No one has posted in here yet! After I decided to join this discussion I decided to read some more of Steinbecks works including "To an unknown God" I read The Pearl as compulsory reading at school. I have ordered 4 others from the library including The Grapes of Wrath.

Carolyn

My "Great Books" reading group will reconvene in September. We have chosen the Grapes of Wrath to discuss at out first 4 meetings. the Inet is loaded with information about this book and I am so lucky, it is included on my electronic text Library of the Future CD.

I hope to be joining you as well.

Hey, Kiwi lady - somehow I missed the fact that this heading was "open for business."

I have devoted this summer to reading (or rereading) several Steinbeck titles. So far I have delighted myself with To A God Unknown (our September selection), Tortilla Flat, Of Mice and Men, and Cannery Row. Each is worthy of discussion - and as this series proceeds, we'll see whether the level of interest among you merits opening further discussions.

I believe we couldn't kick off a series on Steinbeck with anything other than The Grapes of Wrath, considered by most as his tour de force.

I also suspect many of you lived through the depression and will relate in some way or another to the subject matter.

July is a way off and I don't want to begin the substantive discussion until then. However, I would appreciate hearing from you about whether you plan to participate.

Welcome!

Hello lo lo lo lo lo????

Anyone out there and planning to join us?

hello! I am here and half way thru Grapes of Wrath. I have nevr read this story and I am enjoying it immensely. It's full of "stuff" for us to dissect. I will be gone until the 9th of July but I promise to catch up quickly and have lots of questions to present.

Needing to find Grapes of Wrath, I was forced finally to unpack the last two boxes of books. Of the many moving frustrations, those last boxes in the back of my closet plus a hundred other to-do things to make this "home" have threatened to hang on indefinitely. How wonderful it feels to have to those 2 boxes out of my closet and the books squeezed in with their sisters on the shelves.

It's unnerving to remember so little of this book, but that will make it fun to read as if for the first time. I remember more of Cannery Row.

I'm so glad you're doing this series, Sarah. Have you looked at a particular biography of Steinbeck? Any recommendations?

Betty

Will be with you for this discussion.

Sarah, I have the book and will be with you also.

Great, what a group!! That's a good idea, Betty, and no, I haven't looked at a biography (yet). Does anyone else have one to recommend? We could be reading it as background before July 1.

I decided to try and buy this book so I could write in it. Firstly at Barnes and Noble or Amazon by the time it got here and the exchange rate it would have cost me $50 NZ too much for me. Its only $11.70 US from the online book stores but its all the extras they have to add on when you live down under.

But good news! - managed to get it in NZ from the head office of major book store for $27.95 shipped. Books are not really in my budget but this is such a classic and a keeper I decided I would splash out. Lucky I have some work for my son this week! LOL

I am looking forward to starting this discussion. Last month I took on two book discussions - too much! This month I am getting ahead in my writing for WREX so I can relax and have several contributions ahead so I can concentrate on The Grapes of Wrath.

I wrote a little essay on the Tramps or Bums my grandparents hosted in the Great Depression for Wrex for the next submissions. It was the book we will be discussing next month that got me remembering all the stories they told me.

Hope everyone from the Painted House discussion will join us they are a great group. Betty I see you have already poked your nose in here!

Carolyn

And my book just arrived, Carolyn. Since I'm not finished reading two books for June discussions, I'll start Grapes of Wrath in 2 weeks, I hope. Happy reading!

Betty

Carolyn - so glad you're here - and would love to hear your grandfather's stories.

$50?? Wow, expensive, although I don't know the NZ-US dollar exchange rate.

Welcome!

Anyone else lurking out there?

Betty, Steinbeck's books are quick reads. There's a lot there, but a first read, and then a second, slower discussion shouldn't be too hard even if you start in two weeks. So glad you're here too!

The two pre-WWII books that impressed me the most were the Ordeal by Hunger by George Stewart (Donner Party tragedy) and Grapes of Wrath.

Both haunt me to this day because I'm a native Californian (graduated high school in 1940), drive over Donner Pass frequently and remember very well those "oakies" who swarmed around us. Am much ashamed now about my feelings then.

Will try and get Grps/Wrth from library and participate.

But not certain I can handle re-reading their tragedy.

I've finished it and thoroughly enjoyed reading it. It's not all that much different than another discussion My antonia that we also will be starting. The only problem that I have is that I will be in New Mexico until the 10th of July and will miss the initial postings. Oh well.

seldom958 - your experiences, if you can bear to relive them, will be SO very useful to this discussion, I think. I really hope you'll join the discussion.

ALF, interesting about the comparison to My Antonia, Willa Cather's novel which will be the Great Books discussion this summer. Why the comparison.

It's June 14, so we have a mere 17 days until the Grapes of Wrath discussion begins. Who else plans to join us?

ALF, will you be participating in both the My Antonia and the Grapes of Wrath discussions? I sure would love you to continue to bring in those comparisons here!

Okay, 16 days and counting. Who's out there. Halloooooo???

Yes Sarah, I'll be home on July 10th from NM.

Wonderful serendipity that those 2 books are scheduled for the same month, Alf. I plan to read both, too, or attempt it. I wonder if reading both will help us hear Steinbeck's and Cather's different voices or identify different writing styles on a similar subject. The similarity hadn't dawned on me, Alf; thanks for the heads up.

Betty

Oh Betty, great to have you - you always add so much to every discussion!

Sarah, I'll be in on the discussion when it begins

Sarah, count me in, too. I've always been a big fan of Steinbeck.

Lorrie

Hallelujah - we have Nellie and Lorrie!! This is looking to be a great discussion.

Anyone else out there? Folks who haven't participated in discussions before but who might like to jump in with a classic?

Don't forget me. I'm in the corner with the dunce cap on.

Hahahaha - those of you who know ALF know how those dunce caps just don't fit her!!

Anyone else? Newcomers - you're welcome!!

Morning! I'll be there too! I've read this book twice and look forward to reading it again especially to see if I have the same impressions or different ones.

