خوشه‌ های خشم‌ یکی از عجیب ترین تجربه‌های خوندنم بود. صد صفحه ابتدایی به شدت کند، خسته کننده و سخت گذشت. اما داستان از جایی به بعد روند بی نظیری رو طی کرد به شکلی که در صفحه‌ی انتهایی احساس میکردم بعد از مدت‌ها یک شاهکار خوندم.
«جان اشتاین بک» بازتاب بخش مهمی از تاریخ آمریکا و رکود اقتصادی پس از جنگ جهانی اول رو در زندگی خانواده‌ای کشاورز از اهالی ایالت اوکلاهما بیان میکنه. خانواده ای که روزهای سختی رو سپری می کنند تا بتونند جایی برای زندگی کردن و غذایی برای خوردن داشته باشند. به قدری اتفاقات و شخصیت ها شفاف روایت شده بودند که احساس میکردم در کنار خانواده‌ی جود زندگی میکنم و جزئی از اونها شدم و بنظرم این قدرت روایت به شدت کمیاب و فوق العاده است.
صفحه‌ی پایانی کتاب با حادثه ای تمام میشه که قطعا به یاد موندنیه و تا مدت‌ها از ذهنتون بیرون نمیره‌...

I had read The Grapes of Wrath before, and I purposefully didn't re-read it while writing a novel set in the same period for fear I would somehow be influenced by it or be so intimidated I'd be paralyzed. So with my own book behind me I finally had the pleasure of reading The Grapes of Wrath again. Does it hold up? It does, though it's not perfect. The story of the Joads is fantastic, and Ma Joad is a rich and surprising character. Steinbeck's prose is deft and evocative, and those famous bits like the turtle crossing the road and the ending, when Rose of Sharon nurses the dying man, are great. At times the novel is a bit overwrought. This jaded reader had to stretch to accommodate some of the characters' naivete, particularly that of Rose of Sharon who is so dim she's a little hard to believe. (The John Ford film version takes the melodrama a little far for my taste.) The interspersed chapters, where Steinbeck attempts to go broad and tell the larger story about what is happening in America at that time works less well and structure ends up feeling a little clunky. However, Steinbeck was not just writing a novel, he was writing for social change and I am not the intended audience.

But the journey of the Joads, as poor, struggling migrants who have not where to go, no where to make a life for their family, but who deserve dignity and fight for it, is particularly resonant right now. And for that I am grateful.

Second reading of this book February 2023. It felt as though I was reading this book for the 1st time. I didn't know that it was so tragic. May I never forget the story again. Here is my 1st review of this book.

My father had all of John Steinbeck's books, so when my brother was in high school he began reading this book. I recall his asking our mother if what was written in this book were true. She said, "Yes," and they had a long conversation about it. During that time I was reading Steinbeck's "The Red Pony" and crying. I wasn't interested in the depression years. I just didn't want the Red Pony to die, and now I don't remember if he did or didn't.

When I was in college I got around to reading some of Steinbeck's other books, and then when my husband and I moved to Oklahoma from California I thought it was time to read this book. I had seen the movie many years earlier, but it didn't do the book justice. The book is so much better than the movie could ever be.

The Dust Bowl began in the 1930s due to a drought and poor farming methods in the plains regions of America. When winds came, it picked up the soil and carried it over the land, damaging everything in it path. States that were most affected were Oklahoma, Texas, Kansas, Colorado and New Mexico. It was also a time when America was in the Great Depression, which added to the suffering of people in these regions. I remember reading somewhere that the dust blew all the way to Washington, D.C. in 1935 and inspired the government to finally to do something about it.

John Steinbeck's setting for the Dust Bowl began in the town of Stillwell, Ok, an East Oklahoma town that was not really part of the Dust Bowl. It is a part of Oklahoma that is in the Ozark Mountains or its foothills, depending on who you ask. It is also called Green Country and for good reason. Update: In 2015 we had a total of 56 inches of rain. This year, January 2017, we are in a severe drought.

