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Summary: The Grapes of Wrath
Review: The Grapes of Wrath captures the life of many people in this time period. It is a descriptive novel, which gives a good insight as to what living was like during the Great Depression by telling the story of the Joad family, whom are moving out West looking for work because the bank has kicked them off the land. It was a good novel about the struggles of life in the 1930's.
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Summary: Juicy Grapes
Review: The Grapes of Wrath tells the story of the Joad family, a poor farming family who have been forced off their land and journeyed west to California in search of prosperity. The story of their continuing hardships gives the reader a personal connection to the plight of the poor population during the Depression. This was an excellent novel, putting the human face on one of the darkest periods of our American history.
Rating:
Summary: Grapes of Wrath
Review: This book shows the hardships of life in the 1920s, depicting the lives of migrant families who were forced out of their farms and homelands. As the characters go on both physical and personal journeys, the book shows how faith and hope can guide people through the hard times.
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Summary: A classic about slack-jawed yokels that doesn't get tar'd
Review: This book has stood the test of time and remains an American classic. Throughout the book, Steinbeck gives us an intimate insider's view of the Joad family by providing a narration and dialogue with an incredibly fine level of detail. The description of the poverty and difficulties of the Joads is so vivid that I couldn't help but feel for the human condition back then. To be poor is one thing, but to live without knowing where your next meal is coming from is quite another. The most vivid passage for me is in Ch. 28, when the Joads have been working on the cotton farm for a while and Ma Joad has accumulated enough money to finally go on a "spending spree" at the market. She probably didn't have more than a few dollars, yet when she buys enough food for the whole family, I actually felt a sense of relief, for it seemed they were as rich as kings. To me there are two resounding themes present in this novel. First of course is the strength of the family in the face of adversity. "Family" means more than blood ties; it means people who have shared your suffering and will lend a recipricol hand when needed. This relationship also means that walls will be built to keep some out: note how Tom quickly brushes off the one-eyed mechanic who hopes to come along on the trip. The second theme for me is the yearning for labour, "muscles aching to work, minds aching to create beyond the single need -- this is man." We still see this today in America: a need to work for something beyond just money, it is a need to be productive and busy, to surpass our parents, and to produce successful offspring. A final note about this Penguin edition: It evidently reproduces the original typesetting from 1939, so it quite long at 619 pages. However, don't be put off by the length. The font is large, and the interline space is relatively wide. This book could easily be around 100 pages less with a more modern typesetting.
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Summary: United by Misfortune, Yet Rich At Heart
Review: "I figgered the devil was the enemy. But they's somepin worse'n the devil got hold a country, an it ain't gonna let go till it's chopped loose."
Grapes Of Wrath is the story of the desperate battle of migrant labourers with the rich, greedy, malevolent and the mean. When the Joads arrive in California from their native Oklahoma, their troubles and tribulations are rewarded not by bounty, but by even more hardship. What ensues is a timeless battle. It is waged by the spirit of the downtrodden on the one side, and by the mercenary mean muscle of the other. The story is primordial and resonates with any reader with a sense for perception.
The classic work of fiction describes a world where the rich, with their glitzy cars, ride alone and never mind hitting a man or a noble dog should one come in their way. Then there is the poor and oppressed who, despite their condition, extend a hand time and time again and never forget what is important on the great round dustbowl. The wheel in the sky seems to work against those who toil and possess a heart, but cruelty and oppression are exposed as mere facades that once removed reveal nothing more than a faceless corporate entity bereft of the right to exist.
It is in this setting that John Steinbeck writes in amazingly authentic and sanguine dialogue the flight of the strong-at-heart from, and again into, the belly of a system bent on browbeating compassion, kindness and veracity.
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Summary: A Powerful, But Dated, Novel.
