Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1940 and cited by the Nobel Committee as a key factor in awarding John Steinbeck the Nobel Peace Prize in 1962, I must have been hiding the semester The Grapes of Wrath was assigned reading in high school. I finished the novel for the first time a few hours ago and have never felt as close to hurling a garbage can through a store window as I do now. Banks and fast food outlets in the Southern California area have been placed on alert.

I doubt that I can contribute anything new to a discussion of this novel, celebrating the 75th anniversary of its publication, but must recount the story so I won't forget it. Nobody who reads this book should forget what they've read.

The dedication reads "To CAROL who willed it. To TOM who lived it." Carol was Steinbeck's first wife who among other things, suggested the book's title, a lyric in "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" by Julia Ward Howe. Tom is Tom Joad, a young man not a day older than 30. He's introduced ambling along a highway in Oklahoma wearing a new suit and new shoes. Tom comes to a diner, and lies in wait on the running board of a truck for the driver to exit the diner.

The hitch-hiker stood up and looked across through the windows. "Could ya give me a lift, mister?"

The driver looked quickly back at the restaurant for a second. "Didn' you see the No Riders sticker on the win'shield?"

"Sure--I seen it. But sometimes a guy'll be a good guy even if some rich bastard makes him carry a sticker."

Using the truck driver's pride to back him into a corner, Tom gets a lift and his story quickly comes out: He's been paroled from prison after serving four years of a seven year sentence for striking and killing a man with a shovel in self defense during a fight. Tom is no criminal and he's no beggar. He has an unwavering sense of decency and justice but knows when to open his mouth and when to keep it shut. Prison life has gone a long way to making him a quick judge of character.

Walking through the blistering heat toward his family farm outside of Sallisaw, Tom encounters Jim Casy, the preacher who baptized Tom as a boy and who now appears to be a man without a flock. Casy has seen change sweep the country since Tom's been gone and in an attempt to make some sense of it, has taken to the road. Tom invites Casy to travel with him and arriving at what's left of his home, sees what has driven the preacher into the hills; the Joad house knocked off its foundation, land unkempt and family gone.

Steinbeck uses short chapters to illustrate how dust storms, crop failures and defaulted loans have driven families from their farms, replaced by a bulldozer which can can maintain the land for the bank at a cost. Sifting through the remains of the Joad place, Tom and Casy meet a neighbor named Muley Graves who informs them that the Joads have moved in with Tom's uncle John and are preparing to make the trek to California to search for work. Muley has sent his family away, but has no intention of joining them. He likens himself to a ghost, haunting the countryside, evading the law and surviving on land he refuses to be kicked out of.

Tom and Casy walk all next morning to arrive at the home of Uncle John, a widower who carries the death of his wife on his shoulders, trying to atone for his "sin" by showering his nieces and nephews with candy. Tom is reunited with his family. Ma Joad is the glue that holds everyone together. Pa Joad is a sharecropper who loses his confidence and cedes leadership of the family to his wife. Tom's oldest brother Noah is aloof and likely learning disabled. His 16-year-old brother Al is a ladies man whose automotive skill almost eclipses his brother's. His 18-year-old sister Rose of Sharon is pregnant with her first child by husband Connie--she has plans for Connie to study radio in California and buy her and their baby a house. Tom's 12-year-old sister Ruthie is snooty and a 10-year-old baby brother is named Winfield. Uncle John's house is so full that Grampa and Granma have chosen to sleep in the barn.

After opportunistic speculators rake Pa Joad over the coals, buying up tools and farm equipment for $18, the family has only $154 to for fuel, food and shelter on their journey. Handbills distributed around town have advertised work in California as fruit pickers, and Al has done his part by inspecting and purchasing an 'ornery old truck whose popular parts will be easier to find and replace on the road. Short of that, the Joads have no idea what's waiting them on Route 66, nowhere else to go if they fail to find work and no one to help them but each other.

This is the fifth Steinbeck novel I've read this year and might be his best. Steinbeck has quickly become one of my favorite authors and The Grapes of Wrath reminded me why: Sparse but sensual description. Vivid sense of place. A sage's wisdom and remarkable perspective; the book's moral center is never in question. And great dialogue. In this book, the regional patois does occasionally get in the way, but I didn't find it to be a road block.

Steinbeck has been quoted as saying about The Grapes of Wrath, "I've done my damndest to rip a reader's nerves to rags, I don't want him satisfied." This novel certainly knocked me down a flight of stairs.

It's hard to believe that only 80 years separate the events of this book from the U.S.A. of today. The technology I'm using to write this book review is more powerful than any tool the Joads had available to travel cross country, seek food, shelter and clothing and find a way to survive in a land that was hostile to their existence. They had no consumer credit. The ACLU and AFL/CIO were impotent. Cotton picking was a decent job and work as a mechanic was considered a great job. Throughout the book, the Joads are one wrong turn or stroke of bad luck away from being wiped out, psychologically, emotionally, physically.

Reading The Grapes of Wrath was like someone handing me a Molotov cocktail and lighting the rag stuffed in the bottleneck. Steinbeck does a craftsman's job avoiding political speech, but it's possible I feel that way because I agreed with most of what he has to say about the working class and basic human dignity. I don't think that Steinbeck is against capitalism, he's just not for it. Religion doesn't get a free pass either. These are both systems used to control people and in doing so, strip of that thing that makes them individuals.

Some die of sickness or age. Some die of loss of dignity. The more members of "the fambly" succumb to these and are lost, the angrier I felt myself growing. It was a good sort of anger that only great literature can provoke of me. The hatred, fear and ignorance Steinbeck takes a torch to are alive and well throughout the world when it comes to the debate over immigration today. Blaming your problems on people who can't defend themselves and are only trying to survive is so easy and so often misguided.

A hastily produced and gloriously rendered film adaptation was released in 1940 starring Henry Fonda as Tom Joad and John Carradine as Jim Casy. It won two Oscars, Best Director (John Ford) and Best Supporting Actress (Jane Darwell, as Ma Joad) and became a badge for producer Darryl F. Zanuck, co-founder of Twentieth Century-Fox, whose legacy would be built on the social issue pictures he shepherded at the studio, beginning with The Grapes of Wrath. Reading the source material, it's impossible not to see and hear Fonda as Tom Joad.

Chirst. This was a tough one to read.

I don't just mean it was depressing. It was, obviously - a book about a poor family being forced from their home during the Great Depression and having to beg for the chance to pick cotton at fifteen cents per hour can't be anything except depressing - but it wasn't the most depressing book I've ever read. That honor probably goes to The Hunchback of Notre Dame, although I guess Angela's Ashes is a close second.

This was hard to read, not because it was a portrayal of a horrible period of history that actually happened. That contributed to the tragedy of the book, of course, coupled with the knowledge that there were not just a few Joad families during the Great Depression, but millions of them, so your percentage of possible happy endings is going to be pretty low.

It wasn't even sad because Steinbeck was using the backdrop of the Great Depression to illustrate the greater problems in America - the disparity between rich and poor, the way low-level laborers have to fight tooth and nail to achieve the most basic human rights, the fact that the people who run the major banks and farms are horrible unfeeling shells of human beings, etc.

The Grapes of Wrath is sad for all of these reasons, but here is what makes it sadder than anything: not the fact that Steinbeck is writing about a horrible period in history that's behind us now. It's because that horrible period went away, and then it came back. We aren't in the middle of a second Dust Bowl, but make no mistake: we are living in the second Great Depression.

If you haven't read yet and have always been meaning to, there's no better time than now. Steinbeck's book was written in the late 1930's, but just about everything that happens here is happening right in your state - possibly in your neighborhood - as you read this. You read about the banks in the Great Depression sending men to bulldoze people's houses while the family stood outside, and find yourself thinking, "Well, at least now they just pile all your stuff on the curb after you get foreclosed on." You read about migrant families accepting offers to work all day at pitiful wages, because fifteen cents an hour is still better than zero cents an hour and the kids have to eat, and you think about the immigrants who pick your food in exchange for shitty wages. You read about the Joad family and the others being called "Okies" and forced out of their camps by the cops, and think about politicians who scream about "illegals" taking away the good American jobs and deporting kids' parents.

