Reading the 20th Century discussion

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The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck

This discussion will open on or around 1 October 2019

The Pulitzer Prize-winning epic of the Great Depression, a book that galvanized—and sometimes outraged—millions of readers.

First published in 1939, Steinbeck’s Pulitzer Prize-winning epic of the Great Depression chronicles the Dust Bowl migration of the 1930s and tells the story of one Oklahoma farm family, the Joads—driven from their homestead and forced to travel west to the promised land of California. Out of their trials and their repeated collisions against the hard realities of an America divided into Haves and Have-Nots evolves a drama that is intensely human yet majestic in its scale and moral vision, elemental yet plainspoken, tragic but ultimately stirring in its human dignity. A portrait of the conflict between the powerful and the powerless, of one man’s fierce reaction to injustice, and of one woman’s stoical strength, the novel captures the horrors of the Great Depression and probes into the very nature of equality and justice in America. At once a naturalistic epic, captivity narrative, road novel, and transcendental gospel, Steinbeck’s powerful landmark novel is perhaps the most American of American Classics.

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Who is reading/has read this one? I read it at school and revisited a couple of years ago - very powerful. I also think the John Ford film with Henry Fonda is excellent.

I'm not reading it this time round. I read it about ten years ago and was blown away by it. It's incredibly powerful and moving.

I'm reading it, about 100 pages in. I was gripped from the first pages.

Judy wrote: "Who is reading/has read this one? I read it at school and revisited a couple of years ago - very powerful. I also think the John Ford film with Henry Fonda is excellent."

This will be my next to read. I read it when I was young , but think I was probably a bit too young for it, so have decided to have another go.

I'd never read this before and was immediately struck by how different it is in tone and style from the only other Steinbeck I've read: East of Eden.

I like the way Steinbeck mixes up vernacular/dialect with a biblical tone (it shares that with East of Eden), and those interspersed chapters that are more conventionally panoramic.

I found it impossible to read this without comparing it to the invective to that we hear today against migrants and refugees. It's interesting that in the book, the migrant 'Okies' are god-fearing white Americans - yet are still described as 'not human', at one point are likened to gorillas.

I am planning on starting this weekend. I'm not reading tonight - I'm watching a movie like a wild child.

I read it in high school ('60s). I also read most of Steinbeck then.

A couple of years ago a couple of GR friends wanted to do a buddy read. I read sone and it got lost on my kindle. I have picked it back up again and am a little over halfway through.

I've been surprised that Steinbeck plays down the politics in this book - we get some mentions of unions (re-named 'red' agitators) and strike-breakers but I can't help wondering if European novelists would have been more systematic in analysing the Depression in political economical terms.

Is this one of the reasons that Steinbeck is high school reading material in the US?

He's very readable. We read The Pearl and The Red Pony and then The Grapes of Wrath.

They are great discussion books, too.

I've read this before, I think while I was in college (though not for a class) and I don't remember being as blown away as I am reading it again now. The little "interludes" between chapters are just continuously amazing.

Politics - he also describes "Hooverville" (there was a Hooverville on the edge of every town"...)

It feels a bit more like Of Mice and Men (style-wise, in some ways) than something like The Pearl or East of Eden.

I don't know a lot about Steinbeck. He seems very concerned with the poor and the people thrust to the edges of society. Is this part of his biography or just something he was interested in?

Much of what I know of his personal life I read in John Steinbeck, Writer by Jackson J. Benson and Working Days: The Journals of The Grapes of Wrath. He was from Salinas, California. And that's the area where most of his books take place. Attended Stanford but not sure that he ever graduated.

I am so glad to have reread this one. I don't know that I'd have pulled it off my shelves again without this group, so thank you for giving me an opportunity to do something I've wanted to do. It makes me sad in some ways, to see how very "American" the idea of anti-immigration (even from east of California) is, or the othering of everyone, the idea that the wealthy are more deserving of life. Plus, there is just some beautiful but never flowery writing here. Thanks, group!

It's a masterpiece isn't it Ella? And one which never loses its power.