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The Grapes of Wrath
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I need to review the book it has been years since I have read it. I remember in high school my final paper was about The Grapes Of Wrath in correlation to the need for social security . As I recall I received an A+ for my effort.
Ahhhhh I love those A for efforts. This think I have been meaning to read this book for years.
Lindz wrote: "Ahhhhh I love those A for efforts. This think I have been meaning to read this book for years. "So you are reading it also?
I look forward to reading your review, Carol.
Bhumi I just did a quick re-read. I remember the plight of the Joads struck me as exploitation by the big landowners. I read this in the late 1960's when Caesar Chavez was active in the plight of the migrant Mexican workers. I think that paralleled the time frame of Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath , even though the book was written some 30 years before. It was the same story but different people. I am not a union person, but I do feel a strong sense of justice when people are disenfranchised. This book was written in 1939, it is a timeless chronicle of Americana. I know my parents made the journey along Route 66 in the early 60's to California. Now people are making the mass exodus in the opposite direction.
I read this for school, as well. Riveting and heartbreaking.My Grandmother told me stories of the families in L.A., living in the vacant lots, many of them dying from hunger.
She bought groceries for her family of 4 on $2.50 a WEEK, and managed to bake bread and take it around to these people living in boxes.
Bhumi (and others if interested), I would also recommend Let Us Now Praise Famous Men as, I guess, a companion. The photographs are by Walker Evans whose black/white photos from the Great Depression are common on a lot of those Penguin classics. I only gave the book two stars, but that doesn't mean much. Other people really enjoyed it and I thought about Grapes of Wrath a lot while reading it.
I have The Grapes of Wrath on my TBR list. Love the movie. Will hopefully get to the book within the next couple of months. :)
Carol - You're right; it's a universal novel that can relate to many different times in history, although Steinback specifically wrote about the Great Depression. Also, you have some interesting history in your own family (even though being forced to leave your home is, of course, not a good thing)! Suzanne - Yup. Living in the Great Depression was very tough.
Eli - Thanks for the recommendation. I haven't finished the book yet, but if I like it, then I'll definitely check out Let Us Now Praise Famous Men.
rytr_1 - I haven't seen the movie, but you should definitely read the book if you liked the film. I bet the book is even better.
The movie is a great visual aid in conjunction with the book.
Yup, although many times I conjure up pictures in my head that tend to clash with the movie's interpretation.
Books for me sometimes add to the movies, so that even though parts are missing in the movies, I can add to it from reading the books first. So I am not put off by reading first then seeing movie.
Me neither. Actually, I prefer reading the book first!
Spot on Bhumi
I just read this book a couple of months ago, and am a HUGE Steinbeck fan. My favorite of his is East of Eden. As for Grapes of Wrath, many things in the book were distressing to me. It was really sobering to read how used these people were, and how there was no one to be an advocate for them. As Carol said, I am not a union person, but these people certainly needed someone or a group of someones to even the playing field. I found that my favorite character in the book ended up being Ma Joad. What a strong woman she was. Through everything that happened, she tried to keep her family together and focused. On as aside note Bhumi, I too usually like to read the book before I see the movie. As Carol says, you can fill in the missing parts that way. Sometimes, though, I will end up seeing the movie first, and then reading the book and saying -- Aha, that's what the author was getting at!.
I'm also one of those huge Steinbeck fans, and I agree with Lyn about East of Eden. So good. I loved The Grapes of Wrath too, and I remember loving the third chapter (you know, the turtle chapter...). It's interesting to go back and reread it once you've finished the novel because the chapter roughly parallels the whole story.
That's true Tara. Steinbeck made every other chapter in the book a general chapter, supposedly so he could proselytize about the situation in general without having to worry about character development. Those were some of my favorite chapters, and the turtle is probably the best of the lot.
Hey guys! I just finished reading The Grapes of Wrath. Check out my review.Lyn - I know what you mean. Many of the things he described in the book were realistic in a very harsh way. Steinback doesn't hesitate to be honest and straightforward in his writing. And yes, Ma is truly an admirable character. Although I thought most of the characters were really interesting.
Tara - Yup, the turtle's a metaphor.
I have heard so much about that turtle! Every time someone tells me about the book, the turtle comes up. Is he a main character :).
The turtle is technically not a main character, but it represents the migrants. At least, I think so :)
Yes as with a turtle, everything was on their backs.(trucks,cars)
Yup. And the protective shell...
At times the Joads just landed on their backs , some righted themselves and some did not. I wish he had wrote a sequel to this book.
they "squat on their hams" a lot in that book. So now whenever we see anyone squatting for one reason or another, I always think, "hey, he/she's squatting on his/her hams!"