See ya,

Brumie

Sarah: That is NOT true. Check out the banner here on the lower left side and that would be me(sans cap.)

wisteriavine, Welcome Home to our great Books and Literature. You are at Home with us as we so enjoy people who like to read. I also read Grapes of Wrath earlier in life and enjoyed it.

Sarah T, our Discusion Leader Will be in to Welcome you soon and you will get a welcome email letter from one of our Welcome Ambassador's soon but I just wanted you to know that I that I am glad to see You here also.

Ginger

Yes, absolutely wisteriavine, you may join. We'd LOVE to have you. I can just smell the wisteria thinking about your screen name! One of my favorite plants, along with lilacs!!

Where have you been, Wisteriavine? We've been waiting for you to get here! Anyone with wisteria in her name is especially welcome!!

You mentioned you were not quite retirement age. That description fits several others already here, myself and Sarah (discussion leader) included. Welcome!!!

Betty

Can hardly wait for the discussion to start. I had read 'Grapes of Wrath' when I was much younger-what a difference in perspective when you have lived some history! See you all on the first! Wilan

I too have read the Grapes of Wrath and also saw the movie. Of course we also lived it as my folks moved to California during that time and my dad worked in one of the Peach Orchards out there. We lived in a tent for quite some time while living in California. Also saw many folks who had canvas connected to their cars and would use the car as well as the tent to live in. Those were hard times. I do hope that all of you enjoy reading this book and just remember as you read that it really did happen. It is a part of the History of our Country.

Wilan and Ila - I am so glad you'll be joining us. Ila, I'd love for you to add your own running commentary about your own experience. You will be joining us in the discussion, right? Wilan - I'd forgotten that the last time I read this book, I was in Latin America in a whole other "place" in my life. You're so right that history and distance - and one's "place" in life at the time of reading a book - have enormous impacts on how we perceive them.

We've got a wonderful group assembling and only two days to go.

I'd suggest that you read through Ch. 5 by Monday if you can swing it - but don't worry, we'll start slowly.

Welcome wisteriavine. I am one of the babies in SN and I really enjoy the book discussions. We have some participants who really get me thinking. I have read my introduction and about 3 pages of Chapter One. I better get moving!

Carolyn

From now on, look in the header for questions to be thinking about as you read, and the schedule. For tomorrow, think about the following questions (but don't worry - you can discuss anything that comes to mind!):

1. What is the significance of the turtle at the beginning of the book?

2. What is the place of religion in the first portion of the book?

By tomorrow there will also be some links in the heading that you can use to get more information about Steinbeck, the times he wrote in, and The Grapes of Wrath.

And one more thing: If you'd like to know me a bit better, click here:

http://www.seniornet.org/gallery/bookclubs/bookieprofiles/sarahbio.html

I'm sure all of us would like to know you a bit better too. Our "Bookie Profiles" discussion allows you to introduce yourself. Click here for more information:

Bookie Profiles ~ Photos too!"

Ila Matter So Good to see you here, Hope you stay and chat as it would be Very interesting to have you posting seeing that you actualy went thru all of this in real life. I did not know that about you.

Still savoring our visit in Az.

I will be watching for You.

Love, Ginger

I'm on the west coast, and I work full time, so thanks for waiting until my lunch break for me to come in and make a first post!

The book starts with some vivid images of a landscape in ruin. The color of the red country is momentarily buried under the green of the last rains, but we can already feel that something terrible is soon to come. The earth is already scarred and crusted, pale - pink in the red country and white in the grey country. The sun already flares down on the corn crating a line of brown.

So the first "character" of this book is not a person but a place.

The second "character" is animal; gophers and ant lions who start small avalances, teams of horses whose hooves beat the ground, break the dirt crust and cause the dust to form.

And finally, there are men, "men in the fields" who "look[] up at the clouds and sniff[] at them and [hold] wet fingers up to sense the wind." And women, who with their men, "huddle[] in their houses, and [tie] handkerchiefs over their noses when they [go] out, and [wear] goggles to protect their eyes."

Steinbeck does not waste any time telling us that we are in a terrible place, a place where hope is already waning and people are already realizing that things have gone terribly awry.

What are your first impressions of this terrible place? Is there any beauty or hope left in it?

Then we meet Tom Joad, in ill fitting, cheap new clothes. And he does not yet know what awaits him, as he has been away in prison for a time, and thinks he is going back home.

Already we have a sense that big business is "bad": the truck driver has a sign in his window that says "No riders." However, Tom knows better than to be deterred by that: "Sure - I seen it [the sign]. But sometimes a guy'll be a good guy even if some rich bastard makes him carry a sticker."

Doesn't this remark already tell you something about Tom's willingness to go along with the rules.

More of this anti-business theme comes up as we begin to hear of the "monster" that is in the process of plowing the land under. The message this monster brings is that no one is really "responsible" for the devastation. The tractor driver just works for the land owner; the owner just owes the bank; the bank just answers to headquarters in the east. Ultimately, no one takes responsibility for anything.

We also hear a bit about the role of religion, as Joad meets up with Casy, the preacher. Even Casy "ain't preachin' no more much. The sperit ain't in the people much no more; and worse'n that, the sperit ain't in me no more."

Is there any room for religion when life is so difficult. Steinbeck seems to be telling us that the lack of hope shakes the peoples' faith.

And what about that turtle that Joad tries to bring home? What is he all about?

So - let's hear from you: about the role of business and the "monster," about how religion fares in times of crisis, about that turtle, and about anything else you observe in these first 5 chapters.

Welcome to the discussion - now, don't be shy!! Jump right in!

This is what some critics said when it first came out

I agree with that criticism pretty much throughout the book.

For instance, I can't imagine a hitch-hiker being as rude, and asking for a fight, as Tom was to the truck driver. In real life the trucker would've pulled over and booted Tom out.

As for the turtle symbalism, it went beyond me. Seems that Tom just thought every boy should have posession of a turtle at one time while growing up.

