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kalyani424 's review for:
The Grapes of Wrath
by John Steinbeck
Maybe it is the current political climate, but this book felt particularly timeless to me. The idea of big corporations trampling over human rights in order to turn an even bigger profit just felt so real and likely today.
I somehow went 35 years without actually reading this book although I did see the movie in my twenties and the play in my teens, so I was already familiar with the story but I found it to be written in an engaging and heartbreaking way that kept me interested even though I knew the ending to come.
Anybody who does not believe in regulating business and thinks that the market will always self-regulate needs to read this book to help open their eyes to the plight of the downtrodden worker trying to swim upstream in a world that is does not care about the plight of the proverbial little guy.
From Chapter 25:
"The little farmers watched debt creep up on them like the tide. They sprayed the trees and sold no crop, they pruned and grafted and could not pick the crop. . .
"This little orchard will be a part of a great holding next year, for the debt will have choked the owner.
"This vineyard will belong to the bank. Only the great owners can survive, for they own the canneries too. . . And the canned pears do not spoil. They will last for years."
From Chapter 29:
"No work till spring. No work.
"And if no work - no money, no food.
"Fella had a team of horses, had to use 'em to plow an' cultivate an' mow, wouldn't think a turnin' 'em out to starve when they wasn't workin'.
"Them's horses - we're men."
I somehow went 35 years without actually reading this book although I did see the movie in my twenties and the play in my teens, so I was already familiar with the story but I found it to be written in an engaging and heartbreaking way that kept me interested even though I knew the ending to come.
Anybody who does not believe in regulating business and thinks that the market will always self-regulate needs to read this book to help open their eyes to the plight of the downtrodden worker trying to swim upstream in a world that is does not care about the plight of the proverbial little guy.
From Chapter 25:
"The little farmers watched debt creep up on them like the tide. They sprayed the trees and sold no crop, they pruned and grafted and could not pick the crop. . .
"This little orchard will be a part of a great holding next year, for the debt will have choked the owner.
"This vineyard will belong to the bank. Only the great owners can survive, for they own the canneries too. . . And the canned pears do not spoil. They will last for years."
From Chapter 29:
"No work till spring. No work.
"And if no work - no money, no food.
"Fella had a team of horses, had to use 'em to plow an' cultivate an' mow, wouldn't think a turnin' 'em out to starve when they wasn't workin'.
"Them's horses - we're men."