Is this review getting too politcally-minded? Good. That's how Steinbeck would have wanted me to talk about his book, because let me assure you - The Grapes of Wrath is extremely fucking political. Another reviewer called it the anti-Atlas Shrugged, which is pretty damn apt. It's all about unions and the rights of the worker and how poor people need government assistance because sometimes life just sucks for no fucking reason.

It's sad and it's searing, and beautifully written, and unrelentingly depressing. But it should be read.

(the only reason this gets four stars instead of five is because of the ending. Look, I know that Steinbeck didn't have to give the Joads a happy ending, and I'm not saying he gave them a sad one either - he gave them a weird one instead. I was already pretty sick of hearing about Rose of Sharon and her magical pregnancy, so it was just the cherry on top of a shit subplot sundae that the ending had her breastfeeding an old man after her baby died. First: allow me to turn into a middle-schooler for a second and say ewwwwwwwwwww. Second: I kind of get what Steinbeck was trying to say with his ending, because it kind of tied into his idea that the only ones who help poor people are other poor people, and Rose of Sharon was literally feeding a dying man with her own body and oh my god personal sacrifice...but on the other hand, she was breastfeeding an adult man. And it was weird and gross and then the book was over. Nope.

The Grapes of Wrath, which earned Steinbeck the Pulitzer Prize and later paved the way for the Nobel literature Prize, is a sympathetic story of human survival amid human exploitation set during the Great Depression. Having well-researched and becoming conversant with the subject, John Steinbeck has written a novel on humanity. It's no wonder he was labelled as a socialist. His sympathy for the working class and their struggle to live is unmistakable. Even if you haven't read any other Steinbeck work, The Grapes of Wrath is enough for one to know where his sympathies lay. Having read a considerable number of his works, I can assure you that he always sided with the underprivileged.

The story focuses on a family of tenant farmers from Oklahoma. The economic hardships the tenant farmers faced due to the damage in agriculture resulting from the dust bowl and the bank foreclosures force them out of their livelihood. And the Joad family, like many other tenant farmers, are obliged to leave their homes and seek work elsewhere. With renewed hope and great courage, they all file towards California, the promised land, the paradise. But what would they see there? Oversupplied with labor, it is no longer the promised land of hope, happiness, and dignity. It is no longer a paradise but a slowly brooding hell. There is no hope, no future. And worst, no dignity. Like the Joad family, a multitude of workers has poured into California in hope of a better living. And like the Joad family, they are in for nothing but disappointment. Oversupplied with labour, many find it hard to get work with a decent pay. Wages are so low that some can't even earn enough to feed their families decently. The living conditions are more suited to animals than humans. In truth, the workers are exploited to the point of starvation while the big corporates called the shots. And the government shamelessly backed them. But amid all this injustice and inhumanity, the workers show better faith and humanity.

I believe John Steinbeck wrote The Grapes of Wrath for two reasons. One is to expose the nakedness of the big corporates, who in collusion, paralyzed the small farmers, so they could maintain low costs by paying low wages. The other is to show the resilience and humanity of the workers. Joad family faces death, desertion, and other minor grievances during their migration. Even when they arrived at their destination, life was hard and uncertain. Yet, they don't despair when every hand points towards it. When papa Joad's courage falls, mama Joad takes the rein and steers what is left of her family with faith and hope. The beauty of The Grapes of Wrath is Steinbeck's portrayal of the fierce resilience of these migrant workers and the preserved humanity in the face of growing wrath. He gives such a strong colour to the nobility of the characters of the working class that the big corporations pale in comparison. He makes the material wealth of the big corporates small in the face of the spiritual wealth of the workers.