Review: "The Grapes of Wrath" is an American classic which, though showing its age, says much to the America of today. A masterful story teller, Steinbeck unfolds the story of the Joads, a family of dispossessed Okies, set adrift in a sea which they do not know, by forces which they do not understand. As we watch them lose their farm, travel with them in the truck to California, then search with them for work in their new world, we begin to appreciate the life of a penniless migrant of the Dust Bowl Era. As enthralling as this story is, it is periodically interrupted by chapters of social commentary. Nobody seized the land, it was the bank. No one set the wages, the growers association did. There is no personal responsibility. The little people are crushed by impersonal organizations. The theme of class struggle runs deeply, but is seems a bit dated. When Steinbeck wrote, the Joads probably seems to be part of a struggle driven by deliberate decisions made by people who were willing to ruin the lives of little people for profit, all the while hiding behind the claim that their actions were compelled by impersonal forces. It seems that, to Steinbeck, the struggle over land was one in which "The People" could determine the outcome. Knowing what we now know, the mechanization of agriculture set in motion forces which inexorably reduced demand for agricultural labor. The prosperity which the world enjoys today is incompatible with world the Joads knew in Oklahoma. The Tom Joads reaped the Grapes of Wrath, but many of their grandchildren eat from the Horn of Plenty. The tragedy is not, as Steinbeck seems to posit, that the Joads lost their land, but that they were unable to successfully adapt to the changing times. They could not adapt but, in their own ways, they did cope. Although the specific struggle of the Okies is passed and many of their grandchildren have achieved prosperity in the mainstream economy, their problem remains. There are still economically marginal people unable to adapt to the changing times, people who have to cope in their own ways. They too, have a spokesman in John Steinbeck. This book is powerful. It is moving. Come, ride into yesteryear.
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Summary: Very moving book
Review: Grapes of Wrath is a very different book I have read from many others. I'm a high schooler, and I usually read cheesy romantics and books for teens, so it took me a long time to get into this book. It starts out slow, (actually very slow) and it kind of gets repetitve in the sense of that they're in the great depression, they're tired, hungry, and they want to get a job. Then you get into two thirds of the book, where they live in a nice camp with actual toliets that flush, hot showers, etc. and it all starts to come from there. The hardships the Joads family has to make, and how Ma is more like the dad of the house, and keeps everyone going and under control. The ending was very... different. It just sort of ended, just like to Kill a Mockingbird. This is probably one of my top ten books, and just like other classics, it takes a while to get into.
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Summary: Gorgeous....
Review: "The Grapes of Wrath" is at times painfully beautiful. John Steinbeck's skills as a writer are amazingly displayed throughout, and what most struck me about this novel is the way he can transition from one chapter that delves so fearlessly into the inner psyches of his characters to another that looks at the time period and events unfolding with an almost documentary-like detachment. I can see how this book can turn off some. I must admit that the first time I started it, I didn't get past the first 100 pages or so. But something about it kept nagging at me to finish, and by the end of that particular summer, I had. Then I re-read it a few years later, and couldn't put it down. What keeps it so readable, at least for me, is the pure respect and dignity with which Steinbeck treats his characters. These are decent, hard-working people trying to make the most that they can out of a desperate situation, and the book is never condescending. "The Grapes of Wrath" is filled with such humanity that it very nearly brings one to tears at several points---yet it's never maudlin. A scene involving a diner waitress offering free candy to two poverty-stricken children could be saccharine in any other hands, but here it's a wonderful instance of one human reaching out to another. And in a world like the one portrayed here, where retaining even the barest vestiges of human dignity becomes a struggle, scenes like the one above take on immense proportions. It's a shame that to many this book represents drudgery. For me it was actually intensely readable, to the point that I didn't want to stop, and the ending took my breath away. Again, it could have been hammy and heavy-handed, but it wasn't. Not with Steinbeck behind the scenes.
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Summary: Powerful
Review: The Grapes of Wrath was the masterpiece of Steinbeck's carrer, the full embodiment of his previous writings, his social, political, and religious views, as well as his look on human nature. Take it as a prediction for a socialist revolution in America, take it as a revelation of human injustice, take it as a story of the American Dream and the will to survive, whatever the book means to you, you'll take something away from reading it. Even if you don't buy into Steinbeck's political and religious views - that we are all "one soul" and that should work together as one big family - you will feel a compassion for the injustice that has occured to the working poor throughout history. It is a harrowing and powerful novel well worthy of five stars and its place as a classic.
Rating:
Summary: American Classic
Review: Must read! Wonderful descriptions and character development. One of my top favorites.
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