I'm quoting from someone else;

"The allusions to Christ and those to Israelites and Exodus becomes the story of mankinds's quest for profound comprehension of his commitment to his fellow man and to the earth he inhabits."

Our countries leaders have a long way to go in my opinion.

"I've done my damndest to rip a readers nerves to rags. I don't want him satisfied......I tried to write this book the way llives are being lived not the way books are written....Throughoout I've tried to make the reader participate in the actuality, what he takes from it will be scaled entirely on his own depth or hollowness. There are five layers in this book, a reader will find as many as he can and he won't find more than he has in himself."

Seems he succeeded very well.

Seldom - some provocative quotes there. I especially thought about that third one - tells me there's something for everyone in Steinbeck!

Yes, yes, yes, wisteriavine, thanks for that about Nature as the monster - I had completely missed that. And you're right that it carries the same feeling as the machine/bank monsters in that man has little control over what it does.

I don't know if any of you read Grisham's The Painted House with us a couple of months ago, but I had a feeling there that recurs for me here - a sense of futility that the farmer must feel when the weather or other factors don't behave.

And your take on the preacher Casy, wisteria, is also very apt. "He disgusts me."

Where is everyone else? Give us your initial thoughts?

What is your first impression of Joad? Is the fact that he's been in prison a factor in your judgment?

What do you think of the way Steinbeck describes the landscape and the other "characters." Do you agree with seldom that the dialogue is unconvincing? Do you, as wisteriavine says, love Steinbeck's descriptions?

And please, someone, help me with that durn turtle!!

I don't think the description of the dust storms and the crop loss was "either outright false or exaggerated beyond belief." I though quite accurate from the family stories I heard.

I had relatives who traded their mortgage on 40 acres of IL land for a mortgage on 120 acres of N. OK land in '33. They were hit with drought for about 3 years running, and came back to IL broke, wiped out, in the fall of '36 with only what they could load on their truck. John went to work in the mines and finally got back to farming during WW II.

Yes, Wisteriavine, I think we need to read a little more in order to get any significance from the turtle. I, too have read the book before-am on my third reading. Did not get any significance before-this is why I love the book club-it makes you think! The turtle is patient, strong, enduring, takes on one obstaacle at a time, wise and very aware of danger. The very first chapter lets you know that danger is lurking. When you realize that Tom has not heard from his family for at least two years, you sense danger. I agree that Tom was rude to the truck driver. Today, he would have been 'dumped' at once-perhaps it was different those days. The driver did not even have a radio-in his loneliness, I think he was just glad to have someone to talk (brag) to, maybe?

Casy did not disgust me-perhaps because we have all read the stories of revival meetings and their preachers. I think that Casy was preaching because it was a good living, the girls all looked up to him, his fiery speeches elated him and made him horny. I feel that now that times are tough and the money is down, he is looking at his way of life with self disgust-there is nothing like being broke for a reality check!!! I got the sense that he is looking for something to make his life richer-morally.

I have been wondering what eventurlly happened to the Okies over the years since the depression. Thanks, Marlyn(?) for the Steinbeck link-it answered many questions that I had about them. I love the story but I think I will go with the census! Wilan

I find myself firmly in league with Wisteria.

For me too this is a re-reading (the second one, actually), and I much prefer to go about it slowly - as is my wont any way-; let things emerge and fall into place like a mosaic. Some things cannot be hurried, and this is one of them, for me.

Mal, thank you for the link to the article by Keith Windschuttle (who he ? a contributor ? a correspondent? ) from The New Criterion . At this early stage of my second re-reading, I find his elaborate treatise mildly disconcerting. Mr. Windschuttle is transparently critical of Steinbeck and, it seems, intent on proving that historic reality differed from Steinbeck's narration in significant ways.

Since I did not live here at the time of the Great Depression, it would be presumptuous of me to comment on the pros and cons regarding the veracity of events, actual versus described. Moreover, I don't like to be influenced by anyone's opinion -- until I have had a chance to evaluate a book (or anything else) myself.

Thus, for my part I will continue reading at my own pace, take notes where needed, gather impressions along the way through the insights and contributions of the other participants in this group, and reserve judgment.

Interesting article, Mal. He lost me when he blamed the farm foreclosures not on banks and mechanization but on the New Deal!

And you are all right - now is not the time to come to conclusions about the book. It is time to talk about first impressions, however. I had a wonderful experience last night when visiting my mom. My dad had a wonderful library in the house - all of the greats are there, and some of the not so greats - and I found lots of Steinbeck, including an old Steinbeck reader that contained some essays that Steinbeck wrote for Grapes but that never quite made it into the book. One is called The Turtle!! More on that once I read it.

Wilan, I want to pick up on your reference to danger. I had sensed foreboding and the power of Mother Nature to wreak havoc, but not danger per se. Where did you feel that particularly?

When I talked to mom about the turtle, she remembered thinking that the turtle was a survivor - able to tuck its little head inside its shell when it needed to and save itself. She saw it as a sign of hope, actually.

For those of you reserving judgment, what would you like to talk about as we begin the book?

Here I am! I like Steinbeck's descriptions. In the chapter on the dust storm I felt as if I were right there in the thick of it.

I like Joad, even after learning what he was in prison for. I liked the way he conned the truck driver into giving him a ride. It didn't seem like that long a ride.

The turtle. Symbolic of tenacity and survival?

More thoughts later...need to read more first.

My folks where the Joads. They came out druning the 30es from Oaklahoma. The dust had taken the frams of many share croppers. They went the way of rout 66 and lived in many of the same places talked about in the book. The picked fruit on the King Ranch and we lived in the town of Pickley fore a time when i was growing up. Called Okies a nother word fore white trash. They worked hard fore very little. They were Laborers of the 30es 40es and 50es. We where the people. Hard times and they where many did not stop them They jusy kept on coming . Thank God they did. Jim

SarahT- I think I got a sense of danger when the corn fell over, when one couldn't see through the dust, when I realized Tom had not heard from his family in two years and when the corner of the house went down in the tractor's way! I think that my 'danger' is your foreboding.