I don't recall much of the book other than it was a great read and a classic. It will give you one of the most interesting views of the Dust Bowl of the 1930s where people lost their homes, where their cattle and other livestock died, and where you couldn't get away from the dust even if you put sheets on your windows. People ended up dying from lung disease, and many moved to California to work in the fields. Sometimes those that couildn't find work ended up dying in the streets, because back then, just like today, the poor are blamed their poverty, hunger and lack of work. There was no welfare, no food stamps, and no unemployment insurance. In 1929 the first soup kitchens and bread lines were set up by churches and private charities in the cities. I am sure they helped some of those that had come from the Dust Bowl States. Even Al Capone had set up a soup kitchen in Chicago in 1931. He wasn't all bad.

If you would like to read more about these times, Timothy Egan wrote a great book called, "The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl, and award winning Studs Terkel wrote: "Hard Times."


One of the many Dust Storm photos taken


Heading to California


Heading to California

(Book 592 From 1001 Books) - The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck

The Grapes of Wrath is an American realist novel written by John Steinbeck and published in 1939. The book won the National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize for fiction, and it was cited prominently when Steinbeck was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1962.

The narrative begins just after Tom Joad is paroled from McAlester prison, where he had been incarcerated after being convicted of homicide in self-defense.

While hitchhiking to his home near Sallisaw, Oklahoma, Tom meets former preacher Jim Casy, whom he remembers from his childhood, and the two travel together.

When they arrive at Tom's childhood farm home, they find it deserted. Disconcerted and confused, Tom and Casy meet their old neighbor, Muley Graves, who tells them the family has gone to stay at Uncle John Joad's home nearby. Graves tells them that the banks have evicted all the farmers.

They have moved away, but he refuses to leave the area. ...

خوشه‌ های خشم - جان استاین‌بک (امیرکبیر) ادبیات؛ تاریخ نخستین خوانش: سال 1977میلادی

عنوان: خوشه های خشم؛ نویسنده: جان ارنست اشتاین بک (استاین بک)؛ مترجم: شاهرخ مسکوب؛ عبدالرحیم احمدی؛ تهران، امیرکبیر، چاپ اول 1328، در 520ص؛ چاپ چهارم، 1346، در 624ص؛ چاپ پنجم 1351، در 658ص؛ چاپ هفتم 1356، چاپ هشتم 1357؛ چاپ دهم 1379؛ چاپ چهاردهم 1387؛ شابک 9789640006283؛ چاپ هجدهم 1392؛ چاپ بیست و یکم 1397؛ موضوع: داستانهای نویسندگان ایالات متحده آمریکا - سده 20م

برگردانهای دیگر از آقایان و خانمها: «ع‍ب‍دال‍ح‍س‍ی‍ن‌ ش‍ری‍ف‍ی‍ان‌، تهران، بزرگمهر، 1368؛ در 610ص؛ چاپ دیگر ت‍ه‍ران‌: ن‍گ‍اه‌‏‫، 1387؛ در 614ص؛ شابک9789643510152؛ چاپ یازدهم 1399»؛ «اح‍م‍د طاه‍رک‍ی‍ش‌، تهران، زرین، چاپ دوم 1362؛ در 566ص»؛ «سیمین تاجدینی، آتیسا، سال1398، در 463ص؛ شابک 9786226611251؛ چاپ سوم 1399»؛ «سعید دوج،روزگار، 1397، در 580ص؛ شابک9789643748104؛» «غلامرضا اسکندری، به سخن، مجید، 1395، در 703ص؛ شابک 9786007987261؛»؛ «احمد طاهر‌کیش، مشهد ارسطو، 1357، در 528»؛ «محمدصادق شریعتی، گویش نو، 1392؛ در 171ص»؛

محکومیت بی‌عدالتی، و روایت سفر طولانی یک خانواده ی تنگدست «آمریکایی» است؛ که به امید زندگی بهتر، از ایالت «اوکلاهما»، به «کالیفرنیا» مهاجرت می‌کنند؛ اما اوضاع آن‌گونه که آن‌ها پیش‌بینی می‌کنند، پیش نمی‌رود؛ رخدادها در دهه ی سوم از سده بیستم میلادی، و در سال‌های پس از بحران اقتصادی بزرگ «آمریکا»، روی می‌دهند؛ «اشتاین بک (استاین بک)»، این رمان را در سال 1939میلادی منتشر کردند؛ ایشان برای نگارش همین رمان، برنده ی جایزه ی «پولیتزر» شدند؛ «جان فورد» نیز، در سال 1940میلادی، فیلمی با همین عنوان، و با بازی «هنری فوندا»، براساس داستان همین کتاب ساخته‌ اند

کتاب را در «ایران» جنابان آقایان «شاهرخ مسکوب»؛ و «عبدالرحیم احمدی»، به فارسی ترجمه کرده‌ اند؛

نقل نمونه متن: (آره، از گشنگی داره میمیره؛ همونوقت که پنبه چینی میکرد ناخوش شد؛ شش روز تمام چیزی نخورده بود؛ مادر، تا آن گوشه پیش رفت و مرد را نگاه کرد؛ پنجاه سالی داشت؛ با چهره ای ریشو و پوست استخوانی، و چشمهای خیره و تهی؛ جوانک در کنار مادر ایستاده بود؛ زن پرسید: پدرته؟ - آره، میگفت: گشنه نیس، یا همین حالا چیز خورده؛ همیشه سهمش را میداد به من؛ حالا دیگه نا نداره؛ به زحمت میتونه تکون بخوره)؛ پایان نقل از متن کتاب ص 519کتاب

تاریخ بهنگام رسانی 29/05/1399هجری خورشیدی؛ ا. شربیانی

Lo ammetto, avevo paura non mi sarebbe piaciuto. Il punto è che vedevo tutto questo amore incontrollato, tutte queste stelline, mi sentivo a disagio. Non che mi faccia suggestionare da questo tipo di cose, però ovvio, tutti a dirmi "bello, bellissimo" e io mi sentivo un po' strana, sopratutto perché a me Uomini e topi non era neanche piaciuto così tanto.
Oh, questo romanzo è bello, bellissimo.
"Un romanzo sulla grande depressione americana". No, cioè sì, ma è molto di più.
Furore è una grandissima storia, il viaggio di una famiglia che sfrattata dalla sua terra (terra e famiglia, tutto il romanzo si potrebbe riassumere in queste due parole) cerca di raggiungere la California, dove ci saranno casette bianche, arance da cogliere, e così tanta uva da farci il bagno.
Un viaggio che ricorda l'esodo biblico, ma anche qualcosa di fin troppo attuale.
Il furore che matura nei cuori di questa gente è un furore che non trova mai sfogo, perché non si ha radici, i migranti diventano nomadi e vengono trattati come vagabondi.
La famiglia Joad ci dimostra in mezzo a tutta questa polvere (e ai disegni insensati che riesce a creare in mezzo a dei terreni disastrati o nel cuore del deserto) cosa si fa, come si fa ad andare avanti, fino all'ultima pagina, che è semplicemente un capolavoro.

OMGOSH! Powerful and Tragic.......with an ending NEVER to be forgotten!

In THE GRAPES OF WRATH, hard times plague the Joad family from beginning to end, and chronicle the Great Depression of the 1930's. No rain, dust storms and the dreaded "monster" bank ended a much-loved and long-lived way of life forcing farmers to become migrant workers traveling from one unwelcome place to another; and No work + No money = No food, but the Joad's never give up despite being tired, beaten down, angry and sad. They shared their lives, what little food they had and gave everything of themselves as you will see by the remarkable conclusion of this 1939 classic.

n  "Jus' try to live the day, jus' the day."n

While not a particularly fast read, Steinbeck (my #1 favorite author) creates realistic characters and devotes several (short) interim chapters (including Chapter 1) to developing an atmospheric description of the time, and.......

