fit it all in, so I had to really kill some darlings.'

One of the key criticisms from fans is the decision to cut the Hamilton family's storyline. Steinbeck's book details the lives of two families, the Trasks and their neighbours the Hamiltons, and their interwoven stories. 

Whilst farmer Samuel Hamilton, said to be based on Steinbeck's maternal grandfather appears in the adaptation, played by Ciarán Hinds, his role appears to be greatly reduced and other Hamilton family members are cut completely. 

'Samuel IS East of Eden for me. Not even seeing him in the trailer is crazy,' one fan has commented.

'It really pained me to let go of the Hamilton family storyline, but I hope that the spirit of some of that is in the rest of the series,' Zoe admitted. 

East of Eden is streaming on Netflix now.