Somehow managed to make it through 12 years of schooling and an English degree without reading The Grapes of Wrath until now, and what better way to escape the moment than reading about people displaced by climate disaster and technology
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Seriously read The Worst Hard Time by Egan. Historical book about the Dust bowl. Enlightening and it’s hard to believe that the U.S. got through that environmental disaster. People had amazing grit.
Tell you what, I love Steinbeck, and it’s because of this book. It’s grim, but there is so much humanity in there, that it always felt reassuring despite all.
That's OK. I know someone with a Masters in English Literature who's never yet read Animal Farm & sees no reason to.
Doesn't stop her pontificating on it using online notes though.
I read it in high school, where very little stuck with me after I passed the test. A decade or so ago, NPR did it for its book club, so I reread it and was completely and utterly gobsmacked by the fire-breathing humanist fury raging through it. I have to assume I just wasn't prepared for it at 15.
Also, it was published in 1939, and the fact that it was instantly accepted as one of the great works is American literature instead of getting Steinbeck tarred as an unrepentant Communist and blacklisted is one of the great mysteries of 20th-Century culture.
We all have those weird gaps. I read The Grapes of Wrath when I was 13 and it was my favorite book for years. But have I bothered to read East of Eden or Of Mice and Men? No.
My wife is still upset about having to write an essay about what the turtle crossing the highway meant, bc she learned after graduation that Steinbeck put it in just as a meaningless fun diversion from the story
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(I also saw Gary Sinise and Malkovich workshop it in the 70s at the IL High School Theater Festival which was something marvelous).
https://english.stanford.edu/publications/reclaiming-john-steinbeck-writing-future-humanity
I also made it through 12 years of schooling and an English degree without reading The Grapes of Wrath.
I'll need to correct that. Thanks.
Having said that, each country focuses on their home grown literature. Being 🇨🇦, we had Robertson Davies The Deptford trilogy.
But I argue that Grapes of Wrath ends on a cliffhanger.
(Also I’m sorry you have to read that.)
Steinbeck was a genius.
Doesn't stop her pontificating on it using online notes though.