While EAST OF EDEN continues to be one of my all-time favorite reads, I definitely felt THE GRAPES OF WRATH deserving of a 5 Star rating as well. "It is a work conceived on a completely different plane."

I miei bisnonni materni, agli inizi del novecento, appena sposati presero una nave e partirono verso la terra promessa, l’Argentina, fecero un viaggio faticosissimo di mesi spinti dalla speranza di un futuro migliore per loro e per i loro figli, con l’animo straziato tra la nostalgia di casa e il sogno di una meta ignota pubblicizzata da conoscenti o altri parenti che da là avevano scritto lettere invoglianti. Un viaggio lunghissimo, doloroso, che sarà stato costellato di difficoltà e soprattutto di miseria: povero era il paese che lasciavano, un’Italia arretrata e senza possibilità di lavoro (un po’ come oggi), poverissimi erano loro partiti con poche cose, il minimo indispensabile per non appesantire il viaggio. Che cosa avranno provato chiudendosi alle spalle la porta di casa sapendo di non vederla più forse per sempre? Ora, dopo aver letto Furore, posso immaginarlo. Posso capire la sofferenza per lo strappo dalle proprie radici, l’abbandono degli oggetti di ogni giorno, degli odori, dei rumori, delle abitudini più semplici che fanno compagnia, la paura per il salto nel buio, l’ignoto che attrae e fa paura. Posso capire il bisogno di avvicinare chi si trova nella stessa situazione, di aprirsi con chi ha lo stesso destino, la solidarietà incontrata durante il viaggio con chi è come noi. Posso capire la paura all’arrivo, il susseguirsi di speranza e delusione, la sconfitta imminente ed anche il furore che la fame scatena. Una famiglia è come una tartaruga, ovunque vada si porta dietro la casa, fatta non di muri ma di affetti e legami profondi, pronta a chiudersi a riccio in difesa dei suoi membri in difficoltà e ad allargarsi misericordiosa verso chi si trova nella stessa condizione, verso chi è misero e ha fame, una fame vera, quella che ti consuma il fisico, che ti annebbia la vista, che ti fa perdere la ragione. Così è la famiglia Joad, in cui ognuno è legato all’altro con un filo sottile che si incontra ad un capo della matassa, dove c’è lei, la mamma, colei che conserva ben duro il guscio della famiglia, lo protegge perché pur essendo protezione va protetto anch’esso dagli attacchi esterni.
Tutto questo –e molto di più- è contenuto in Furore, che narra in modo vivido e tanto, tanto coinvolgente il lungo viaggio della famiglia Joad verso ovest, verso la terra promessa, la California con le casette bianche ed i frutteti intorno.
Potrei scrivere ancora molto su questo romanzo stupendo, ma sarebbe superfluo perché non c’è bisogno del mio commento, c’è solo bisogno di leggerlo e di lasciarsi trascinare dalle emozioni.

پس از اتمام «موش‌ها و آدم‌ها» و قبل از شروع «خوشه های خشم» از خودم پرسیدم: یعنی کتاب دومی که از این نویسنده میخونم رو به همین اندازه دوست خواهم داشت؟! و برام عجیبه که اعتراف کنم، چندین برابر دوستش دارم..!
لحن آمریکایی اصیل و دوست داشتنیش، درکنار اشک ها و لبخندهایی که با این کتاب تجربه کردم و پایان غیرقابل انتظاری که باهاش مواجه شدم هیچ گاه از خاطرم پاک نمیشه..:)
گویی این کتاب خودِ خودِ زندگی بود.. نه داستان و روایت.. زندگی!
بیشتر از همه شخصیت تام جود و کیسی (واعظ) و مکالماتشون در مورد دین و مسیح.. و کنایه ها و انتقادات هنرمندانه ای که به دین و دینداری وارد میکردن بسیار به دلم نشست ^_^..
پ. ن١: اگر این کتاب رو نخواندید و تصمیم دارید بخوانید، پیشنهاد میکنم ترجمه رضا اسکندری از انتشارات مجید رو امتحان کنید..بسیار روان و نسبت به ترجمه های دیگر با حداقل سانسور.. :)
پ. ن٢: و اگر این کتاب رو خواندید، ولی با ترجمه انتشارات نگاه خواندید، و قصد دارید دوباره بخوانید، پیشنهاد میکنم ترجمه آقای اسکندری رو امتحان کنید، تا از انتشارات نگاه کینه به دل بگیرید..:)

