The Grapes of Wrath

"Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord:
He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored;
He hath loosed the fateful lightning of his terrible swift sword:
His truth is marching on"
                 --The Battle Hymn of the Republic,
                    by Julia Ward Howe (1819-1910)
                    published in the Atlantic Monthly in 1862

 "The Grapes of Wrath, by John Steinbeck, both repels and attracts you. The horrors of the picture, so well drawn, make you dread sometimes to begin the next chapter, and yet you cannot lay the book down or even skip a page.The book is coarse in spots, but life is coarse in spots, and the story is very beautiful in spots just as life is...Even from life's sorrows some good must come. What could be a better illustration than the closing chapter of this book?"
       -- Eleanor Roosevelt, from her column, My Day, 6/28/1939

The Grapes of Wrath is one of the titles included on The Big Read website which has quite a bit of interesting information about the novel and some questions for discussion. I read the novel as part of a  Grapes of Wrath Readalong.

Overall I didn't love this book. The writing is very powerful, and in some cases very beautiful. I can see why it was an important book in its time (it was published in 1939) because it pulls no punches in its depiction of a terrible situation for the migrant farm workers. As an historical novel I think it is very successful. It brings life to an episode in American history that I don't think can be understood without seeing the human beings who suffered through it. The structure of the novel--chapters about the Joad family interspersed with "generals" depicting details of the the times--works very well. The shifting of perspective from a single family's struggles to a wider lens gives both context and depth to the Joad's story.

When I read chapter 3 I thought the turtle was probably a symbol for the family. After finishing the novel I went back and re-read the chapter and I think the turtle is a symbol of the migrant farmers generally, not just the Joad family.

The role of men and women in the book is interesting. One of the questions the Big Read discussion guide asks is, "At which points in the book does the power in the family gradually shift from Pa to Ma?" and I think the answer to that is that it doesn't. Ma has the power all along, she just doesn't exercise it except when she has to. The very first chapter, which is mostly about the dust, sets up this idea of the women waiting to see if the men are going to break and hanging back as long as they are still whole. As troubles pile up and Pa falls apart, Ma is there to pick up the pieces and to take on the leadership of the family. Whenever Pa rallies, Ma steps back and lets him run things again until the next time he founders.


My experience of reading this book was as Eleanor Roosevelt described, at several points I didn't really want to go on and find out what was coming, but I couldn't really look away.

Classics Club Meme

The Classics Club Meme for October 2012 is "Why are you reading the classics?"

"One loses one’s classics. Oh not all. That is what I find so wonderful. A part of one’s classics remains, to help one through the day." --Winnie in Samuel Beckett's Happy Days

I am reading the classics because I think they provide a context for other reading (and for movies, and plays, and talking to people). I have read quite a few classics, getting a degree in English Literature made it very hard to avoid them.  Some of them I loved and thought were amazing books that I enjoyed reading (The Great Gatsby, Death Comes for the Archbishop, Mrs. Dalloway). Others I didn't really enjoy much (Moby Dick, The Last of the Mohicans, The Red Pony). But whether I liked the books or not, I feel like reading works that are considered classics gives me the ability to have a deeper understanding of the world, of myself, and of the things--classic or not--that I read. When a novel or a movie makes a reference to something from one of the classics I have read I know what they are referring to which gives me a more complete understanding than I would have otherwise. The more classics I read, both in general and in specific genres like mystery or science-fiction, the more I will be able to appreciate the other things I read. 

The other reason for reading the classics is that they speak to a universal experience that, as Winnie points out, can help on through the day. 

Grapes of Wrath Read Along: Weeks 3 and 4

This week's Read-Along assignment: chapters 12-18 (inclusive) for week 3 and chapters 19-25 for week 4

Overall impression so far:  Bleak, and very soap-boxy, but the writing is beautiful and the characters are interesting. Ma Joad is awesome!

Specifics from this week:
I got behind in my reading, but am caught up now so am writing about  2 weeks of resding at once.

I am still thinking that the non-Joad chapters are a good break from the constant death and impending doom of the main storyline, but some of them are  boring and way to much like a propaganda film. I really liked the chapter about the camps that create a new society every night and then break down like a circus in the morning. the images were sad and beautiful, and kinda hopeful.