The strength of the novel lies in its historical importance and the compassionate tone adopted by its author. The power it wields over the readers demanding sympathy and arousing wrath at the unjust exploitation of humans is very strong. Steinbeck has been meticulous in capturing the emotional and physical struggles of the Joad family at various points to the minutest detail. He has also captured with stunning precision the atmosphere surrounding their ups and downs. However, I couldn't feel the same Steinbeck fire and flare that I've come to love so much in his later novels. The voice and tone, though sympathetic all the time, were dull and monotonous at times. And the use of "inner chapters" while allowing Steinbeck to be informative, preachy, and judgmental, felt out of the place and disconnected from the storyline. This disturbed the narrative, and in some measure, my enjoyment of the story.

The Grapes of Wrath is an important novel. One that marked a turning point for its author. But I wouldn't say that it is Steinbeck's best. It was a transient period of his writing which became fully flourished later on. But one thing is certain. The Grapes of Wrath is Steinbeck's most humane work.

More of my reviews can be found at http://piyangiejay.com/

“And the fifth angel poured out his vial upon the seat of the beast; and his kingdom was full of darkness; and they gnawed their tongues for pain…” Revelation 16:10
The Grapes of Wrath begins with the description of the severe drought and dust storms that deprived farmers of their livelihood and sustenance…

The dawn came, but no day. In the gray sky a red sun appeared, a dim red circle that gave a little light, like dusk; and as that day advanced, the dusk slipped back toward darkness, and the wind cried and whimpered over the fallen corn.

No land, no home, no money, no food – time to hit the road and find a better place… But is there a better place?

The bitterness we sold to the junk man – he got it all right, but we have it still. And when the owner men told us to go, that’s us; and when the tractor hit the house, that’s us until we’re dead. To California or any place – every one a drum major leading a parade of hurts, marching with our bitterness. And some day – the armies of bitterness will all be going the same way. And they’ll all walk together, and there’ll be a dead terror from it.

But freedom of the poor is restricted by the freedom of the state and freedom of politicians and freedom of the rich…

“Here’s me that used to give all my fight against the devil ’cause I figgered the devil was the enemy. But they’s somepin worse’n the devil got hold a the country, an’ it ain’t gonna let go till it’s chopped loose. Ever see one a them Gila monsters take hold, mister?”

That’s the way of the state.

“Lead ’em around and around. Sling ’em in the irrigation ditch. Tell ’em they’ll burn in hell if they don’t think like you. What the hell you want to lead ’em someplace for? Jus’ lead ’em.’’

That’s the way of politicians.

“I hear ’em an’ feel ’em; an’ they’re beating their wings like a bird in a attic. Gonna bust their wings on a dusty winda tryin’ ta get out.’’

And that’s the fate of the poor.

“I’m learnin’ one thing good,’’ she said. “Learnin’ it all a time, ever’ day. If you’re in trouble or hurt or need – go to poor people. They’re the only ones that’ll help – the only ones.’’

The power always is on the side of the rich and if you’re poor they won’t give you anything, you’ll have only what you can take.

(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

One of the great American novels, this breakdown of a family torn apart by poverty and despair during the Great Depression.

این رمان یکی از شاهکار های ادبیات امریکاست در دوره ای که قحطی باعث اواره شدن هزاران هزار خانواده شد و باعث شد زندگی و زمین های خودشون رو از دست بدن و مهاجرت کنن و به دنبال مهاجرت اتفاقات و سختی هایی رو پشت سر میذارن... مردم بیچاره ای که جز امید چیز دیگه ای ندارند و درسخت ترین شرایط سعی میکنند دلخوش باشند و به زندگی ادامه بدن .... یکی ازشخصیت های محبوب من در این رمان مادر خانواده است که با تحمل سختی ها باعث میشه زندگی خانواده از هم نپاشه ... صحبت های تام و کشیش خیلی زیبا بود کشیشی که دیگه دلش نمیخواد کشیش باشه اما بقیه اینو قبول ندارن و اعتقادات جالبی داره.
من چندبار سعی کردم نسخه‌ی فیزیکی کتاب رو بخونم ولی نتونستم تااینکه یه دوست بهم پیشنهاد داد صوتیشو گوش بدم که واقعا برخلاف تصورم خیلی دوستش داشتم.