Rosemary wrote: "they "squat on their hams" a lot in that book. So now whenever we see anyone squatting for one reason or another, I always think, "hey, he/she's squatting on his/her hams!""Hi Rosemary,
paul Rix here, when did you take the picture of my cat Zebadee? Does your ginger and white monster help you type? Zebadee tries to help me by resting his chin on the spacebar!!!!
I'm sorry. Even though people are in love with this book (I have some friends and a cousin that enjoyed it), I didn't care for it. I'm still looking forward to reading other Steinbeck's works, but I did this for my AP english class and I couldn't get into it. :(
I can sympathize, Ivana. It's not one of my favorite books, just extremely well-written, I think.
The only Steinbeck book I did not care for was The Winter of Our Discontent. I just could not finish it.
I read this book in high school and the only thing I remember is that I found it depressing and the last scene. It's the only Steinbeck I've read, I intending to pick up Of Mice and Men at some point.
Yup, the last scene of this book's pretty controversial.
Bhumi: It was rumoured that Steinbeck really admired Herman Melville, so he modeled this book in Melville's style (like Moby Dick - every other chapterto comment on the culture and situation they were in; as Lyn's post above says). That's what lots of people don't like about Melville, but it works here for Steinbeck. I thought the book was too depressing.
Too many characters died. I found the Ma Joad character the most depressing - don't know why... and for part of the book they were camped near water - the Californians were destroying their food and they were stariving. I wondered why they wouldn't just try to catch fish? Instead they were trying to survive on fried dough.
Did anybody in here watch the movie Little Miss Sunshine? I see a lot of similarities between that family and the plight of the Joads.
ha ha Philip - you are right - I especially liked the bickering grandparents in The Grapes of Wrath - I was upset that they died so early in the story.
I actually found Ma Joad inspiring in a way. No matter what happened, she kept plodding along. I think I would have given up long before she did. As for depressing, Yes - the books was very depressing, as was that whole period in history. And Steinbeck has a tendency to be depressing anyway, IMO. Very few of his books could be classed as uplifting. I think I am drawn to him for two reasons: I like his writing style and he writes about the area that I live in. (he actually worked for my brother in law's family while he was writing Of Mice and Men).
Brenda - A good point about the fishing, I never thought about it before. I wonder if they were not allowed to fish for some reason? Or Steinbeck just made a writer's error, huh?
Have any of you seen the movie with Henry Fonda? They left out the controversy of the last scene, as a matter of fact, they left out the whole last quarter of the book, and ended on a somewhat "happy" note.
Lyn M, one of my friends is an English major like myself and we tried to think of canonical American literature from around this time that isn't depressing but couldn't think of anything.
Brenda: I agree. The book was overflowing with sadness.Philip: I've seen it. And I can see the similarities too. Good connection!
Lyn M: I haven't seen the movie but I heard about the fact that they omitted that scene, but the whole last quarter? I didn't expect that.
Liz: Haha I know what you mean. Ever read The Jungle? It was written earlier than The Grapes of Wrath, but it is also ridiculously depressing.
It was a Depression in more ways than one.
I loved this book! Cried so hard at the end when the daughter who lost her baby breast feeds the dying father while they're stuck in the railcar. My grandmother moved to California from Oklahoma during that time period and refused to talk about it. Was very sweet woman, but if someone called her an Okie, she'd get spitting mad. Now it's a fun term, then it wasn't. And people actually did die of starvation during that time period. My grandmother and grandfather lived in someone's shed for about a year with 4 kids and this is where the temperature goes from 110 degrees to 25 degrees. A lot of the stuff in the book really did happen to people. Awful time in America.
Carolyn, after reading this book, I can see how your grandmother must feel. I'm so sorry.Yes, a seriously horrible time in the US.
Bhumi, yes I've read The Jungle. You'd think it would convince me to be a vegetarian, but I also realize that the book helped bring about change in America's meat packing industry. And I've tried to stop eating meat and failed, lol.Carolyn, I'm sorry to hear about all of your grandmother's struggles. I think I would have benefitted from reading more about the history of the time period while reading The Grapes of Wrath.
Liz wrote: "Bhumi, yes I've read The Jungle. You'd think it would convince me to be a vegetarian, but I also realize that the book helped bring about change in America's meat packing industry. And I've tried..."I think that it's also sad that Upton Sinclair's real intention involved more of exposing the poor people's ways of life and struggles during the time period not just the flaws of the meatpacking industry. Unfortunately, conditions in the US didn't change for a long time. At least, not for families like Jurgis's.
Yeah, didn't Sinclair say something like, "I aimed for the public's heart and accidentally hit it's stomach" or something like that?I've only ever read excerpts, and never had the ... um... stomach? heart? to read the whole thing.
Philip, he did say something like that, although I don't remember the exact quote.Me neither - I regret reading it for that reason.
What do you guys think?