The Grapes of Wrath in Catching up on Classics (and lots more!)

May 30, 2012 Denise rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, classic, related-media, kindle-owned

I never wanted to read this book. Boring, non-sense title, too recent history, dislike of modern authors- need any more excuses? Well, this was another of my mom's favorites that I felt obligated to read and as is the burgeoning pattern, she was right. Again.

I am from Oklahoma, my great grandmother lived through the dust bowl, and this is my history. After reading this, I'm even more proud to call myself an Okie. It was originally a derogative term, but I think they got it wrong. The Okies may I never wanted to read this book. Boring, non-sense title, too recent history, dislike of modern authors- need any more excuses? Well, this was another of my mom's favorites that I felt obligated to read and as is the burgeoning pattern, she was right. Again.

I am from Oklahoma, my great grandmother lived through the dust bowl, and this is my history. After reading this, I'm even more proud to call myself an Okie. It was originally a derogative term, but I think they got it wrong. The Okies may have been displaced, dirty, poor and unwanted- but they were fighters who believed in the sacredness of family, pride and work. They were put down, kicked, and starved- but they fought hard for their survival and I don't think there is anything dishonorable about that.

This all came out in The Grapes of Wrath, in the earthy characters of the Joad family and the other good but put-out people they met. I thought it was especially poignant considering what is going on economically now. We have made a full circle straight back to the time period being written about. You could easily update the story by changing the professions, but little else need be touched. Disheartening, if you let it be.

As to the book; it is written with long chapters encapsulating story telling about the family's travails, followed by shorter, wispy descriptions the atmosphere in which it all takes place. How others in society are finding things, the weather conditions that are relevant to what is going on, etc. It gives great depth to your understanding of what is happening even if you previously knew nothing about the era. The book is absolutely complete if you want to know about the subject.

What isn't complete is the saga of the family. I got so into the story that I wanted to know if they ever escaped their predicament. As I got near the end of the book, I realized I was not going to find out how people came out the end. I thought maybe there would be a clue as to how we, today, would find the light at the end of the tunnel, but there was no answer- except that we are all still here after this happened to our ancestors, meaning we survive. Even without answers, the ending was a shock for me. I have to admit to being repulsed at the last scene. The action left me sick to my stomach, for what was physically happening, but if you can get over that you realize it was well intentioned and noble, I suppose. Someone giving the very last thing they have to help someone else survive. The story is worth every one of those five stars. If you think you aren't interested, read it anyway. ...more

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Jan 09, 2013 Jacob rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites, fiction

Lately I have been trying to fit some of the books I somehow missed during my high school English classes into my reading schedule. I had been putting off reading The Grapes of Wrath in particular for a while. The premise sounded dull and depressing. The perils of a migrant fruit picker during the Great Depression? Nice try hippie commie freeloader, now take a bath and go get a job like the rest of us hard working Americans! Also at some point I had gotten it into my head that this was going to Lately I have been trying to fit some of the books I somehow missed during my high school English classes into my reading schedule. I had been putting off reading The Grapes of Wrath in particular for a while. The premise sounded dull and depressing. The perils of a migrant fruit picker during the Great Depression? Nice try hippie commie freeloader, now take a bath and go get a job like the rest of us hard working Americans! Also at some point I had gotten it into my head that this was going to be a book about some guy complaining for hundreds of pages about how much it sucks to pick grapes. (If I want a story about grapes and California, I’ll watch Sideways.) Two things I learned:

1. I was completely wrong (about him complaining not about the part that picking grapes does in fact suck).
2. I’m glad I waited until now to read this.