Ma Joad driving off the crazy religious woman who was scaring Rose of Sharon was a wonderful scene and I loved Ma's explanation that  God has bigger fish to fry than Rosasharn and she needs to get over herself.

Beautiful image:
"The eastern mountains were blue-black, and as he watched, the light stood up faintly behind them, colored at the mountain rims with a washed red, then growing colder, grater, darker, as it went up overhead, until at a place near the western horizon it merged with pure night. Down in the valley the earth was the lavender-gray of dawn." (p. 371)
If there was more of this kind of writing and less road kill I would be liking this book a lot more.

Grapes of Wrath Read Along: Week 2

This week's Read-Along assignment: set chapters 1-11 (inclusive)

Overall impression so far: Very bleak, but the writing is beautiful and the characters are interesting. The philosophical preaching gets a bit thick in places.

Specifics from this week: 
I really like the way the book is structured. The sideways approach to the story, like introducing young Tom Joad through the interaction with the truck driver, is very effective as far as keeping the reader unsure (but not in a bad way) of what is coming. The short chapters that look at the world beyond the immediate view of the Joad family broadens the reader's perspective and provides a break from the mounting tension of the family's problems. There were several small things that I think might be setting up some of the larger themes of the novel.

I loved the chapter about the turtle. I suspect that the journey of the turtle may turn out to be a metaphor for the journey of the Joads to California. I will keep a look out for big trucks trying to run them down and nice ladies who swerve to keep from harming them.

"For a moment he stopped, his head held high. He blinked and looked up and down. At last he started to climb the embankment." (p. 20)

When Muley (as in stubborn as?) is talking Tom and Casy into going into the field to hide from the sheriff he says "An' it all just amounts to what you tell yourself." (p.75). I thought this idea that what is brave, or cowardly, what is going along with the man, or bucking him, is a matter of the way you frame it in your own mind, was probably worth keeping in mind as the journey to Cali. continues.

The question of how the perspective changes the reality of a situation is also there in the way the women are depicted. In the very beginning of the novel, in the chapter about the dust, before we have any specific characters to connect with, Steinbeck describes the men faced with the destruction of their world as being the centers of the family, the ones who will figure out what to do.

"The women knew it was all right, and the watching children knew it was all right. Women and children knew deep in themselves that no misfortune was too great to bear if their men were whole." (p. 6)

But what struck me most about this, was that a few lines earlier the women go out to see if the men are going to break, the women rush to stand beside their men because the man are fragile and might break. It is the women who are watching to make sure they don't have to step in, that the men can do it. The scene where Ma Joad asks Tom whether prison has changed him seemed to echo this early scene. Ma Joad is checking to see if her men (in this case her son) are still whole.

Grapes of Wrath Read Along: Week 1

Today's assignment from Laura at Devouring Texts, who is hosting this readalong, is to respond to this prompt:
"October 2nd: Things we think about Steinbeck- Have you read Grapes before? Were you booored? Do you harbour a (very understandable) love for Steinbeck? I think we all want to know."

I'm a little worried, given Laura's level of adoration for Steinbeck, that I'm going to get kicked out of the readalong for this, but past experience leads me to think I don't like Steinbeck. I read The Red Pony when I was in school and found it bleak, horrible, in places very icky. This put me off Steinbeck.

However, he is considered one of the great American writers, so I feel like I should give him another chance. John Ford and Henry Fonda thought this story was worth making a movie of, so it seems like a good option to show me a better side of Steinbeck.

Grapes of Wrath Readalong

The Grapes of Wrath is one of my Classics Club titles and Laura at Devouring Texts is hosting a readalong so I am starting my classics project with this book.

"The Grapes of Wrath is the greatest American novel I have ever read." --Dorthy Parker

We are to post about our reading on Tuesdays, beginning October 2, 2012. Here is the schedule for the readalong, quoted from Devouring Texts:  

•  October 2nd: Things we think about Steinbeck- Have you read Grapes before? Were you booored? Do you harbour a (very understandable) love for Steinbeck? I think we all want to know.
• October 9th: Chapter 1 through Chapter 11 (that means to the end of Chapter 11. Which I didn't know until like a month ago, so... Just wanted to make that one clear) 
• October 16th: Chapter 12 through Chapter 18 
• October 23rd: Chapter 19 through Chapter 25 
• October 30th: Chapter 26 to End