The Grapes of Wrath is a story about the pursuit of power by a few selected individuals and its domino effects on the society and the lives of thousands of people. While the story itself is set on the times of the Great Depression, back in the 1930s and 1940s, we can still trace parallels with the contemporary world we’re living in more than 60 years later. Sadly, still to this day, we can see in the news that there are people working for less than the minimal wage and under slave labor conditions.

To tell us this story, John Steinbeck presents to us the life of the Joads: a big united, poor family who lives in Oklahoma under a tenancy system until their lives start to derail - because of the drought, tightness of money, agricultural changes (now a tractor can put ten families out of work…) -, which leads them to a hopeful journey to California in search of jobs, dignity, happiness and means to fulfill their simple dreams: Ma Joad would love to have her “little white house”; all Grandpa wanted was to have grapes soaking his beard; and Rose of Sharon fantasized about having ice in her house.

Slow paced and packed with long descriptions, I imagined it would take me up to three weeks to get through the book by my reading standards; it took me nine days instead. It was impossible to not start caring about the family right away or to stop desiring that they would have a deserved happy ending where they would finally find some relief. As the pages turned though, I realized that the Joads represented the lives of thousands and that their fates would likely be consistent to the sore reality of what happened to the majority of the migrants on the same road as them. In order to help us to realize the bigger picture that he wanted to portray, Steinbeck used smaller chapters, that felt almost like interludes, showing us the similar situation that unidentified people were enduring.

A big highlight for me was that the author succeeded in making his characters realistic, and it was plain to see that their behaviors were in line with their personalities in every one of their actions (i.e., Tom was painted since the beginning as being someone suspicious of other people’s intentions and always reacting, fighting back because of that - maybe because of the time he spent in McAlester prison for committing homicide). Having known and been around tenant farmers myself, it was clear to me how Steinbeck really captured their persona, temper and features while conceiving these characters. In doing some research about him and the writing of his book, I found out that he actually bought a car, drove to Oklahoma and followed the migrants’ path along Route 66 to California. Before completing The Grapes of Wrath, he wrote some reports on the subject and was working on an unfinished novel called The Oklahomans.

One of the striking traces I recognized in the Joads - and mainly everyone they met in their journey, but best represented in the book by the Wilson and the Wainwright families - was that they were truly willing to share whatever they had even under those trying times. This compassionate way of thinking and their mentality of doing good in order to receive good things ironically turned out to be working against them in more than one occasion.

Throughout their ride to California, they’ve encountered many individuals who had been there, looked for jobs, (some even actually worked) but instead decided to go back home because they saw that it wasn’t as dreamlike as the handbills made it out to be. So the Joads were warned about it more than once but still decided to make it, convincing themselves that it’d turn out different for them because they would do everything accordingly, they would work properly and be honest. Their simplistic logic blindsided them into not realizing there were bigger interests in the game. Also because of that, it was near impossible for them to understand why the big shots (through the big companies) with millions and so much land could still be so greedy, still wanting to turn a higher profit, in detriment of their (and thousands of) family’s most basic needs.

In some ways - the fate of a family representing the social conditions of that time, having to bear to that situation apparently because of a few selected individuals in quest for (more) power (isn’t that what it all always comes down to?) and the inevitable cause vs consequences analysis -, this novel is analogous to Tolstoy’s War and Peace, where we understand the effects that the French invasion had in Russia through the lives of (mainly) the Rostóvs and the Bolkonskys.

For film buffs: I’ve only watched The Grapes of Wrath directed by John Ford, and I recommend it. Although there are some changes, it stays somewhat faithful to the story and the acting is on point all around, with Jane Darwell (Ma Joad) deservingly winning an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. The major difference from the novel is that the film adaptation switched some events and it ends in a high note, leaving us hopeful and optimistic, under the impression that everything will turn out well. The controversial ending of the book also isn’t on the film.

