Review: The Grapes of Wrath

The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck

My rating: 2 of 5 stars



When I first read this, I was very young. I came away thinking of it as a coming of age story, even a youthful adventure somewhat like [b:The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn|2956|The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn|Mark Twain|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1274410225s/2956.jpg|1835605]. Now, I see it as a dated tract seeking to instigate radical social reform, more like [b:The Jungle|41681|The Jungle|Upton Sinclair|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1332140681s/41681.jpg|1253187]. Both works and even more so this one thus become topical and have lost depth and impact for losing currency. Additionally, Steinbeck's Joads and their fellow travelers are one-dimensional, pious, saint-rubes as to be unbelievable. The family is so unbroken, unhampered by any character defect that they are perfect ideals requiring now transformation and thus Tom Joad's pronouncement from the bush is unbelievable and hollow since it comes from an impossible creature:

Then I'll be all aroun' in the dark. I'll be ever'where, wherever you look. Wherever they's a fight so hungry people can eat, I'll be there. Wherever they's a cop beatin' up a guy, I'll be there. ...I'll be in the way guys yell when they're mad an', I'll be in the way kids laugh when they're hungry an' they know supper's ready. An' when our folks eat the stuff they raise an live in the houses they build, why, I'll be there..."

Steinbeck's hand-waving for even armed social revolution may have seemed the needed reaction back in the socialist '30s, but falls flat, now, and history belied the author's prescription: WW II's economic boom swept up the Oakies who were replaced Mexican-American pickers culminating in the non-violent resistance of Cesar Chavez.




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