NEW DELHI: There has been an upward trend in cases of farmer suicides in Maharashtra, Telangana, Karnataka and Punjab recently, besides reporting of instances in Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh and Tamil Nadu, says an Intelligence Bureau note submitted to the Modi government late last week.

The December 19 report, marked to national security adviser Ajit Kumar Doval, principal secretary to the Prime Minister Nripendra Mishra, and agriculture ministry, among others, has blamed rising farmer suicides on erratic monsoon (at the onset stage) this year, outstanding loans, rising debt, low crop yield, poor procurement rate of crops and successive crop failure. It also linked the agriculturists' woes to a depleted water table, unsuitable macro-economic policies with respect to taxes, non-farm loans and faulty prices of import and export.

- The Times of India, Dec. 26, 2014

More than 270,000 Indian cotton farmers have killed themselves since 1995. Campaigners say a contributing factor may be the high price of genetically modified seeds flooding the market, which is piling pressure on poorly paid growers, forcing many into a cycle of unmanageable debt.

- The Guardian, May 5, 2014

There are some books which hit you with an impact like a sledgehammer. The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck is such a book.

I read it during a period of recuperation after a severe bout of viral flu during my late teens. I never knew who Steinbeck was before I read this book, and I had only a sketchy idea of what the Great Depression was. After I finished it, I had become a fan of the author, and my political views had shifted permanently to the left of the spectrum.

The Western States nervous under the beginning change. Texas and Oklahoma, Kansas and Arkansas, New Mexico, Arizona, California. A single family moved from the land. Pa borrowed money from the bank, and now the bank wants the land. The land company--that's the bank when it has land--wants tractors, not families on the land. Is a tractor bad? Is the power that turns the long furrows wrong? If this tractor were ours it would be good--not mine, but ours. If our tractor turned the long furrows of our land, it would be good. Not my land, but ours. We could love that tractor then as we have loved this land when it was ours. But the tractor does two things--it turns the land and turns us off the land. There is little difference between this tractor and a tank. The people are driven, intimidated, hurt by both. We must think about this.

One man, one family driven from the land; this rusty car creaking along the highway to the west. I lost my land, a single tractor took my land. I am alone and bewildered. And in the night one family camps in a ditch and another family pulls in and the tents come out. The two men squat on their hams and the women and children listen. Here is the node, you who hate change and fear revolution. Keep these two squatting men apart; make them hate, fear, suspect each other. Here is the anlarge of the thing you fear. This is the zygote. For here "I lost my land" is changed; a cell is split and from its splitting grows the thing you hate--"We lost our land." The danger is here, for two men are not as lonely and perplexed as one. And from this first "we" there grows a still more dangerous thing: "I have a little food" plus "I have none." If from this problem the sum is "We have a little food," the thing is on its way, the movement has direction. Only a little multiplication now, and this land, this tractor are ours. The two men squatting in a ditch, the little fire, the side-meat stewing in a single pot, the silent, stone-eyed women; behind, the children listening with their souls to words their minds do not understand. The night draws down. The baby has a cold. Here, take this blanket. It's wool. It was my mother's blanket--take it for the baby. This is the thing to bomb. 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 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."

The Western States are nervous under the beginning change. Need is the stimulus to concept, concept to action. A half-million people moving over the country; a million more restive, ready to move; ten million more feeling the first nervousness.

And tractors turning the multiple furrows in the vacant land.

Has there been a change? I don't think so. The news items quoted above are only a sample.

The tractors of capitalism are still mowing the vacant land.

...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.

Let's hope the world sees sense before the grapes of wrath are harvested.

My first 5 star book of the year.
It totally destroyed me. It is devastating ,made me cry throughout.Made me feel so hopeless.
Steinback's writing is beautiful ,simple and extraordinarily powerful. There is something about his writing ,always a punch in the gut.I thought I was ready for it, apparently I wasn't ,it pains me to think about it :(
Love the way he writes characters, you effortlessly get attached to them and always root for them.
Loved Ma and Tom in this.
Incredibly powerful writing!