n  n    Book Reviewn  n
3 out of 5 stars to The Grapes of Wrath, written in 1939 by John Steinbeck. I might have an unpopular opinion when it comes to this book, as it was fine but nothing fantastic for me. I admit, I read this in middle school, nearly 25 years ago, and never went back to read it again. I tend not to like books about awful things as the main plot. I don't mind when bad things happen, or circumstances change, but when the entire book is about the pain and suffering of a family, it doesn't usually rise to the top of my TBR. I might consider giving this one another chance, but you have some major convincing to do. I like Steinbeck, too, so it's not so much an issue with the author as it is with the topic. The writing is strong. The imagery is good. The characters are well drawn. The setting is very detailed. But when it comes to the plight of a family against the hardships all around them, it's a difficult read. Part of my issue may have been a connection with the story. While I certainly don't have a real-life connection with my favorite books (mysteries, thrillers...), you need to have an understanding and recognition between what's happening and how you live. Coming from the northeast, in a major metropolitan city, 50+ years after these times, it doesn't start off as something I'm familiar with. I usually don't read things about this time period or space for those reasons. If the characters called to me, I might have liked it more. Don't get me wrong... it's a good book. And it's got a place in the world of classics. And it helped highlight a lot of wrongs that people weren't aware of. And maybe because I learned those lessons from other books and other places, this one just didn't seem all that top notch to me. That said, it's Steinbeck, so there is something of value here. No one can tell reality like he can.

n  n    About Men  n
For those new to me or my reviews... here's the scoop: I read A LOT. I write A LOT. And now I blog A LOT. First the book review goes on Goodreads, and then I send it on over to my WordPress blog at https://thisismytruthnow.com, where you'll also find TV & Film reviews, the revealing and introspective 365 Daily Challenge and lots of blogging about places I've visited all over the world. And you can find all my social media profiles to get the details on the who/what/when/where and my pictures. Leave a comment and let me know what you think. Vote in the poll and ratings. Thanks for stopping by.

4/14/21: On this day in 1939, John Steinbeck published this book, not satisfied it was any good, but acknowledging "It was the best he could do." He thought many readers would object to the book's political statement.

I first read Grapes of Wrath in high school, then again taught it in a rural parochial (Christian) high school in western Michigan in the late seventies. I loved teaching that book, that had been a staple of the Modern Novels elective class there for many years, but that year one of the more conservative parents complained to the school board that the book was immoral, not consistent with the values of the community (and it was a farming community!). He saw that his son was being required to read it, recalled reading the book and finding it personally offensive. He thought the swearing was excessive (he made a list of the swear words used with corresponding pages), there was an ex-preacher in the book that had slept with some of his female parishioners he took objection to, and the final scene in the book, where a young nursing mother who has lost her child feeds a starving man, he found disgusting. If he had dug a little deeper he might have discovered that the author of the book, John Steinbeck, was also once a member of the Communist Party and there were no (known) commies in this community. If he known that, he might just have then had enough evidence to justify burning it.

The only member of the school board that had read the book was the Chairman of the Board, who thought it was a very good book, but none of the other members had read it, nor would they choose to be defiled by doing that, and they voted to remove it from our English curriculum, though they--sensing a possible insurrection from students and teachers---allowed us to finish teaching the book.

