Just Finished Reading: The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck (FP: 1939)

It was the dust that did it. That and the Banks who held title to the land. Without the understanding of those who spilt blood to farm they made decisions in their boardrooms based on balance sheets and not on sweat and history. With the sweep of a pen and the imprint of ink families from all over the west lost everything they had spent decades building. Tenant farmers were no longer needed, no longer economic, no longer required to farm the land. In their place came machines and machine drivers equally untied to the land and with as much feeling for it as the machines and the bankers they served. But what to do and where to go? California – that was the place, where fruit fell, ripe, into your hands without the need to pick it, where it was always sunny and where people, farmers, were needed. So, along with hundreds, thousands, of other families the Joad’s packed up everything they couldn’t sell and headed for the sunshine and work. Across thousands of miles they nursed their truck, dealt with whatever the elements and the locals threw at them, buried their dead and finally, finally, arrived in the much promised land – to discover that not everything they had been promised was true. In fact it was a lie. Work was practically non-existent and fought over by the lowest bidder. People fought each other for starvation wages and, outside the government camps, looked on each other as competitors who schemed each day to take the bread out of their children’s mouths. But if they could just organise and fight back (what against rich owners who hired thugs to make sure that no leaders survived long enough to lead?) and be treated like decent human beings (what, you Red or something?) rather than cattle or Okies (the lowest of the low). So survival is the game, day by day, picking by picking, rumour of work plucked out of the very air and luck, always luck….. Until it runs out.

I wasn’t 100% sure what to expect from this. I hadn’t seen the 1940 movie version with Henry Fonda (or at least not all of it) but knew the outline. I hadn’t even heard just how controversial it was – although I can certainly see why now! Of course the thing that surprised me more than anything else – even from that time – was just how radically left-wing it was. Not even just Socialist but practically Marxist in tone. Not only from the point of proposing unions to defend labour but collectivisation, citizens committees, radically equality, deep criticism of the rich, demand for land for anyone who can farm it taken off those (if necessary) who had too much land or too much money – more than they could ever farm or spend. This is radical stuff these days – especially in uber-capitalist USA – so I guess that they must have been radical (if not maybe as radical) back then?

In between the political musings we are presented with a very human story – of a family trying to survive in suddenly very hostile circumstances, indeed it often read like an end of the world tale minus the zombies and radiation. Although the pace was rather slow throughout, the characterisation was outstanding – especially Ma and the ex-con Tom. It was easy to identify with their plight and easy to become emotionally involved in their journey and their many trials. Probably the best of the classic reads so far. I shall be looking out for more of Mr Steinbeck’s works. Highly recommended.