Rating: putting aside all of the social, political and economic analysis - the book was actually banned in the USA and deemed as propaganda -, the story of the Joads is still very compelling and moving - even though Steinbeck was also accused of too much sentimentalism. It was heartbreaking to wander with them in their unfortunate journey that, sadly, left us with little hope to be expected for the family’s fate: 5 stars.

Absorbing and maddening and depressing. Incredible that a book with so much anti-migrant sentiment against fellow Americans is timely in a way Steinbeck didn’t intend for 2017, I’m sure.

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.

Depressing, melodramatic, furious and brilliant.

The story tellers, gathering attention into their tales, spoke in great rhythms, spoke in great words because the tales were great, and the listeners became great through them.

n  Know what the preacher says? He says, ‘They’s wicketness in that camp.’ He says, ‘The poor is tryin’ to be rich.’n

The Grapes of Wrath is a truly great book. It does several things at once and it does them all well: history lesson, expose' of social ills, a darn good story filled with larger-than-life characters. And it's all crafted with Steinbeck's masterful ear for language, plain and earnest and true to life.

5 stars. In a rousing good read, Steinbeck captures the heroism inherent in everyday life as people rise to meet challenge after challenge with determination, grit, and no-nonsense practicality. In many ways it's perhaps the most "practical" novel I've come across, and it's wonderful for so many reasons. Steinbeck tackles big human conflicts like generosity and its ugly opposite, greed, and he does not shy from showing things as they really are and challenging us to think about the way we want them to be.

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.

جان گرینِ نویسنده در کتاب "خطای بخت ستارگان ما" گفت:
Pain demands to be felt.
درد باید با تمام وجود حس شود.

این کتاب پر از درد بود. درد انسان های که از خانه‌شان بیرون انداخته شدند، خانه هایی که خودشان با دست خودشان ساخته بودند، یک عمر همراه پدرهاشان و مادرهاشان درآن زندگی کرده و محصول برداشته بودند و حالا باید زمین و خانه را برای دولت و بانک بگذرانند بروند تا بلکه در کالیفرنیا کاری بیابند!
این درد است، درد! چرا که انسان ها حتی به هم نوع خودشان هم رحم نکردند و بسیاری در زندگی درد کشیدند و بسیاری در زندگی خوشی دیدند و خم به ابروی شان نیامد. این کتاب درباره ی مردمانی است که ظلم را دیدند و حس کردند و زندگی کردند.

“...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.”

And so 5 stars for a sobering read that is ‘The Grapes of Wrath’, an epic story and a haunting journey of the Joad family that epitomises the plight of many people during the 1930’s Great Depression. Route 66 became a path of people in flight as they headed west in search of a livelihood after the devasting effects of the dust and scorching summer that destroyed their agricultural and their means of supporting their families with it.

A book that tells of hunger and destitution while the landowners and large companies reeked in huge profits while forcing people to work in atrocious conditions and for appalling wages. It tells of the brutality at the hands of law and order that was unleashed to keep a desperate work force subservient and in need. And it tells of the lack of morality as thousands of people were subjected to the most inhumane treatment, in living conditions tantamount to slavery.

“And the migrants streamed in on the highways and their hunger was in their eyes, and their need was in their eyes. They had no argument, no system, nothing but their numbers and their needs.”

After an arduous journey across America, people continued to experience the worst of exhaustion, fatigue, and tiredness beyond what any sleep could cure as they toiled the lands and witnessed the large companies destroy crops, because to give it away free meant people would not be forced to buy this produce.

Review and Comments

John Steinbeck writes a fascinating story of crime that goes beyond denunciation, and through his writing you can feel the sorrow and desperation etched on the faces and in the souls of men, women and children, and in the case of the Joad family like many others would have been forced to bury their dead en route.