Why fear an uprising? As I had known the board was going to vote on the book, I had invited my students to write essays for them on the question of the book’s morality, and several of them wrote stirring defenses of the book, to no avail. I am sure our reading of the remainder of that book was some of the most passionate learning I have ever been part of, and I will never forget my engaged, thoroughly committed students; I loved them (some [minor] students bringing me bottles of wine when we were done reading it) and the book; what a great and anguished experience for us all.

Thanks to Phillip, here is a link to an NPR story on how it is this book got banned in California and other places:

https://www.npr.org/templates/story/s...

When John Steinbeck wrote The Grapes of Wrath he had spent time in the camps in California. He had helped organize farm workers for a living wage. He had seen first hand the lowering of wages for hundreds of thousands of Americans in his state to the point of starvation and disease. When he wrote the book he had the King James version of the Holy Bible with him at all times, I had read, hoping to have his passionate prose echo its lyrical moral tone.

The story, which is at its base a critique of the inhumanity of unbridled capitalism, a story of man-made environmental disaster and the strength of the human spirit in the face of unspeakable challenges and tragedy, focuses primarily on one family, the Joads, one of thousands who lost their farms in the “Dust Bowl” era in the thirties when adequate safety nets were not available, when there was no unemployment relief, when adequate union action was still a dream, when American citizens were actually refugees in their own country, when people starved in the streets for lack of a crust of bread. In other words, it is both historical fiction and a cautionary tale, a time of Economic Depression and people (often, and largely) hating each other in their struggles rather than supporting each other in crisis.

The Joads--Ma, Pa, Uncle John, Tom, Noah, Rose of Sharon, Grandpa, and Grandma, Ruthie and Winfield, their dogs, accompanied for a time by ex-preacher Jim Casey--were living through a drought, their farms had become clouds of dust, they couldn't raise crops, so they couldn’t make mortgage payments to the bank as hundreds of thousands could not, they were pushed off their land, their house and barn razed.

“Sure, cried the tenant men, but it’s our land. . . We were born on it, and we got killed on it, died on it. Even if it’s no good, it’s still ours. . . That’s what makes ownership, not a paper with numbers on it."

And they, from Oklahoma, called “Okies” and worse, saw flyers for jobs in California and suddenly they and a whole area country headed west for twenty times fewer jobs than there were people. And what happens in a capitalist system when that happens? Wages go down to criminal levels, prices stay up, and food is literally kerosened or dumped into ditches in front of starving people (as is now being done!!).

“Dump potatoes in the rivers and place guards along the banks to keep the hungry people from fishing them out. Slaughter the pigs and bury them, and let the putrescence drip down into the earth.

There is a crime here that goes beyond denunciation. There is a sorrow here that weeping cannot symbolize. There is a failure here that topples all our success. The fertile earth, the straight tree rows, the sturdy trunks, and the ripe fruit. And children dying of pellagra must die because a profit cannot be taken from an orange. And coroners must fill in the certificate- died of malnutrition- because the food must rot, must be forced to rot.”

Hatred is showered on poor people for their poverty, for their willingness to attempt to feed their families for less money, for impossibly low wages, police forces are doubled to move people along, doctors won’t see these refugees, these migrants, these “shitheels,” and prices are gouged by their fellow Americans for almost every essential item.

Let’s just pause a second and think of the environmental disaster in Syria that created waves of migrants/refugees all over Europe, and that wall at the US-Mexican border, and the ongoing refugee crises all over the world and see if you think this might be a useful book for us to again read.

The structure of the book includes a close reading of one family’s tale alternating with the story of the situation writ a little larger, with unnamed folks appearing, inter-callary chapters that allow the author to help us understand the economic crisis and its human/moral costs on a broader, systemic level, and lyrical/metaphorical interludes such as one featuring a turtle persistently trying to cross a highway.

The key theme is that The People can stand against the rich and powerful if they are unified, if they are One, if they see themselves as Ma tells them they must be, a Family, supporting each other with love and decency. That final scene in the rain reminds me of the father and son at the end of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road: You do the right thing and live the right way until you die. But while tender acts of charity are present, there are also also warnings in the book: If you keep a family from feeding its children that rage--the grapes of wrath--will come to pass. The people will come together to save themselves. This in part explains the overfunding of the military and the expanse of the police: The fear of reprisal.