Joadies-I would love to hear your opinion of that article accusing Steinbeck of falsifying the situation. You lived it-I think many others did, too. Did the census reach all of the migrant workers-is it an honest picture?

Im with you Traude-I am reading the book for the third time and taking it slowly and letting a picture form. Funny, I get something new each time I read it!

Happy Fourth everyone! Wilan

Good, Wilan. I think we ARE on the same page.

Yes, I too would like to hear from those who lived through the Dust Bowl. Does this book ring true for you?

Wisteriavine - I often think - what would I do if faced with the trade off between feeding my own family and putting 100 other families off their land. I think we all want to believe we'd refuse to take the money. But then you see so many who make the same trade-offs every day that you begin to wonder. "Scabs" explain that they're just trying to feed their own families. The fellow who evicted tenants in Flint Michigan in the Michael Moore movie Roger & Me said "A job's a job; there aren't many left in Flint." Are the people who make these trade offs different from you or me, or is a case of "There but for the grace of God go I"?

Indeed, what DID you or your parents do during the depression?

joadies tells us that his folks WERE the Joads. So where is this critic getting his information? I'm hearing the same from PatW.

Wilan - when you said you were "letting a picture form," I was reminded of how beautifully Steinbeck paints pictures with words. Word pictures, my father used to call them. Cormac McCarthy also does this beautifully, and although I have never been in the place Steinbeck describes, I can feel the heat, hear the buzzing of insects, and feel the dust stinging my eyes.

As we proceed, I would be interested in hearing your thoughts on what and who Steinbeck appears to think are the culprits for the Joads' situation.

Nellie - there you are! So glad you're here too. How is it that Steinbeck made us like Joad even when we know that he has been in prison and why? I too liked him immediately, and now cannot tell whether it's because I KNOW Henry Fonda played him, or because Steinbeck made him sympathetic despite his experience.

Just jumping in as an Okie (and proud of it!) Many of us have lived proudly with our Oklahoma heritage and find "Grapes of Wrath" to be highly exaggerated and representative of only very, very few. My family had members who went to California during the worst times of depression and dust bowl, worked in restaurants, cleaning/pressing shops, and in general found work that made a semi-respectable living. I still remember our annual trips back to visit, the drives across the desert (at night to stay cool), the trips to the beach, the free recreation centers. California life was good for us, but we all eventually returned to Oklahoma to live UP to being OKIES and no longer looked down on by Californians. Mr. Steinbeck did us NO favors.

When I read the criticism of the dialogue in the book I was hoping that an Okie who remembered those days would come into the discussion and we have one. Wonderful! Joadie your comments as we go through the book would be invaluable.

I think the dust storms were every bit as terrible as they are described by Steinbeck. I think his word pictures are wonderful. I can clearly see it all. How dreadful it must have been. They truly must have thought it was the end of the world. Imagine trying to keep the house clean. Imagine how those who had respiratory problems, the old and the very young must have suffered.

I have an aversion to the preacher. I have no opinion on Joads character as far as I have read. I am a bit behind as I have been ill with flu and have my son out from the UK for two weeks although he is busy with business I am spending as much time with him as I can.

Tomorrow I work in the morning and I am babysitting tomorrow night for my daughter and SIL. I will take time in the weekend to catch up and post some more comments. Graham will be away for most of the weekend playing a round of golf and catching up with friends.

Carolyn

Sarah, I like young Tom Joad because Steinbeck has made him a sympathetic character-so far. The ex-preacher Casy, now there is one unlikable slimeball! Seems he just preached to get the young girls excited so he could get it on with one afterwards. The only likable thing about him is that he is honest about being a sinner.

I guess that leads me into religion in this first part: I think that religion seems to have been some form of entertainment for the people.

More thoughts on this later...

My thoughts on the Turtle was that he was tough, hard or how ever you won't to refer to it. Like the people who left to head out west. They were a strong, tough people.They had to be to endure all that they did and still survive.


Joadie, I too lived some of it. I was only three when my folks went to California from Texas in an old rattle trap I think it was a Model T, but may have been an A. I remember going accross the desert in AZ and it was so hot we had to stop every few miles to let the engine cool off. I remember one time the radiator blew the cap off. There was a spray of water shooting way up in the air with the cap bouncing up and down at the top of the spout. I was little, but that was one thing that stuck in my mind and I remember to this day. I thought it was funny, of course the folks didn't. Water was scarce too and we had to pay for water as we went across the desert. We soon learned to travel at night instead of trying to drive in the daylight.


We first settled in Bakersfield where my dad got a job in a peach orchard. I am not sure the name of the folks who owned it. I do remember dad coming home all dirty and tired after a long day of working.


Helona, glad to hear your imput. I know that not all of the people who went out to California ended up in the fields and orchards etc. My dad only worked in the orchard for about a year before he became sick and ended up in a hospital. Mother then had several different jobs to support me and my little sister. One she had was picking cotton and we lived in a box car furnished by the land owner. Then she found a job as a maid for some rich folks and we lived in the back yard in the servants quarters. That was a nice little house and we felt really blessed. So I know that not all of the people fell on the tough times that this book speaks off.

Two different experiences of this trek to California! That is wonderful-how lucky we are to have both imputs! I live in the Northeast, my father was one of the lucky ones-he had a job. So, my experiences of the depression do not compare. I was a small child and do not ever remember being hungry-I knew things were tough sometimes, but I do not have bad memories of the depression. I do remember that when my father went to work at the Navy Yard at the beginning of WW11 and was going to make much more money we thought we were millionaires!!! So, my experiences of the depression are not very helpful.

I am on my third reading and am still not sure who Mr. Steinbeck thought was responsible. Ignorance of the land (cotton sucking the blood out of it), dust storms and no rain, banks and big business, tenant farming-I do not think any ONE of them was responsible-all of it, maybe!! And, of course, we always have those that make a buck out of desperation, racism and fear thrown in to help the cause!!!

I agree, I think the symbolisym of the turtle is toughness, determination and plain grit!