He tells of story of the have's and have not's', but not just in financial terms, the have not's are those devoid of any moral code and abused a people displaced and in need, starving without homes, and without shelter. The have's were the people rich in their values and you can feel this in the way Steinbeck describes their sense of community, demonstrating the best of human nature, as he speaks of the “…twenty families that became one family, the children were the children of all. The loss of home became one loss, and the golden time in the West was one dream”

A powerful literacy feast for the eyes, a tale of hardship that touches your heart, and a master class in writing that has stood the test of time. Epic, reflective, haunting, absorbing and yet beautiful.

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.

This was a library book. I didn't get on with it at all despite trying to read it twice. I gave up about a third of the way through in the end.

It is about the life of one American family during the Great Depression. There is some beautiful creative writing in places but the story itself is so very slow. It just didn't hold my interest due to the lengthy dialogue between the characters who were talking about nothing in particular. It was like being a fly on the wall at a really dull tea party where everyone is making small talk. It seems they were allowing waves of nostalgia to sweep over them--forcing everyone to listen as one by one they recounted monotonous tales from their youth.

I guess I probably shouldn't make such comments about something labelled a classic, but for me it was not. As a Christian, I also found the language, particularly the regular blasphemy, offensive and would probably have stopped reading earlier for that reason had it not been a classic. I also didn't appreciate the early scenes where the local vicar was using his position to bed all of the young women in his parish.

I don't recommend this book due to the language, the sexual content and the monotony, I'm sorry I wasted a few hours on it. I consider that I have carried out my duty by advising you, fellow readers, not to do the same.

The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck is the epitome of the mid nineteenth century American novel. At once bitterly heartbreaking and sweeping in its commentary on human strength and dignity, The Grapes of Wrath follows along with the Joad family as they make their trek away from dust ridden Oklahoma to the promised land of California, learning what is takes to survive, and becoming stronger individuals through it all. A story of humanity, loss, struggle and triumph. Five stars.

This book was incredibly scary; especially because it was so realistic. John Steinbeck has a way of depicting society and people in a raw and honest way that leaves you with a hollow feeling inside, and yet you devour his books because they are so amazing.
In "The Grapes of Wrath" we meet Tom, who has just been released from prison on probation, as well as his family who's about to move to the West because banks and tractors have evicted them from their own home and land. It's USA in the middle of the Great Depression and times are changing. Everyone is moving from East to West in order to find work and survive these new and abhorrent circumstances.
In many ways, the writing of this book is very straight-forward, but at the same time it digs deeper when you read between the lines and look behind the characters' behaviour and dialogue. I was especially fond of how Steinbeck, at every other chapter, stops up to depict the conditions in America at that point in time; whether it be about a car seller and his greediness, the devastating conditions for the workers in the fruit fields or a turtle.
I was a big fan, and especially the ending left me speechless. Until now, "East of Eden" has been my favourite of Steinbeck's, but "The Grapes of Wrath" is a close runner-up.

Un posto in cui stare

"E le stelle sono così vicine, e la tristezza e il piacere sono così intrecciati che sembrano la stessa cosa. Vorrei essere sempre sbronzo. Chi lo dice che è male? I predicatori - ma quelli si sbronzano alla loro maniera. Le zitelle acide - ma quelle sono troppo infelici per capire. I moralisti - ma quelli la vita la vedono troppo da lontano per capire."

"Ma questa terra è nostra. L'abbiamo misurata e l'abbiamo dissodata. Su questa terra siamo nati, su questa terra ci siamo fatti uccidere, su questa terra siamo morti. Anche se non serve più a niente, è ancora nostra. Ecco cosa la rende nostra: esserci nati, lavorarci, morirci. È questo a darcene il possesso, non un pezzo di carta con sopra dei numeri."

"Non era una preghiera da predicatore."
"Era una buona preghiera. Voglio che ne dice una pure per me."
"Non so che dire."
"Basta che la dice in silenzio. Non serve che ci mette le parole. Va bene uguale."
"Io non ho un Dio," disse il predicatore Casy.
"Un Dio ce l'ha. Non importa se non sa com'è fatto."