“. . . and in the eyes of the people there is the failure; and in the eyes of the hungry there is a growing wrath. In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage.”

Ma emerges as the matriarchal moral center of the book, and women are seen as the central foundation of human survival. Which makes sense more now than ever (exceptions in congress noted!).

“She seemed to know, to accept, to welcome her position, the citadel of the family, the strong place that could not be taken.”

And along the way they learn moral/political lessons in the face of police crackdowns on the hungry:

“And the little screaming fact that sounds through all history: Repression works only to strengthen and knit the repressed.”

“If he needs a million acres to make him feel rich, seems to me he needs it 'cause he feels awful poor inside hisself, and if he's poor in hisself, there ain't no million acres gonna make him feel rich, an' maybe he's disappointed that nothin' he can do 'll make him feel rich.”

"We’re sorry. It’s not us. It’s the monster. The bank isn’t like a man.

Yes, but the bank is only made of men.

No, you’re wrong there—quite wrong there. The bank is something else than men. It happens that every man in a bank hates what the bank does, and yet the bank does it. The bank is something more than men, I tell you. It’s the monster. Men made it, but they can’t control it.”

“The bank - the monster has to have profits all the time. It can't wait. It'll die. No, taxes go on. When the monster stops growing, it dies. It can't stay one size.” [you may recall the bailout concept here in the old US of A: Too Big To Fail?]

“This is the beginning—from ‘I’ to ‘we’. If you who own the things people must have could understand this, you might preserve yourself. If you could separate causes from results, if you could know that Paine, Marx, Jefferson, Lenin were results, not causes, you might survive. But that you cannot know. For the quality of owning freezes you forever into ‘I,’ and cuts you off forever from the ‘we.’ ”

A great and powerful and majestic book, with principles in it to save a planet. One of the greatest ever.

Anybody wanting to understand what life was like during the Depression should read this book. My maternal grandmother survived it. They lived in Kansas. They ate grass. Those years changed my grandmother forever. Having now read this book, I have a better understanding of her behavior. Steinbeck's novel is based on solid and extensive research, even if it is a book of fiction.

I am in a pickle. I cannot tell you whether by the end I found it to be depressing. That would be a spoiler. I will say instead that how ever it ends, it is moving and engaging every bit of the way. Talk about resilient, generous, warm and wonderful people! The book is filled with humor.

I personally do not understand how this book could in any way be a criticism of Okies! The contrary is true. It is if anything the Californians that are to be criticized, and the government for not adequately helping the migrants. On this issue the following two links are interesting. I want to thank my GR friend Kim for leading me to both.

Banning of “Grapes of Wrath” in California: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/st...

Dislike of “Grapes of Wrath” in Oklahoma:
http://digital.library.okstate.edu/en...


I think this book by Steinbeck is fabulous, but the audiobook narrated by John Chancer is still better. When you listen to this you think you are at the movies. Each character has a special voice. This is an impressive performance which could in no way be improved upon. I strongly recommend that you listen to this book rather than read it.

You don't listen to books? OK, then read it, but do it soon. I am not kidding, this is a n  MUSTn read!!!


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I just listened to chapter 15, another one of those chapters that some call boring! (Please see my previous entry "through chapter 13". I adored it. It is about a little "joint", a café on Route 66, the road that the Joad family is traveling from Oklahoma to California where there will be work and well-paid jobs and oranges to pick off the trees. Being one of those so-called "boring" chapters it wasn't about the Joads, but about Al and his wife and the truckers. As explained below some readers say these chapters are boring. Some also say this book is depressing, and I don't agree with that either. I define "not depressing" books as those that show how people who have nothing are still generous and kind. You should read this book just for this chapter. Not only do I like Al and his wife, but within this chapter is found the following line, a sign on their Route 66 café wall: "Ladies may smoke, but be careful where you put your butts." So are you crying or laughing? Is this depressing? Note, you have only read one line of this marvelous chapter.