I am honestly not sure what I would have done if were a choice of feeding my children or them going hungry. I, naturally, would like to think that I would grandly reject the money, but I really do not think I would have. I never had to make that choice and I am very thankful for that. Wilan

Hi, all! Sorry to be late coming in here, but I had a little catching up to do. Rereading this book after so many years is a real pleasure for me, I had forgotten so many of the explanatory chapters that Steinbeck inserted all through the book.

When a whole chapter is devoted to the movements of a single creature, a seemingly inconsequential one, at that, I think the reader should take note. It seems to me that the author is emphasizing the arduous climb of the turtle to get to the other side of the road, despite many set-backs. Like the Joads, it is victimized by the hostile environment in which it lives, and like them, still persists in its journey.

More later.

Lorrie

In Chapter Four, on page 38, I thought the story of how Tom Joad and his sons got their house was very funny. To me this seems like an hilarious note before going on to what lies before Tom and Casey.

Neat touch about Tom picking up the turtle that was written about in a previous chapter. It gives the story a sense of continuity, I think, don''t you?

Lorrie

Lorrie,

I agree. Also, the fact that Tom picked up the turtle and wrapped it in his coat to bring home to the younger children shows us that he is a good man at heart.

I admire the way Steinbeck structures this book. He shows the general plight of the "Okies" by focusing on the specific problems of a single family. He constantly maintains connections between the "general" and the "narrative" chapters. For example, in this chapter Tom picks up a turtle from a previous chapter. The correlation between the abstract and the specific is also characterized by the difference between Jim Casy and Tom Joad.

Tom is a man of action, although his motivation is primarily self-centered. He is concerned with himself and his own family. Whereas Casy deals with the theoretical, concerned with defining the problems that are facing humanity, even though he has abandonded a religion of general ideals.

I think that all this will lead us to a "general" type of writing in Chapter Five. I hope I am staying within the scheduled guidelines here.

Lorrie

Thanks for article, Malryn. It was most instructive. It is amazing that Steinbeck's work of fiction, Grapes of Wrath, was read as popular history and that his images of one family solidified as serious, academic history in the collective memory. It is true that we think "dust storms" when we remember what pushed people westward from Oklahoma....though the truth lies nearer to more drought than duststorms. (It doesn't bother me that Steinbeck lumped the two into "dust storm". It also doesn't mean anything that the fictional family's Oklahoma hometown doesn't record historical dust storms.)

It is also likely that the numbers of people flowing into California were exaggerated by Steinbeck. Wilan's point about an inaccurate census makes me wonder if the truth isn't somewhere between Steinbeck's numbers and a census that certainly missed some southwestern migrant families.

The most interesting part of the article is the political context of writers of the era......Steinbeck was only one of many who focused on the plight of workers as the social/political discussion raged. "Big business" was under attack (not unlike current criticsm); also, Steinbeck certainly directed much blame at machines, didn't he?.

My personal guess is that Steinbeck's migrant numbers were probably closer to the truth than the formally gathered statistics, as Wilan may be suggesting. But, but....those lower numbers are staggering, so it doesn't really matter. So many thousands of families were at their wits' end, struggling to make a living to stay alive first, then to find a place to settle with some level of stability.

My father's parents lived in central Florida and often would leave my father as a little boy with relatives in Georgia, as they went about their business as share croppers, following the ripening fruit from town to town, state to state, much of the year. For the first time, ever, I find myself wondering in the middle of this discussion if our move from central Texas to Colorado when I was a little girl was a continuation of a family pattern of going off to another state to find work. We moved to a small mining town in the mountains west of Denver in the early 50s where my father worked in the mines and my mother worked in the office of the mining company. The town had no other businesses, just the mine, mine office and the one building, company-owned general store, barber shop. A small church and elementary school completed the town. Our three-story apartment building was on Timberline street, close to the line above which trees did not grow. Down the mountain was a true small town, Leadville, Colorado, whose glorious silver heyday was many decades earlier...note the fading Victorian opera house on main street. We lived in Colorado four years before moving back to central Texas when I was in the 3rd grade. That's why Colorado remains in my memory as a temporary place....because we came back to Texas. (Those four years were enough, however, to prompt a love of mountains that only deepened as I grew older.)

This was my 2nd (or 3rd?) reading of Grapes of Wrath. Where was I during those first readings? This reading hit me so hard. (We're almost to the packing of the truck, preparing to leave Oklahoma.....when all the precious belongings couldn't be taken, but had to be burned. There was only room for the basic needs, not for any mementos or pictures or toys. Our leaving Colorado to come back to Texas was an identical experience. Parents, 3 small children (I was the oldest at 8 years) in a small car pulling a small trailor. Leaving behind a treasured, blue plastic, folding, doll buggy from a recent Christmas felt like the end of the world to me. None of us had many toys to begin with, and those were left behind. Worse than that, though, was leaving behind my friend Joyce, my first best friend. Steinbeck's extended descriptions of preparing to leave Oklahoma brought back all those sad memories.

The turtle. No one has mentioned his pull to the west. I agree with all the descriptions of his meaning of determination and strength, but one or two sentences mentioned that no matter his temporary barriers or battles, once he was able to begin again, he turned to the west. For me, this suggested Steinbeck's theory that the migration was wired in to a collective conscience, as strong as a magnetic pull or energy released that could not be stopped. Not unlike the gold rush of '49 of the previous century. The word was out....there is fruit to be picked in California.

Betty

Betty, reading the Grapes of Wrath brings back sad memories of my child hood also. My mother worked for the railroad and we moved often. In the 12 years of school I attended 11 different schools so I was never able to make any lasting best friends as we would just move off and leave them. I too had to make a choice of which one doll I could take on one of our moves. I had 24 dolls that I loved dearly and it was like telling a mother that she could only keep one of her children and had to pick which one to keep. I feel for these people having to give up most of their worldly goods and their friends and some of their family to move out West. I know it was a real hardship for them. And did it really make their life much easier?

Lorrie,

I'm still here - lurking!

The first two readings of Grapes of Wrath depressed me but this time (third) it is altogether different - enjoyable. Could be because I'm taking my time.

