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One of the greatest and most socially significant novels of the twentieth century, Steinbeck's controversial masterpiece indelibly captured America during the Great Depression through the story of one Oklahoma farm family, the Joads. Intensely human yet majestic in its scale and moral vision, tragic but ultimately stirring in its insistence on human dignity, The Grapes of Wrath (1939) is not only a landmark American novel, but it is as well an extraordinary moment in the history of our nation... (show more)
Reviews (4180)
Environmental disaster, economic collapse, mass migration, the breakdown of the extended family - welcome to the 1930s. A retro-post apocalypse that manages to be funny upbeat and uplifting dispite the horrors of The Great Depression. You'll see plenty of Carnivale, Firefly and O Brother Where Art Though in here, with warm sympathetic characters that could have been created by Stephen King in landscapes and inhuman economics that you might think were imagined by JG Ballard. At its most powerful Grapes of Wrath is the ultimate car stress nightmare.. The Long Way Round To Hell.. where money is extremely finite, the vehicle is an ancient shit heap, the locals treat you like parasites, the goal is survival rather than fun, there is no home to go back to and instead of adventure loving friends for company you have 3 generations of your own family who look to you constantly to save them from starvation and destitution. You will never guess the devastatingly warm but tragic ending - you just know the classic film version with James Stewart didn't end that way..
This is a novel whose time has come again. I was struck over and over by the parallels to today's issues surrounding migrant labor, justice issues, and, of course, our tottering economy. I tried and failed to read this during a high school English class. It was lost on me then. What a joy to read it twenty years later and clearly see the masterpiece that this is. Epic and personal at the same time.