Well, what IS depressing is that I am sure some bad stuff will be happening. I am scared to death what may happen to these people. They aren't just anybody any more. I care for them, all of them!

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Through chapter 13: I am head over heels in love with this! Although the plight of Okies is movingly portrayed, life's small beauties and charms are ever present too. Everybody says this book is depressing. I do not find that so. For example, there is an « “ex-preacher” that says such wise things. This is about a family that is forced to move to California. The drought and the Depression have ruined them and all others. The land is emptied. The banks force the tenants off their land. But NEVERTHELESS, there is strength in these people. There is humor in the small things. Dogs in heat and a grandfather that is all bluster and cannot button up his fly, pajamas or underwear. These small things are in fact very amusing.

Steinbeck builds the feeling of the time by interspersing the chapters about the family with chapters about what is happening around them. These chapters create a mood that makes you better see the total picture. For example, one of these diversionary chapters depicts a used car dealer. "Oh, if he only had more jalopies to sell...." then he would make some profit. Of course his mark-up is outrageously high. Yep, that truck he purchased for $10 and sold it for $50 AND the buyer additionally agreed to $10 payment for another 4 months. "Even if the family doesn't pay the monthly installments he has certainly hit the jackpot with that sucker," he raucously explains to us. "Everybody has to make a living somehow!" Right? By whatever means possible. It is eat or be eaten. That is the gist of this chapter. My words, not Steinbeck’s, except for that first quote. The chapter is filled with the owner's sales cries to his assistant and customers. Another is about a land-turtle crossing a road, his slow plodding passage forward. One is about the cornfields and how they are drying up. You see them shrivel. You see the blazing hot, red sun. Steinbeck can certainly string his words with the touch of an artist, a magician, a conjurer. Some might find these chapters unnecessary or distracting....or even boring. Me, I like them; they create a mood of that time and place. This is really how the Depression was for those living it.

The Pulitzer Prize winning novel of 1940, this is the story of the Joad family, Oklahoma tenant farmers displaced from their land by the combined effects of ecological disaster, rampant capitalism and the Great Depression. The narrative follows the family as they travel from Oklahoma to California in search of work, along with hundreds of thousands of others in the same situation. Woven into the story of the Joads are chapters dealing with issues such as the attitude of Californians to the influx of migrant workers and the exploitation and mistreatment to which they were subjected.

There is nothing about this novel which I don't love: Steinbeck's wonderful use of language, his ability to create memorable characters, his descriptions of the natural world, his use of symbolism and - probably most of all - his passion. Steinbeck is not a writer who hides himself behind his words: his humanism, his left-wing political views, his compassion for those whose story he tells are all right there in the text. Listening to the audiobook - which is superbly narrated by John Chancer - I felt I was getting to know Steinbeck as well as his characters. One of the things I most like about Steinbeck's writing is the sense that he wrote what he knew, not just what he had imagined or researched. When Steinbeck writes about displaced people, the reader is sure that he knew such people personally. When he describes a land turtle, it's because he had observed how a land turtle moves. When he has his characters carry out repairs to their truck, he knows what they would do because he's carried out those same repairs himself. Steinbeck lives and breathes in his writing.

While this is the story of "Okies" in depression-era California, it's also the story of all those who have been forced to leave their homes - whether because of natural disaster, economic crisis, or conflict - and found themselves poor, hungry and desperate in a place where they are not welcome. It's a story which is repeated over and over, all over the world. The novel made me laugh, it made me cry, it made me angry and it made me sad. However, it also gave me hope. There is an essential humanity and a deep vein of hope in Steinbeck's characters: bad things happen to them, but they work hard to survive. And they know the power of love, of loyalty and of connectedness to each other.

I will be forever grateful that a stopover in Monterey during a drive from San Francisco to Los Angeles prompted me to finally start reading Steinbeck. I'd give this book ten stars if I could. It's quite simply a masterpiece.