Lorrie, I am still here also.

That's great, Brumie and Ila! Br back in a flash with the trash, as my little great-nephew says! Just ignore my email letter to you about this discussion. You have already responded!

Lorrie

Steinbeck used some of the lyrics of "Battle Hymn of the Republic" for his title. To wit:

"Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord
He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored,
He has loosed the fateful lightening of His terrible swift sword
His truth is marching on.

Glory! Glory! Hallelujah! Glory! Glory! Hallelujah! Glory! Glory! Hallelujah! His truth is marching on."

What is the significance of those words to this story?

Lorrie

Lorrie, I'm still here!

Here is where the reference to the 'grapes of wrath' in the hymn comes from:

Still another angel, who had charge of the fire, came from the altar and called in a loud voice to him who had the sharp sickle, "Take your sharp sickle and gather the clusters of grapes from the earth's vine, because its grapes are ripe." The angel swung his sickle on the earth, gathering its grapes and threw them into the winepress of God's wrath. Revelation 14:18, 19

[emphasis added by me]

More later.

As long as it won't be for a couple of more days, ---------- I'M IN!

I am here. Son home from UK for two weeks and I am still not 100% after terrible bout of flu. I have been reading posts but behind in anything requiring concentration. I have to do my critiques for WREX tomorrow and hopefully Sunday can get a bit more reading done. By the way NZ also suffered terribly during the depression. Here being such an agriculturally based country and good growing climate it was the city folks who starved and went into the country to find work- single men working just to eat. We had lawyers and dentists doing casual work on the railway lines, my grandfather was a foreman and felt so sorry for these men who had never done a days manual work in their lives. The Govt sent families to live in tents in work camps -the men working on roading and forestry. NZ has a very wet climate winter and summer so you can imagine the conditions for the poor women and children.

Carolyn

It appears as if we always become bogged down at this time of the year. I don't know the proper protocol but is there any way at all that we can detain this discussion for a week or two and then get everyone to return? Sarah's not around, everyone is either ill or tied up with family afffairs and we sem to be spitting against the wind here.

I'm in, too! Lot's more time to absorb! Wilan

ALF, I'm here but have no answer to our dilema. Why not put up the next part of the discussion schedule, so that when someone -like moi-wants to make some comments on the book, we know how far we can go?

OKAY!! WE HAVE WORKED OUT A TENTATIVE SCHEDULE, AND ARE NOW IN THE PROCESS OF POSTING SOME NEW QUESTIONS ABOUT FUTURE CHAPTERS, SO WATCH THE HEADING HERE FOR NEW ANNOUNCEMENTS!

LET'S GO FORWARD NOW WITH THE WRENCHING LEAVETAKING OF THE JOAD FAMILY AS THEY PREPARE FOR THEIR TREK TO CALIFORNIA!

Lorrie

In Chapter 8, on page 99, there is a particularly vivid description of Ma as only Steinbeck could describe her. He tells of the "Mother Hubbard" she was wearing-----does anyone know to what he is referring? It seems to me I've seen that term before.

What did you think of the reunion between Tom and his mother, as desribed on page 101? I felt that this was an emotional scene, even more touching than that in the movie version.

Lorrie

I love the way this starts. I had never heard the term "mashed" (except with potatoes) until we moved to So. Carolina in 1988. JS tells us that Tom's unpainted house was mashed at the corner. How sad that paragraph seems as Tom returns home to find the gate ajar and an empty house with "skittering" on the floor. What a great choice of words there. His poor folks tried to endure under unbearable circumstances didn't they, as they too "skittered" out of their home leaving only the mice and the old cat?

What is the function of Mulley in this story? Is it for us to learn more about the "young Tom" before his incarceration or to relate what hardships Tom's family was forced to endure, in his absence?

The wretched car salesman talks and I want to strangle him! "Watch the women's faces. If they like it we can screw the old man... This ain't gonna last forever, I want deals." GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

The parasites of the earth , like those salesmen still exist in todays culture. They work by aiming for the vulnerable spot of the less fortunate.
All we hear about are cars, cars, cars. Is this an introduction to the machination that would soon become so visible everywhere in our country? The tractors, harvesters, cotton gins, automated fruit pickers and gigantic machines that will replace the labors of man? It's like a death! The death of a family- by a damned machine. The death of the farmers livlihood and their love for laboring on their own earth with their own hands. We could go on ad infinitum discussing the political, social and philosophical stances here.

Yes. Lorrie, that was a touching moment as Tom reunited with his ma. I see her as a bigger Granny (from the Beverley hillbillies) with the wisp of hair knotted at the back of her head. Isn't that the same garb that the Nursery Rhyme Mother Hubbard wore? Almost like a granny dress used to look. I love the paragraph describing Ma Joan. She was not only strong, durable and tough but kindly. I love this sentence. " Her hazel eyes seemed to have experienced all possible tragedy and to have mounted pain & suffering like steps into a high calm and a super human understanding. She seemed to know, to accept and to welcome her position, the citadel of the family, the strong place that could not be taken." It was her habit to build up laughter out of inadequate materials. < Boy, do I understand that one. This entire paragraph is my favorite in this story. I would love to copy the whole thing and read and reread it. I wish that I knew this woman personally, I would feel very blessed.

What else can you possibly say to describe Ma Joad? I'm in her corner right from the get-go.

In addition to Alf's post on Ma I found this very touching because I can picture in my mind the way the children looked at her and see their love for her "...the children could not know hurt or fear unless she acknowledged hurt and fear.......when a joyful thing happened, they looked to see whether joy was on her,...."

I think I like the meeting between young Tom and his father as much as I like the one between him and his mother. Old Tom Joad is totally unaware at first that his son is standing there:

Joad sidled up to the truck bed and leaned against. And his father looked at him and did not see him. His father set another nail and drove it in. A flock of pigeons started from the deck of the tank house and flew around and settled again and strutted to the edge to look over; white pigeons and blue pigeons and grays, with irridescent wings.

