Publisher : Demco Media
Publication Date : 1976 09
>> A Tragedy that Lifts Our Big Human Soul
More than grapes and more than wrath The Grapes of Wrath is a story about everlasting hope and compassion despite pervasive hardship poverty and death The Joad family uprooted from their 40 acre Oklahoma farm during the late 1930s by economic hard times brought on by drought and dust storms and exacerbated by corporate greed and efficiencies of big agriculture journey westward to California because they got to in order to stay alive make a decent living and retain a tenuous sliver of human dignity
Through strife exhaustion and personal tragedy the Joads maintain their faith that the sun will shine tomorrow no matter how heavily the rain falls today In sharp contrast to Grampa s dream to get me a whole bunch a grapes off a bush and squash em on my face an let em run offen my chin and the family s hope that it ll be all different out there plenty work an ever thing nice an green an little white houses an oranges growin aroun California for the newcomer Joads is synonymous with difficulty finding work menial wages when work is available harsh living conditions blatant animosity towards Okies from the local residents constant money shortages and always being hungry By story s end we are left wondering how the Joads are any better off after being flooded out of their railcar encampment next to a cotton field in central California but we somehow find solace and comfort in the poignancy of Rosasharn s bighearted willingness to give from her own breast the precious life she has to share
According to Steinbeck and I think he is right on this point the most generous people are those who have the least material wealth and fewest possessions For the quality of owning freezes you forever into I and cuts you off forever from the we Further in the words of reformed ex preacher Casy whose voice is probably Steinbeck s a fella ain t got a soul of his own but on y a piece of a big one If only each of us in our consumerist 21st century material bliss could take this message to heart perhaps our ever so efficient profit oriented techno mechanical world might become a friendlier more compassionate place better fit for our one big human soul
From a stylistic point of view I found the many interludes juxtaposed between the primary chapters of the book more distracting than informative particularly the ones written in stream of consciousness form If the reason for including these extraneous interludes is to provide background information to complement the Joad chapters then in my opinion Steinbeck should have adhered to a more documentary form in these sections doing the research to develop the interludes into a more substantive and factual picture of the historical setting condition of American society during the Great Depression years and ironies of California as a land of boundless opportunity
>> The Grapes of Wrath
The condition of the book was not as described in the offer I believe it was described as nearly new or as New and the book was very tattered and marked up with a red felt pen in places
not real happy with that Haven t had a problem in the past with Amazon
>> My favorite book tied w/ Anne of Green Gables
This book isn t for everyone People I know who haven t liked it say that it was too slow or What s the deal with the turtle and didn t get past the first couple chapters Some say it s just too sad
For me this book meant everything To the red country and part of the gray country of Oklahoma the last rains came gently and they did not cut the scarred earth When I read this first line I remember feeling like it was a line that I would always remember I had the sense that I wasn t reading a story that some guy named Steinbeck came up with I felt like the true feelings and experiences of a very real group of people were simply being funneled to me via Steinbeck s pen
The story felt very relevant to early 21st century America in that Fear seemed to be at the root of all evil The Grapes of Wrath showed how Fear could be used to control and exploit people on a huge scale It also depicted the human experience as profoundly intertwined with the earth The characters lives were turned upside down by nature first by drought and later by flood The very last scene showed how all of us are on this earth in this life together like it or not and I found comfort in that
I had goosebumps and a pounding heart All this for a book where the main characters speak in dialect about the Fambly Somehow John Steinbeck managed to fit what to me is essentially the meaning of life into a short novel about sharecroppers in the 30s
An amazing book Please read it all of it
