I have never been much of a fan of short stories. When I decided to read this collection what amazed me was you could easily see how any one of them could have been a novel. The amazing part is the master story teller did it in a short story. Of course the Grapes of Wrath is a masterpiece telling a nightmare in the history of our country that never ceases to grip you no matter how many times you read this magnificent portrayal of human suffering. But, the portrayal of the refusal to give up love and affection for family makes it one of the greatest books of all time.

Seeing the movie before reading the novel inevitably fills the head with scenery and the faces of the actors, as the imagination is a resourceful scavenger of stored memories, but this shift of perception far from ruined my experience with The Grapes of Wrath. There was no way to shake the mug of Henry Fonda from my second acquaintance with Tom Joad. Instead of this serving as a distraction, it provided me with a template to deepen the character of this charismatic, unsubmissive anchor to the novel.

In the novel, you see a slower push of the Joad family off their farm. You see a harder, longer struggle of the "Okies" across the highways of the West and the valleys of California. The novel also ends on a much different note than the film. After leaving the theater, many moviegoers must have felt hopeful and proud for the unquenchable spirit of the little guy. On film, Tom Joad gives his uplifting speech under the clear, endless night sky. On paper, this same speech is given in a makeshift hovel in the ground. The rolling of the credits and the closing of the back cover leaves the spectator in a much different state of mind. The reader most likely feels a mix of slight disgust, sharp compassion, and deep melancholy at the seemingly unchanging cruelness of this world of haves and have-nots. Although Steinbeck may have disagreed, since he is quoted in the Chronology of this book saying that the movie was even more bitter than his novel. If my memory serves me correct, there was also much pressure to change the ending of this novel, but Steinbeck wanted the bitterness of the migrant worker situation to sting the reader as much as possible. This was a master stroke and I respect Steinbeck for ending the story on such an emotional climax.

The structure of the novel is particularly interesting. It's split into exactly 30 chapters. Two to four chapters are dedicated to plot advancement, which are broken up by poetic minuets of a few pages each to shift the perspective away from the Joad family to small portraits of others going about their daily lives. These sections were the most experimental in their use of language and a welcome change of pace from the rest of the novel. The passage at the used car lot stands out particularly well. The perspective would shift from mind of the owner to mind of the salesman to an omniscient description of the car lot to dialogue between the owner and salesman to the mind of the buyer to the dialogue between buyer and salesman. All this was achieved smoothly without much indication in the change of the thinker or speaker. There were several other similar passages. Some summarized the travel of all the Midwestern migrants to the West, framing the narrative in a broader context. One focused on the relations between waitresses and truckers in roadside diners. The first one of these simply followed a turtle as it crossed the road, which invites a metaphorical reading. These deftly-written segues from the main text strengthens the story in at least two ways. One, it invites a metaphorical reading of the Joad story and it drives home the point that this is an example of a much larger trend. And two, it allows the reader some respite from the heavily colloquial dialogue that can weigh down the reading at times. These shifts fasten some poetic wings to help carry the load of this densely-dialectal, dialogue-driven text. It gives Steinbeck some space to show off his writing chops as well and I greatly appreciate the show.

All in all, a classic that thoroughly deserves its status.

I enjoyed all the stories with the exception of 'The Log from the Sea of Cortez.' I got about four chapters in and said nevermind. But the rest of the stories were good, I enjoyed 'The Grapes of Wrath' particularly well, as well as 'The Harvest Gypsies'.

See my individual reviews of _The Long Valley_, _The Grapes of Wrath_, and _The Log from the Sea of Cortez_. I did want to say something about the appendix materials, "The Harvest Gypsies" and "Starvation under the Orange Trees" (later collected in a pamphlet titled _Their Blood Is Strong_). These latter materials are a series of newspaper articles Steinbeck wrote between 1936 and 1938 documenting the "terrorist" tactics of farmers against migrant workers. The anger is righteous and justified, and these articles provide important arguments against trends and events that continue to plague our agricultural system today. Great stuff.

Let us give thanks for library used book sales and Library of America: the former because I was able to snag an LOA edition for two bucks, and the latter because of the meticulous care they take when choosing which works to include in a volume. In this case, the LOA published three volumes to cover as much of Steinbeck's work as possible, the edition I scored covering the author's works from 1936-41. At first glance, I saw the list of works included and thought I'd get to the book at some future date, since I am currently on a quest to dive into Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe series. But upon closer inspection, I discovered that there's a fifty-page section ("About Ed Ricketts"), prior to the start of Sea of Cortez. A biography of sorts, the piece begins with Ed's untimely death, the result of his car colliding with a train. Given the fact that Ricketts and Steinbeck spent some eighteen years hanging out, Steinbeck knew a lot about his friend, which makes all that follows take the form of a eulogy more than a bio. Regardless of form, it's one of the most insightful and affecting tributes I've ever read. John S. covers the man's habits, lifestyle, loves, hates, virtues, vices, good deeds, and all the rest. What emerges is a portrait of an intelligent, passionate man whose interests span the spectrum of human experience. Ricketts was no angel, and I found myself repelled by some of his lifestyle choices, but I look at what he accomplished in the areas of marine biology and ecology, and realize I need to contribute a lot more to the world I live in.

One last note: "The Log from the Sea of Cortez" didn't originally contain the Ricketts bio. Said addition didn't occur until the 1951 edition, three years after Ed's death. That's another thing I like about the Library of America series: they're always thinking of the reader.

I will never forget the last three pages of this book.

Ugh! Worse book ever! What makes this a classic???? You read about this family during the Great Depression, you get close to the characters and it just ends with no resolution, no hope, nothing!!! Ugh!

And this you can know—fear the time when Manself will not suffer and die for a concept, for this one quality is the foundation of Manself, and this one quality is man, distinctive in the universe.

This review is for The Grapes of Wrath only.

This is the second time I’ve read The Grapes of Wrath. I’ve also read a few other works by John Steinbeck. The Grapes of Wrath is a realist novel, third-person narrative, telling the tale of Joad family as they flee the dustbowl of Oklahoma for the land of plenty in California. The book won a Pulitzer Prize for fiction, and was probably the greatest factor leading to Steinbeck’s Nobel Prize.

My full review: http://100greatestnovelsofalltimeques...

My sister gave me this collection for my birthday (thanks, Krista!), and I'm loving it. In addition to The Grapes Of Wrath, which is my favorite novel, this collection includes The Long Valley (a volume of short stories, which are humorous, entertaining, and insightful), The Harvest Gypsies (a work of nonfiction research that laid the groundwork for Grapes), and The Log from the Sea of Cortez (a work of nonfiction featuring Steinbeck's friend, Ed Ricketts). I read The Long Valley first, and I'm reading The Log from the Sea of Cortez right now. I plan to read The Harvest Gypsies next, and then I'll re-read The Grapes of Wrath. I'm loving The Log from the Sea of Cortez so far. Ed Ricketts is the inspiration for several of Steinbeck's fictional characters, including Doc from Cannery Row, so I'm enjoying learning more about the man behind the characters. This is a great collection for the both the Steinbeck novice and the enthusiast, and it comes with a useful built-in book mark.