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Read this book. Especially at the end, the last symbol in the book is just speechless. It just may be one of the best classic books out there. I read this book for my AP Composition class and it is just simply astounding. Not only does it do an amazing job of reflecting the Dust Bowel during the Great Depression, but also uses a variety of symbols in order to more effectively send the message of the book to the readers.
One of his finest. Steinbeck's writing is unparalleded in this description of the Family Joad and their quest to make it to California and the drama that ensues. Everyone should read this book.
With the "new hard times" upon us, and "the market" has again proven to be "a god that failed," I thought Steinbeck's book worthy of a re-read. Ma Joad, in particular, is a stoic, heroic figure. It has lost none of its power over the intervening years; unfortunately the issues described resonate today. There are some charming vignettes, like the waitress in the diner, dealing with the nasty, economically affluent, and the kindness of truck drivers, the "knights of the road." Steinbeck won the Nobel Prize for this book; modestly he claimed he did not deserve it, but no other book has so successfully captured the anguish of that era.Lessons for today abound: "And the great owners, who must lose their land in an upheaval, the great owners with access to history, with eyes to read history and to know the great fact: when property accumulates in too few hands it is taken away." (p324). The crime and the sorrow that the subject sentences refer to was aptly characterized by Steinbeck in a previous paragraph: "Men who can graft the trees and make the seed fertile and big can find no way to let the hungry people eat their produce.
"The Grapes of Wrath" was excellent the first time around, and equally so, and even more relevant today. Unlike some books that I had to read in high school, it is a good, solid, easy-to-read book. Alas, many of these students will become adults, who never read a book again, though they might now have the time standing in the unemployment lines. Steinbeck is a master storyteller.
The epic of "those dustbowl days," when large swaths of American farmers in the Mid-West were driven off their land, and turned into migrants, is told in microcosm, personified by the Joad family, trying to stay together in adversity, with the centrifugal forces pulling them apart. Men who have created new fruits in the world cannot create a system whereby their fruits may be eaten." I first read those words some 40 years ago, have carried them with me, along with the intervening image that Steinbeck described, that of hungry people not being able to eat the oranges that had been dumped, and squirted with kerosene in order to destroy them, essentially because the "market" demanded it. Essentially nothing has changed, save for the more global dimension of the issue, since Steinbeck wrote: "And money that might have gone to wages went for gas, for guns, for agents and spies, for blacklists, for drilling." (p388)Later in life Steinbeck seemed to have forgotten: ".and they reassured themselves that they were good and the invaders bad, as a man must do before he fights" (p 386). It didn't really work out that way. His characterization of the members of the Joad family, and people they meet along "the mother road," Rt. 66 is likewise strong.
Steinbeck supported the Vietnam War.I was surprised and sadden by the number of 1-star reviews, mainly by high school students, "forced" to read the book, "irrelevant ancient history" that they might start re-living. Steinbeck alternates these chapters with short, pithy descriptive chapters of the macrocosm, the overall social and economic forces that produced this tragedy.
(p 407).
One even said that Steinbeck was a communist, apparently not having read: "A red is any SOB that wants thirty cents an hour when we're payin' twenty-five". The hunger that Steinbeck described in America has been attenuated, but not eliminated over the years, and there is still a vast operation here in ABQ, involving thousands of volunteers, to "feed the hungry." I live only four miles from the old Route 66, and each day one can still witness America's "lumpenproletariat," although they would certainly never use that word, wandering up and down the street, on their way to California, where their life will be different, or returning, after it proved not to be.
World War II was to finally provide the "meaningful employment" that ended the depression, and dealt with the issue of surplus production far more dramatically that kerosene on oranges. Steinbeck is a master of dialogue, capturing the rural patois of the heartland.
Only a few days ago there was a picture in the NYT of new homes being demolished in Victorville, CA, again, because "the market" demanded it. And Tom was famously played by a young Henry Fonda in the movie.
Even though the kids might find it boring or slow paced at times, they might find themselves wondering how it ends with the Joad family. It's a good book to use as an example in an English class. But if they focus on the actual purpose of the book, they will be able to understand it a bit better. The book is a classic and for most of the story it shows. The author obviously knows how to use his symbolism through out the selection.
You will not be disappointed. Eye opening and inspiring, a feel good book in the tradition of Marly. Just finished this great book and have promised to pass it on to my fiance and daughter. You will laugh, you will cry, and you will learn all about how easy it's not to own a vineyard.
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