Honestly I would not have appreciated this in high school. This was partly due to my lack of life experiences at the time but also because it was the 90s. You might remember the 90s: great economy, declining national debt, flannel, and airport security checks that did not involve scenes from Deliverance. Back then, I would have read this book, maybe thought it was a little interesting, and then forgotten it because hey this is America and the only people without jobs are the rampant welfare queens and Phish Heads. Now it’s 2013 and the parallels are scary. Maybe not the severity or the mass migration westwards, but the pervasive fear. The fear of the unemployed over how they will feed and house their families, the fear of the employed that they’ll lose their jobs, and the seemingly media-incited fear that the unemployed are ruining America with their sheer laziness. It’s this Fear that has become our new symbol, like Uncle Sam with a finger pointed at each one of us. That’s why this story is important, because it takes those problems and emotions and gives them a physical element that allows us to study and dissect them, to say “this is what’s wrong; this is what we need to change.”

On a side note about the 90s and this book: every so often while reading, I would find myself humming RATM’s rendition of "The Ghost of Tom Joad." Hadn’t heard the song in years.
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Oct 19, 2010 Adam rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites

A riveting portrayal of the Joad family as they make their way to work and survival through the Great Depression. Steinbeck has an overal tone to the story that big business = bad... small common man worker = good. I'm sure in those days businesses were not very fair, civil or kind to the low level workers; or the overall welfare of society. As we still see to this very day, food compaies dumping product that wouldn't make a profit. Dumping food and supplies rather than shipping to those in need ...more

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Dec 25, 2022 Bob Finch rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction

A slow read, one that delves into the bleak lives of those trapped as servant-laborers in an increasingly capitalistic (im)morality, where those who work for wages are left with a choice between dignity and self respect or feeding oneself and a family. Of course we choose the family over such abstract concepts, but the impact on those who must live it out is immeasurably destructive to the human spirit. Steinbeck captures that well.

Steinbeck further views this situation through the eyes of the A slow read, one that delves into the bleak lives of those trapped as servant-laborers in an increasingly capitalistic (im)morality, where those who work for wages are left with a choice between dignity and self respect or feeding oneself and a family. Of course we choose the family over such abstract concepts, but the impact on those who must live it out is immeasurably destructive to the human spirit. Steinbeck captures that well.

Steinbeck further views this situation through the eyes of the “other,” so-called “Okies” displaced by the same heartless system to which they are ultimately subjected but in a ‘foreign’ land (midwesterners in California in this case). The Okies are seen by the locals as a threat, both to their livelihoods and their culture. The parallels to today’s attitudes towards immigrants is inescapable.

(There is also an interesting irony in the forced displacement of these farmers from “their” land, which Steinbeck seems to hint at, if only just barely. The not-so-distant ancestors of those very same farmers forcibly removed (murdered and drove off) the indigenous people that had thrived there for millennia.)

My main criticism of the book is its painfully slow pace and redundancy, especially in the dialog. Steinbeck really needed a better editor. I suppose he might have been trying to put the reader into a state of mind of that endless struggle towards some end (not unlike Life if Pi, in a way), but a little (or a lot) of cutting out would have surely helped.

And quite the ending indeed, if I can call it that; not so much an “ending,” more like the novel just stopped. Nothing was resolved. If anything it got increasingly bleaker, then just quit. I’ve seen a few comments about that ending scene here. I won’t elaborate, but I would say those who emphasized the positive aspect of giving even when you have almost nothing left have, consciously or not, mythologized a noble poor working class rather than seeing the final act as an epitome of the extremes to which an immoral system will drive those most vulnerable to it and on whom it depends.

Interesting that, 80-some years later, nothing much has changed. Most of us remain prisoners of a wage economy subjected to authoritarian corporations without much need to appease their workers. In the US, at least, the myth of the self-made man persists as both excuse for unimaginable accumulation of wealth (generally in the hands of the already well-off), and as a cudgel with which to denigrate those who cannot rise above their servitude to the corporation: ”If you’re poor in America, it’s your own damned fault, because opportunity abounds—for those who have the courage and determination.” Steinbeck (and many other writers) betray the lie at the heart of that myth.

Finally, I think it interesting that the real main character in the novel was Ma, not Tom Joad as I remember the movie portraying him (to my vague recollection anyway). I’d love to read a feminist perspective on the novel. ...more

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