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3.78 AVERAGE
3.78 AVERAGE
emotional
hopeful
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I've gotten into the habit of saying, "You gotta look out for number one," but Ma Joad reminded me that I really need to look out for anyone who needs help. Yes, the book is sad, but it's also incredibly hopeful. Together we are mighty!
I wanted to like this but only got 46 pages in before deciding to just let it go. The ideas in the book seem great but there is so much descriptive text that by the time something is described you no longer remember what the point was. The book was just too slow. I couldn’t finish it despite trying to pick it up all summer.
dark
emotional
informative
slow-paced
adventurous
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
Reading this was part of my “Rediscovering Steinbeck” saga that I have been embarking on over the last few years. This was probably one of the first Steinbeck books I read, and it is probably one of his most quintessential too. Although for me it is passed by East of Eden, it is in his top three books in my estimation.
The book begins with an account of the “Dust Bowl” in the American Midwest, and how drought, wind and dust gradually eroded the livelihoods and lives of the agricultural folk of the region. In typical Steinbeck fashion, the minutiae of detail in describing the natural landscape is as captivating as it is masterful.
Our second chapter introduces us to Tom Joad, fresh out of prison for killing a man in self-defence and making his way to the home farm. He meets and picks up ex-preacher Casy, a spiritual man and deep thinker who is known in these parts for his time as a man of god. Upon arrival at home Tom finds it abandoned and learns that his family have relocated to a relative’s farm nearby. He arrives there just in time to catch them for they are moving West, driven from the land by declining crops and increasing pressure from the bank owners. They have a truck, and everything they own is strapped to it for the 2000 mile journey across the states. In all, twelve of the Joads and their closest ride inside or atop the truck as they make their desperate escape to a place where they have been promised work.
The plot follows their journey as they head West, and what awaits them in California when they arrive to find themselves a drop in the ocean of hungry, desperate Dust Bowl immigrants, scrabbling for work and struggling to survive.
The plot makes up only half the book though. In nearly every other chapter Steinbeck pauses the proceedings and takes a magnifying glass to a subject related to the story of the Joads. In these essay-like chapters he zooms in on the people caught up in this diaspora, those who help them, and those who spurn them. He tells of how the banks set up a system that forces people off their lands, and how small-time California farmers have to keep up with the ruthless and ever-expanding big business of the large farms. He will have you seething at the callous inhumanity of these villains. There are so many packed into this book, so that sometimes it feels like journalism (which Steinbeck was at times). Ones that stand out particularly strongly, are an “exposé” of used car salesmen selling old duffers to Oakies whose lives depend on driving the distance to California; a day in the life of a roadside diner and its proprietors and the simple kindness they show to those in need; and the despicable Californian farmers committing the grave sin of burning crops they can’t sell to keep the price up, rather than feeding the army of starving people who line the roads of their state. This is a hallmark of Steinbeck’s work: zooming in and zooming out, taking in the big picture and then observing the little lives that make up a story.
It’s a sad book and it’s a story full of tragedy. It’s also a book that shines a light on the best of people and offers some hope for humanity. Most of the people who act badly to one another in this book are themselves caught in a situation that forces them to do so. Steinbeck’s thorough examination of the systems and machines that we have ourselves constructed, and are none-the-less now trapped in, is truly illuminating, and I’m sure has driven more than a few people to socialism. The stories and themes packed into this dense book are very expansive and ponderable, and evoke many strong emotions. This won’t be my last reading of this heavyweight hitter of a book.
I got this book from a Brisbane Library. The fact that I could renew it meant no one else was on the waiting list, which says a lot about the culture of reading in Australia. I wouldn’t be surprised if its the only copy in Brisbane.
The book begins with an account of the “Dust Bowl” in the American Midwest, and how drought, wind and dust gradually eroded the livelihoods and lives of the agricultural folk of the region. In typical Steinbeck fashion, the minutiae of detail in describing the natural landscape is as captivating as it is masterful.
Our second chapter introduces us to Tom Joad, fresh out of prison for killing a man in self-defence and making his way to the home farm. He meets and picks up ex-preacher Casy, a spiritual man and deep thinker who is known in these parts for his time as a man of god. Upon arrival at home Tom finds it abandoned and learns that his family have relocated to a relative’s farm nearby. He arrives there just in time to catch them for they are moving West, driven from the land by declining crops and increasing pressure from the bank owners. They have a truck, and everything they own is strapped to it for the 2000 mile journey across the states. In all, twelve of the Joads and their closest ride inside or atop the truck as they make their desperate escape to a place where they have been promised work.
The plot follows their journey as they head West, and what awaits them in California when they arrive to find themselves a drop in the ocean of hungry, desperate Dust Bowl immigrants, scrabbling for work and struggling to survive.
The plot makes up only half the book though. In nearly every other chapter Steinbeck pauses the proceedings and takes a magnifying glass to a subject related to the story of the Joads. In these essay-like chapters he zooms in on the people caught up in this diaspora, those who help them, and those who spurn them. He tells of how the banks set up a system that forces people off their lands, and how small-time California farmers have to keep up with the ruthless and ever-expanding big business of the large farms. He will have you seething at the callous inhumanity of these villains. There are so many packed into this book, so that sometimes it feels like journalism (which Steinbeck was at times). Ones that stand out particularly strongly, are an “exposé” of used car salesmen selling old duffers to Oakies whose lives depend on driving the distance to California; a day in the life of a roadside diner and its proprietors and the simple kindness they show to those in need; and the despicable Californian farmers committing the grave sin of burning crops they can’t sell to keep the price up, rather than feeding the army of starving people who line the roads of their state. This is a hallmark of Steinbeck’s work: zooming in and zooming out, taking in the big picture and then observing the little lives that make up a story.
It’s a sad book and it’s a story full of tragedy. It’s also a book that shines a light on the best of people and offers some hope for humanity. Most of the people who act badly to one another in this book are themselves caught in a situation that forces them to do so. Steinbeck’s thorough examination of the systems and machines that we have ourselves constructed, and are none-the-less now trapped in, is truly illuminating, and I’m sure has driven more than a few people to socialism. The stories and themes packed into this dense book are very expansive and ponderable, and evoke many strong emotions. This won’t be my last reading of this heavyweight hitter of a book.
I got this book from a Brisbane Library. The fact that I could renew it meant no one else was on the waiting list, which says a lot about the culture of reading in Australia. I wouldn’t be surprised if its the only copy in Brisbane.
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
challenging
dark
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes