The Grapes of Wrath: John Steinbeck Centennial Edition (1902-2002)

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Summary: I read this book for a book report and ended up loving it.
Review: This book has a good theme and VERY descriptive writing. The characters are protrayed very well and the sufering the family goes through is heart wrenching. I think it makes a person ask what they would do if they were suddenly wrenched from their homes and had to travel to an unknown place to survive.

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Summary: It will change the way you look at mankind.
Review: I read the Grapes of Wrath 10 years ago and it changed the way I looked at the world. The potential of mankind to be brutally cold and greedy was shocking. But there were also people who were willing to share everything out of sheer goodness. Re-reading it again made me realize the message is still relevant today. Read it for sake of your soul.

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Summary: An American Classic
Review: I have just finished the Grapes of Wrath a couple of weeks ago after it was sitting on my shelf for three years. I must say that it was perhaps the "deepest" American novel of the first half of the 20th century that I am familiar with. Even though the times and way of life it chronicles are long gone, there is an immediacy to the writing that transports one to what the Joad family, and all dispossessed families of the era, must have felt and endured. The novel is imbued with a sweet sadness much of the time, but there is also a spirit of faith, decency, and joy that this brave family, not soon to be forgot, displays which is quintessentially both American and universal.

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Summary: Very slow reading, but very eye opening and meaningful.
Review: This wonderful book, while slow and sometimes hard to drudge through, is an insight into the plight of the farmer during the dustbowl. For all those looking for a book to impress your English teacher with, or just a historical fiction book about an important time in the history of the United States, I would recommend that you read this book.

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Summary: captivating work interwoven with names and places of hope
Review: No one since Steinbeck has so craftily woven the names of places and things into the fabric of the characters' lives. It is a complete joy to read the melange of roadside towns and attractions that seem to haunt the Joads' journey. Their jalopy becomes a metaphor of a broken down world that entraps them. However catastrophic the tragedy becomes, it is a slow and deliberate kind of grief. There always seems to be someone to help send the Joads' on their way. The tale hits home when the Oklahoma family reaches California, the land of hopes and dreams, of liberty, for the Joads' and the rest of the nation. There awaits them a cauldron of discontent among those sharing a similar fate, in the migrant worker camps. Of course, like all Steinbeck works, the novel ends on a dark, albeit sardonic note that is brilliant and one that only he could have produced. This book was a benchmark for what has become the great American road tale

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Summary: Take a step back and think about yourself.
Review: When I read this, slow, steady book, which mirrored the pace of the jalopy moving from Oklahoma to California, I felt like someone was beating me over the head with a small stick. It didn't hurt at first, but it kept getting worse and worse, more and more depressing. But just when I thought I had reached rock bottom, the ending gave meaning and even satisfaction like no other book has ever done. Truly a masterpiece.

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Summary: Inspiring
Review: After reading this book I found my own life looking much better. I became more appreciative of my job, my family, my social "status" and my feelings about humanity in general. It inspired me to look at life in a brand new light

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Summary: It stinks!
Review: BORING. MEANINGLESS. I was not at all absorbed, it's just a piece of sh*t

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Summary: The definitive pathos!
Review: ** AN ABSOLUTELY BRILLIANT WORK !! ** This book changed my way of looking at life! A multi-level story (like most of Steinbeck's work). Well written tale of a simple existence, of suffering without bounds, yet full of optimism for the joy of being alive.

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Summary: How "the other half" lived in the 1930's; this is marvelous
Review: in its portrayal of life on the margins of agricultural share croppers who didreap what they sowed. The dust bowl was brought on by poor planning by poorlyeducated individuals, as is demonstrated by this finely crafted novel which allows the reader to follow closely the lives of many members of the Joad family and their traveling companions without the emotional involvement obtained by many novelists. Steinbeck did this for a reason; he wanted us to come away from the story able to see "the big picture" and managed this by layering in observational chapters between chapters of the Joad's travels. The Used Car Salesmen interchapter is a real eyeful and the allegorical adventures of the Joads and Jim Casy will resonate in today's violent world of haves and have nots. An American Classic that is still read because it is so good. Period.