I can hear the sound of the pigeon's wings as they circle overhead and settle in their roosting place again.

Steinbeck sure does build up the suspense by adding in that lengthy description of Tom's father, doesn't he?

And then comes the reunion between Tom and his mother -brings tears to my eyes when I read it.

More thoughts later...

Good, Brumie and Nellie! Welcome back!

Yes, it's strange, isn't it? On re-reading this book, I can't remember feeling such strong emotions the first time I read it. Sure, I felt sympathy for the plight of the displaced farm people of the time, but I don't recall the feelings of admiration and compassion that I feel now. Could it be simply that I am a more mature person now? Anyway, the book is a powerful chronicle with beautifully written scenes that stick in our memories.

In Chaper 6, when Muley shares his meal, unlike the tractor driver who feeds his own children while others go hungry, he says: "I ain't got no choice.....if a fellow's got something to eat and another fellow's hungry, why, the first fellow's got no choice."

Something like what Ma says when Tom reapppears and she is told he is a stranger to be fed.

Lorrie

Lorrie

The picture of the little girl with the cotton sack reminded me of when mother was picking cotton and I was about three years old. She made me a cotton sack out of a pillow case so that I could pick cotton along side her. IT made me feel so good when I got to the weigh wagon and they weighed my little sack and gave me a few cents. I felt so big.


I think Ma Joad was the main stay of the family. She was what kept everyone else in the right perspective under trying times. She held the family together and kept them strong when times were really hard.

When we come to the part where the living conditions in CA are described... Ila has sent some good pictures.. Lorrie, I hope we remmeber to post them.

Chapter 6 "Muley"

This scene with Muley begins when Joad and Casy  are sitting on the porch.  "The red sun touched the horizon and spread out like a jellyfish, and the sky above it seemed much brighter and more alive than it had been."  They see someone coming...it is Muley.  His discription a lean man, rather short, his movements jerky and quick, his blue jeans were pale at the knee and seat, he wore an old black suit coat, stained and spotted, the sleeves torn loose from the shoulders in back, and ragged holes worn through at the elbows.  His black hat was stained as his coat, and the band, torn half free, flopped up and down as he walked.  His face was smooth and unwrinkled but it wore the truculent look of a bad child's, the mouth held tight and small, the little eyes half scowling, half petulant. 

Question I ask myself does Steinbeck want me to see/feel how these people felt when they had to get off their place?  Muley says "I'm just wanderin' aroun' like a damn ol' graveyard ghos'." I really do feel for Muley.

Brumie

Ila, Hi there Good to see You Again who have lived thru all of this. I will be watching for the pictures you sent. You have friends here and I am one of them.

Your S/N sister, Ginger

Yes, Pat, and everyone else! We are in for a great treat as we go further into the story and be able to see some of the really nice pictures Ila has sent us to post.

Your responses have been terrific! I was struck by wisteriavine's ability to see madness everywhere---how true! And Brumie was overwhelmed, as we all were, by Muley's simple goodness.

Lorrie

Has anyone noticed the structure of this novel? Steinbeck writes almost every other chapter as an "intercalary" chapter, situated between narrative chapters. These intecalary chapters are generalized accounts of the social, historical, and economical situations that shape the events of the novel, and provide significant commentary on the narrative elements of the book. This shows that this story is not one of an isolated group of individuals. The Joad troubles..... dispossessed, stripped of dignity, and struggling to maintain family unity.... are not unique but representative of an entire population of migrating people.

This interspersing of alternating narrative and intercalary chapters will be carried througout the entire novel. I feel that it emphasizes the Joads' troubles greatly.

Lorrie

In conjunction with the chapter on used car salesmen, here's a picture of an example then. Thank you, CandiApl

Lorrie

Wisteriavine:

The way I read it, when Tom saw the gate swinging open on the old Joad house, he knew the family had packed up and left for good, because he knew Ma would never ever leave the house temporarily with an open gate. Ever since their neighbor, Milly Jacobs,had gone to the barn one day and their pig had gotten into the house and attacked the baby.

It's a macabre comparison, isn't it?

Lorrie

Hi! Ginger. Thanks and yes we are SN Sisters. Looking forward to seeing you again next year.


It seems to me that all the madness came about from the hard times that the people were having to endure at the time. Not knowing what to do or how to cope with it. I know that one of my Great Grandmothers lost her mind after Typhoid Fevor took the lives of several of her children and almost took three others, then the one son that was left went out to hunt rabbit so they would have food on the table and as he tried to crawl through a barbwire fence he got caught and the gun he was carrying went off and shot him through the leg. From then on he walked with a limp. After that is when his mother lost her mind. So I know that tragidies can cause people to loose it or go mad if they are not able to put things in the right perspective.

Hi, Ila!

This is great! Our readers are returning, and what a pleasure! I am particularly interested in hearing from all you people who actually lived this book or whose families were directly involved. Let's hear from you, Joadies, Ila, and other transported people from Oklahoma!

Betty, are you still with us?

Andy, what's your take on the significance of the story of the baby and the open gate?

Lorrie

Lorrie

Lorrie, we did not go to California from Oklahoma, but from Texas. My dad was a share cropper in Texas and times were really hard for us. His brother had gone to California several years before and was making a good living in a dairy. He kept writing for my folks to come to California as one could get rich out there working in the orchards and packing sheds. Mother also had a sister who lived out there and she kept writing about the same thing. Well, my folks finally went to California, but they never did get rich. They actually fell upon harder times than they had in Texas.

Ila, no matter which direction they came from, it wasn't easy, was it? Are you the one who sent the photograph we are using in our heading? There is so much character in that face.

In this book, Steinbeck points out that many of these corporate farms had sent out fliers all over the drought areas, urging people to come to California, etc. etc. The problem was there were too many fliers sent out and too many people responded to the limited number of jobs. People who had no decent place to live, or sanitation facilities and other necessities.

Did anyone ever see the TV documentary of Edward R. Murrow"s "Harvest of Shame?" It was produced many years after the time of Grapes of Wrath, but have things changed all that much? Isn't this what Chavez and others were fighting for all along?

