1000 Books Before You Die discussion

The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck

My first book by this author, & probably the last. What an incredibly depressing story! I found it almost unreadable at first, with a combination of dialect & unfamiliar slang making it very difficult to understand. I was close to abandoning the book for most of the first half. I can see that he was trying to write about social injustice, but it was very repetitive in places.

The slang must be difficult for non North Americans.

Rosemarie wrote: "The slang must be difficult for non North Americans."

I think it was the combination of dialect & slang that really confused me. I had to stop at each unfamiliar word & decide whether it was a word I knew but written phonetically so I didn’t recognise it, or whether it was slang! It even took me a long time to realise that the name “Rose of Sharon” was written in totally different ways depending on context. I always dislike authors using weird spellings to try to represent regional accents, as I think it’s unnecessary - those who know the accent would imagine it anyway, & those who don’t will struggle to understand.

I have the same issue with dialects I am not familiar with.

I read the book when I was 19, which is a good age to read it. I enjoyed it more than East of Eden, which we read in English class.

As I read my way through The Four Winds by Kristin Hannah, I’m considering a reread of Grapes. I read it so long ago, but I know there’s a lot of crossover material. I’m also thinking about The Worst Hard Time, which is a non fiction look at the same era.