The Grapes of Wrath, by John Steinbeck

Started by Bernadette, March 13, 2019, 08:54:03 AM

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Bernadette

What are your opinions of it? I read it in high school and hated it, but I'm considering giving it another try. Anybody love it?
My Lord and my God.

Traditionallyruralmom

I find the characters very well done, with a depth of emotion that is very realistic.  I have not read it in ages either, but it did leave an impact on me as a very thorough and well written novel.
Christus vincit, Christus regnat, Christus imperat.

MilesChristi

The world is charged with the grandeur of God.
    It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
    It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?
Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;
    And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;
    And wears man's smudge and shares man's smell: the soil
Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.

And for all this, nature is never spent;
    There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And though the last lights off the black West went
    Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs —
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
    World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.

Maximilian

Hated it.

Would not want to repeat the experience.

Heinrich

A very important read. Steinbeck was probably the most gifted elucidator of perpetual human misery. A real über pessimist, bordering on nihilist. He put that into good literary storytelling in this novel, which gives a great insight into the founding of a permanent under class in California as the result of the constructed Wall Street debacles. Mice and Men would be a good primer to get into the depressing as crap milieu.
Schaff Recht mir Gott und führe meine Sache gegen ein unheiliges Volk . . .   .                          
Lex Orandi, lex credendi, lex vivendi.
"Die Welt sucht nach Ehre, Ansehen, Reichtum, Vergnügen; die Heiligen aber suchen Demütigung, Verachtung, Armut, Abtötung und Buße." --Ausschnitt von der Geschichte des Lebens St. Bennos.

Josephine87

I didn't like it when I started reading it in high school and didn't finish it.  I too wonder if I would like it now.  I recently watched the Dust Bowl series Ken Burns did and it makes me interested in the subject again.  That series was very good!
"Begin again." -St. Teresa of Avila

"My present trial seems to me a somewhat painful one, and I have the humiliation of knowing how badly I bore it at first. I now want to accept and to carry this little cross joyfully, to carry it silently, with a smile in my heart and on my lips, in union with the Cross of Christ. My God, blessed be Thou; accept from me each day the embarrassment, inconvenience, and pain this misery causes me. May it become a prayer and an act of reparation." -Elisabeth Leseur

Jacob

Quote from: Heinrich on March 13, 2019, 05:15:08 PM
A very important read. Steinbeck was probably the most gifted elucidator of perpetual human misery. A real über pessimist, bordering on nihilist. He put that into good literary storytelling in this novel, which gives a great insight into the founding of a permanent under class in California as the result of the constructed Wall Street debacles. Mice and Men would be a good primer to get into the depressing as crap milieu.

It would be interesting to compare The Grapes of Wrath to Little Man, What Now? by Hans Fallada, translated to English.  I read that for a class on pre-WWII German history.  It was utterly depressing.
"Arguing with anonymous strangers on the Internet is a sucker's game because they almost always turn out to be—or to be indistinguishable from—self-righteous sixteen-year-olds possessing infinite amounts of free time."
--Neal Stephenson

Heinrich

#7
Quote from: Jacob on March 14, 2019, 01:21:47 PM
Quote from: Heinrich on March 13, 2019, 05:15:08 PM
A very important read. Steinbeck was probably the most gifted elucidator of perpetual human misery. A real über pessimist, bordering on nihilist. He put that into good literary storytelling in this novel, which gives a great insight into the founding of a permanent under class in California as the result of the constructed Wall Street debacles. Mice and Men would be a good primer to get into the depressing as crap milieu.

It would be interesting to compare The Grapes of Wrath to Little Man, What Now? by Hans Fallada, translated to English.  I read that for a class on pre-WWII German history.  It was utterly depressing.

Ain't never heard of that. I'll check it out. Danke!

Edit: Doch! I have heard of it, but never was assigned it in any survey course on German literature that I had.
Schaff Recht mir Gott und führe meine Sache gegen ein unheiliges Volk . . .   .                          
Lex Orandi, lex credendi, lex vivendi.
"Die Welt sucht nach Ehre, Ansehen, Reichtum, Vergnügen; die Heiligen aber suchen Demütigung, Verachtung, Armut, Abtötung und Buße." --Ausschnitt von der Geschichte des Lebens St. Bennos.

Elizabeth

East of Eden is a Great American Novel, IMO.  Couldn't stand to readGrapes of Wrath no matter how many times I tried.