Scriveva Daniele Luttazzi, in risposta al giornalista Andrea Scanzi, che “la satira è arte, e lascia l’uditorio libero di decidere sul da farsi, mentre la propaganda partitica è marketing del potere, e ti dice per chi votare. Se fondi un partito, sei encomiabile: ma da quel momento non riuscirai più a fare satira. Satira e propaganda partitica sono inconciliabili”.
Questo breve estratto mi è utile per arricchire l’ottima introduzione di Luigi Sampietro, la cui presentazione inquadra Steinbeck come autore fondamentalmente populista e apolitico.
Non sono d’accordo sul fatto che Steinbeck sia un autore apolitico, perché la dimensione stessa del populismo dei suoi scritti - anche Uomini e topi è pervaso da questa narrazione, dal basso, della bassa manovalanza - porta l’autore a focalizzare l’attenzione sull’ingiustizia capillare che il sistema capitalistico perpetra, ogni giorno, in (quasi) tutti gli strati sociali.
L’opera, all’indomani della sua uscita, fu accostata a fantomatiche esaltazioni della comunità ebraica; e al contempo, dall’altra parte, fioccavano frecciatine su una possibile visione comunista, facilmente deducibile dall’odissea della famiglia Joad.
Eseguito un parallelismo personale tra satira e opera scritta in relazione a una ipotetica impronta politica, sento di assecondare l'asserzione di Luttazzi: un romanzo che si prefigge l’obiettivo di segnalare un problema o, semplicemente, testimoniare il tempo in cui viene scritto, può tranquillamente essere caratterizzato da una visione della società che valorizzi o tuteli una parte della stessa - quindi, in fin dei conti, trattasi di una visione politica perché volta a contestualizzare i bisogni e la volontà di qualcuno.
La strumentalizzazione per fini politici, come successe a suo tempo con Furore, svilisce la testimonianza e riduce l’opera a semplice appendice del potere.
Politica e propaganda partitica non sono la stessa cosa, ed è proprio su questa sottile differenza che libri come Furore, al netto di chiacchiericci sguaiati e tentativi goffi di ridimensionamento dei temi, approdano alla cerchia ristretta dei capolavori universali.
I contenuti dell’opera sono moderni perché sarà sempre eterna la necessità di tutelare e vegliare sulle persone che subiscono - senza possibilità di resistenza - la forza inesorabile del progresso e la prevaricazione del potere; un compito arduo che la stessa società, ricattata da forze economiche sfuggenti e governi costellati da politici ignoranti (quando va bene), non riesce a garantire.
In questa chiara e limpida necessità Furore nasce, si ritaglia una sua autonomia nell’incedere del tempo e cessa di morire.
Il titolo italiano semplifica l’originale Grapes of wrath, invero più calzante nel descrivere quel processo logorante che muove interi collettivi a nutrire tiepidi moti di speranza per costruirsi un futuro dignitoso e lasciare ai figli un motivo per essere al mondo.
Su questa citazione biblica, riferimenti di cui Furore è pregno da cima a fondo, l’opera costruisce la propria intelaiatura, nel cui centro spiccano tutte le sfumature acquisibili dal concetto di peccato.
Il peccato, nell’accezione più comune del termine, è qualcosa che travalica i dogmi imposti dalla religione, la cui autorità serpeggia con forza laddove istruzione e stimoli ulteriori latitano.
Il peccato può essere tanto ricondotto all’egoismo che porta l’individuo a preservare la propria famiglia quanto alla vergogna di non poter vedere nei propri occhi i figli quando giunge la sera; il peccato è pagare una colpa insanabile con l’espiazione della stessa tramite il sacrificio per chi può ancora salvarsi; il peccato è rendersi consapevoli di essere in una posizione agiata, e da quello scranno dorato cessare di ostentare la propria opulenza; forse il peccato è anche la possibilità ultima che viene abbracciata da una miriade di persone quando non hanno più nulla da perdere.
Furore è un canto ai vinti, la cui unica colpa è stata quella di sognare una vita da vivere.