The Grapes of Wrath

"I reread this book with the girls, too."

"It has been over 70 years since The Grapes of Wrath was published, yet the suffering that Steinbeck describes still hits close to home with families across our country still struggling to find work and put food on the table. It reminds us progressives that the day-to-day struggles of Americans should always remain close to our hearts. Throughout the years of the economic downturn there has been the sense that working families, the most vulnerable families, have been forgotten. I think [the book] should be reread so that we realise the extent to which the economy can be stacked up against America’s poor."

"If you wanted to pick a fictional work that really had a profound impact on people’s attitudes to the union movement, and about rights, unfairness and the social contract in America, it would be The Grapes of Wrath . It does indeed – very, very much so. It puts it in a context that people can really understand. While there is a story that takes place between characters, the hardship and unfairness is a central element of the book. It shows how fiction can create progressive change as well. I think it had a profound impact at any rate in shaping opinions. I think we need a new Grapes of Wrath today, a modern times version. Who knows, since not enough people read that much any more?"

"This is the great American novel for me—the humanity, the landscapes, the progressive and political and social ethos of the novel, not to mention the amazing characters. To my mind, with his characters and also because of his huge output, Steinbeck is the American Dickens, at least in term of social consciousness. He started beating the political themes a bit louder than I would have liked toward the end of his days, but what I loved about his earlier novels is how the story of human inequity is totally based on the humans. Support Five Books Five Books interviews are expensive to produce. If you're enjoying this interview, please support us by donating a small amount . It’s an amazingly powerful story of people trying to reinvent themselves in an environment that was stacked very much against them. In that era, the robber barons had such a hold on the West, they were truly luring people out there with the dream, just so that they could create a workforce that was too big and then hire cheap labour. It’s the story of American labour, too. The themes are just so big. It’s not just about the West, but it’s hard to take it out of the context of the West. I feel exactly the same way. Part of my ambition with West of Here was to do something like that. Probably I failed on a number of levels, but the central question of the novel is, what is our new American idealism? Manifest Destiny didn’t work out, but there’s still that kernel, there’s still that spirit – where do we go now we’ve gone as far west as we can, both figuratively and literally? It’s sort of a call to arms. There are two landscapes in the novel, and they work the opposite of the characters’ hopes. They’re leaving this cracked, scraggly, scorched earth with all these hopes for a brighter future, and they move through this desert and they move into this land of plenty, this Eden, and what’s waiting for them there is completely less than they expected. Intuitively, that’s a really powerful thing working on the reader, this idea that no matter how bright this thing looks, here’s the reality underneath it."

"This was first published in 1939 while the US was still grappling with the Depression, and what is brilliant about it is that it reveals that economic problems can’t just be dealt with through some wave of the free-market magic wand. It’s a very harrowing read. The sufferings that the family in this book go through you wouldn’t wish upon anybody, but their sufferings in part come about through a mixture of misfortune, misjudgment and bad luck. I think that this sense of people finding themselves hugely disadvantaged is something that has a modern-day connotation – the whole debate about immigration today is tied up with this. In both cases it’s about migrant labour. In The Grapes of Wrath it’s migrant labour from within the US, and it’s those people who are often the most vulnerable. This is the human aspect of that story, and I think that Steinbeck summarised much of what happened in the Great Depression far better than many economists did, because he really dealt with the true losses that came through for people who just happened to be down on their luck. It may still be possible to argue that free markets are the best option, but it’s important to realise that even if they’re the best option, they may not give you a perfect result. The danger people fall into is thinking it does."

"Steinbeck's lyrical explanation of the way a brutal new capitalism was unfolding makes me think that we need but don't yet have enough such literature for the new capitalist frontier of our own time."

"The book is exceptional and timelier than I might have expected. But my primary experience of reading it was of sharing something with someone I loved who is no longer living. It was quite moving."

"I read The Grapes of Wrath very late, long after I'd written the song Ghost of Tom Joad. However, it ended up being everything I'd hoped it to be."

"At about the same time I had a similar experience with The Grapes of Wrath."

"John Steinbeck made me want to become a writer."

"Tom Joad. I’ve had a schoolgirl crush on him since I read “The Grapes of Wrath” when I was 11."

"“The Grapes of Wrath,” by John Steinbeck. I read it when I was a senior in high school and was struck by its clarity and power. I’m not sure if it inspired me to write, but I do recall thinking, “I wish I could write as clearly as John Steinbeck.”"

"The Grapes of Wrath, by John Steinbeck, made me understand hunger, dignity, migration and the injustice of the systems that create suffering. It lit a fire in me that still burns."

"It has been years since I last read it, but the first time I did, in high school, “The Grapes of Wrath” really registered with me. Something about the struggles of the desperate migrant workers reminded me of the struggling people in my homeland of Afghanistan."

"Absolutely stunning. When I read it as a kid I decided I wanted to write something like that some day."

"The president of the United States should be required to read "The Grapes of Wrath," by John Steinbeck."

"My American Lit sophomores moaned and groaned their way through the first hundred pages of The Grapes of Wrath, but Steinbeck won them over in the end."

"We haven't come very far in this nation in how we care for those in dire circumstances, and all of us need to be reminded of the human face of misery."