Steinbeck: The Grapes of Wrath and Other Writings, 1936-1941

THE GRAPES OF WRATH
I've always favored Steinbeck's work, but it's been decades since I read this, IF I ever read it in its entirety before. I think I was introduced to it in high school but it must have been abridged, bowdlerized, or merely sampled; the sexual references and some of the language were most surely NOT the kind of thing we would have been given to read in my high school. Much of my memory of the story comes from the film, and my impression was of some pretty melodramatic over-acting, and maudlin scenes. The content certainly lends itself to that sort of treatment, and there are segments that could have been trimmed or lightened up, but it's much, much better than I remembered, and there's a lot of true grittiness in it. show more The plight of people driven off their land, where they never had much, into cross-country flight where they have next-to-nothing but baseless hope is really hard to contemplate. And I think there’s a tendency now to believe it couldn’t possibly have been that bad, or anyway it’s history now and could never happen again...well, that’s why a book like this is often on Great American Novel lists. It may be fiction, but it reveals a lot of truth. There is amazing prose here, and the structure was appealing to me—chapters which moved the Joad family’s story along, alternating with chapters which laid out the historical circumstances in more general terms (there was a Faulknerian quality to the prose in some of those chapters, and naturally I lapped that up). Recommended. show less

July 09: The Long Valley, 4 of 5
The most of Valley's collection is solid, standard Steinbeck fare. The eleventh of thirteen stories, "Saint Katy", however, is terribly out of place in both style and content, a poorly executed experiment in fable having nothing whatever to do with the rest of the collection's shared elements of time, manner and place. It's really quite puzzling and bizarre why after ten stories we suddenly leave early 20th-century Salinas Valley in order to witness Steinbeck completely out of his element with a sloppily-written tale of a talking pig's elevation to sainthood by 13th-century monks, only to be thrust back almost with a vengence into the bright, shining star of the collection, the flawless, beautifully show more constructed, exemplary "The Red Pony", which I'm inclined to tuck just behind East of Eden as my favourite Steinbeck work. show less

Grapes of Wrath (2007)

Tom Joad, fresh from a four year bit in prison for manslaughter, accompanies his family to the rumored promised land of California during the dust bowl years. Thousands of families arrive in search of work and they are shuttered into migrant camps. Tensions rise as jobs and food grow scarcer. During an argument over whether to organize into a union, one of Tom’s friends is killed by a policeman and Tom kills the policeman.

Steinbeck was born and raised in the agricultural community of Salinas, CA. As the depression raged, Steinbeck decided to write a novel from the perspective of the poor migrants who were suffering the worst effects. He journeyed with an Oklahoma family to California and used the experience to show more write [Grapes of Wrath].

[Grapes of Wrath] is the plainest of Steinbeck’s social commentaries and it has suffered over the years for its clear intent. Perhaps, because of the way he researched the novel, Steinbeck was too invested in making his point, as the characters and story are stretched a little thin over the social commentary.

Bottom Line: Steinbeck won a Pulizter Prize for the novel but it’s not his best work – too much social commentary and not enough of full-bodied characters and story.

4 bones!!!!! show less

The Grapes of Wrath is one of my absolute favorite books of all time and inspired me to write my junior year term paper on Steinbeck in high school. Steinbeck's creative use of ordinary objects and circumstances to tell such a dramatic story is one aspect that really sets this story apart.

"The long valley", "The wrapes of wrath", "The log from the sea of Cortez", "The harvest sypsies"

Fiction