Catching Up…

This was another one of our Library Book Discussion selections during our Steinbeck period. We were reading the Penguin Classics annotated edition which was 464 pages. I knew I was in for it as a reader and facilitator. Another long book to overcome.

And yet…So much to experience within these pages, which made it such a discussable book.

The opening scene is Oklahoma. A man, Mr. Joad, wants to build, but he has no security. In fact, none of the farmers have security. The cotton crops have sucked out the roots of the land and the dust has overlaid it. The men from the bank or the company, sitting in their cars, try to explain to the squatting farmers that the original tenants (their grandfathers) who settled the land no longer have title to it, and that everything that they built will be razed to the ground – including their homes.

The son, Tom, who has just been released from jail hitches a ride with the preacher who had baptized him when he was young, only to arrive home to find his family getting ready to set out for California. The bank had already knocked down their house with the tractor. The Joad family had read flyers about picking oranges in California, and felt this was the place to be. Everyone else has headed in that direction, as well.

So…Off they go.

And then…Steinbeck describes the beauty of what the “Okies” now see as California.

But…Californians aren’t so welcoming.

And…All those trusting “Okies” are herded into “government” camps. Fearing the violence and the discomfort of what they see, the family moves on through California, hunted by anonymous guns while they are picking peaches for 2 l/2 cents a box, hoping only for a little land free of guns and dust on which they might settle and work.

The promised grapes of California have turned into the grapes of wrath. (Hence the title of the book.)

Will goodness come to this family at some point for them?

I could tell you all sorts of things here of what happens to Tom, or the preacher, or even the family, but then I would be breaking my long-time rule of providing spoilers, and that doesn’t work for me. Just read the story, and you will find out.

I will say this…

Steinbeck writes from the depths of his heart with sincerity.

There is a lot of feeling in this story. Pity. Anger. Disappointment. Fear. Hatred. Sadness. I could go on.

Mostly…It tells the story of a place and time that was real. True history, so to speak.

And…It makes for a great discussion.

That was depressing.

Dear John,
There is no doubt in my mind that you are an excellent writer. And I am sure you know this. There is the Pulitzer and there is the Nobel. There are hundreds of editions worldwide and swarms of five star reviews.

“The Grapes of Wrath” is a book of great weight (literally and metaphorically). It’s epic and as timeless as the history which repeats itself with a stubborn regularity. There have always been changes and there have always been people left behind, people who found themselves outside the whatever brave new world which had no place for them. And there have always been people who didn’t want to know about them, who didn’t want to hear about them. John, I know you wrote this book for them, so that no one could feign ignorance. And I get it, John, your heart is in the right place.

You did all the right things. Those ever so gentle shifts in the patriarchal society? Brilliant. You know how to warm my feminist heart with the portrayal of Ma who takes the reins over from Pa. Although, are you trying to say it’s a good thing that women take over when the world has gone to dogs or that it is another symptom of the world going to dogs? I don’t know. Never mind. According to new goodreads review guidelines I can’t judge you as a person, so let’s leave it. Let’s talk about your writing. A chapter about a turtle crossing a road? How did you pull that off? It should be proverbially boring and yet, I read it with a bated breath. Will the turtle make it to the other side of the road? Or that last final scene? Worth the seven hundred pages it takes to get to it.
I grew to love the Joads, John, even though I know they’re just pawns in your game. But again, I forgive you because your intentions are good. You’re not calculating. You really do feel for all the Joads of the world and you want the world to feel it, too. You want us all to spare a thought for all the dispossessed of the world, those who loved earth and were one with it but they were forced to quit and abandon their land, to break that sacred bond and were replaced by soulless tractors and faceless banks and corporations.

You’re preaching to the choir, John. My heart is in the right place, too.

But you know what, John? And please, don’t take it the wrong way, I did love your book, but you weren’t subtle. I like my men subtle.