Lorrie

I'm thinking of gates: when closed a gate both keeps things out and keeps things in. The story of the gate being left open and the pig getting the baby is a cautionary tale that warns when you leave the gate open you never know what will come passing through -it could be something good or it could be something not good.

In chapter 7 it is like we are right inside the mind of the guy who owns the used car lot and that makes for interesting reading imo.

Lorrie, no that is not my picture, however, I have thought each time I see it that it sure does favor my dad. I wonder who he is?

Is the chapter on the greed of the used car salesmen and their complete unconcern for their 'victims' (and victims they were!) any different than what is going on with the CEO's of Enron and World.com, today? Not really-just larger amounts of money, today! IMO!

The open gate-a closed gate or door means safety, privacy for those within the house. There was no safety in that house any longer and Tom knew it the minute he saw it. I think he would have known even if he did not have a neighbor who lost her child to an open gate and a hungry pig! The 'mashed' corner and the open gate-desolation.

I loved the description of Ma-it is wonderfulto have such strength and love. Her family knew that if Ma was there, everything was good! I had a huge lump in my throat when she first saw Tom-I mean really saw him. His Dad was like a little kid in his joy-he just couldn't hug him-it was not manly (remember the era) and Tom did not expect it.

I have a friend who comes from the south and feels as though Steinbeck has done the emmigrants harm with his book. I feel as though he honors them with his great descriptions and his empathy.

Yes, I really felt for Muley. He was so lonesome and fighting a losing battle-I find myself wondering what happened to him. Wilan

What a great name for this character- MULEY! Mulish is adamant,headstrong and opinionated. He is recalcitrant in his assessment of the situation as he relates it to Tom and our Preacher-man.

Nellie, and Wilan:

Your interpretation of the gate symbolism is intriguing, really. I found that question to be of some significance, just like the story of what happened to the Jacobs baby.

And yes, I like the "mulish" Muley, as Andy describes him. Nellie, your interpreatation of the used-car salesman is right on!

Now as we finish up chapter 10 and move on to Chapter 11 on Wednesday, I felt, on finishing this chapter that it was a very poignant farewell for the Joad family to all they had known previously. This was also the first mention about the risk Tom was taking by leaving the state while he was on parole.

The family slaughtered two pigs before they left for California. There is some significance to this, can you tell what it is?

Lorrie

Lorrie, I see the killing of the pigs and salting down the meat in the kegs as 'waste not want not'. It will give them meat to eat on the way to California. I do have to think some more on this.

Don't you like the description of Rose of Sharon? I love it! And what a name she has.

For Rose of Sharon was pregnant and careful. Her hair, braided and wrapped around her head, made an ash-blond crown. Her round soft face, which had been voluptious and inviting a few months ago, had already put on the barrier of pregnancy, the self-sufficient smile, the knowing perfection-look; and her plump body-full soft breasts and stomach, hard hips and buttocks that had swung so freely and provocatively as to invite slapping and stroking-her whole body had become demure and serious. Her whole thought and action were directed inward on the baby.

This is a chapter that is full of marvelous descriptions and pieces; like this one in which the truck becomes the center of the family meeting:

The family met at the most important place, near the truck. The house was dead, and the fields were dead; but this truck was the active thing, the living principle. The ancient Hudson, with bent and scarred radiator screen, with grease in dusty globules at the worn edges of every moving part, with hubcaps gone and caps of red dust in their places-this was the new hearth, the living center of the family; half passenger car and half truck, high-sided and clumsy.

Yes, yes, Nellie, isn't he the greatest writer!!

This chapter is also filled with emotion, from the family conference alongside the truck, where they decide at "adopt" Casy, to the drugging of Grandpa to get him onto the truck. Steinbeck made it possible to actually envision all that even without ever having seen the movie!

Lorrie

The rose of Sharon,common name for several plants, especially Hibiscus syriacus,of the family Malvaceae (mallowfamily), and for St.-John's-wort, i.e., any species of the genus Hypericumof the family Hypericaceae (St.-John's-wort family).

The Joads are going to be in need of St. John's Wort in time to come.

---

I am SO sorry that personal business kept me away for almost two weeks. Lorrie, bless you for picking up the thread, and thanks especially to you, the posters, for your great participation. I will catch up and rejoin you as soon as I can! I feel very lucky to know you.

Sarah T, Welcome back.

You're right Wilan--- desolation.  I think that when Tom first witnessed the gate  ajar, he knew there was a problem.
I suppose if I had been one of those folks to "welcome" the okies in the manner described, I would be upset with JS also.  It's embarrassing to admit that mankind can be so heartless.

The killing of the pig was the last act of their farming bounty.  Pig jerky?  I never heard of pig jerky?  Or would it be salt pork for cooking?

Nellie, thanks for pointing the valuable paragraph out.  I missed how important that was on my first reading.  On rereading it, it brought tears to my eyes.  The Joads were as "bent" as the old Hudson was.  They were determined to forge ahead with the old  auto becoming the living  center of the family.  It actually becomes part of this family and  it is so crucial to their survival.

Hey, yeah! Sarah has returned, we're in business. Lorrie is an angel to accept the responsibility of leading us on, Sarh. You know, we're not an easy group. Welcome back to us and we are proud to be in your corner, as well.

I have reread your messages and was struck by so many of your points that I thought I'd reiterate them.

Nellie talked about how religion was probably a form of entertainment for the people at that time. I was struck by that term - entertainment. Religion today in a big busy city seems too much like one more thing on a longchecklist of activities, and it's never entertainment. How things change.

Nellie also pointed out how well JS describes his characters, and I have noticed that as well. I occasionally find myself skimming through some of his descriptive detail, and when I catch myself doing this with characters, I stop and reread. Somehow, knowing these details seems very important to the story. Can't figure out why I feel compelled to focus on them when ordinarily such details don't often matter to me.

Betty, I think it was you, once said that she can always picture characters in books. I mentioned that I almost never can do this - but that the locations are always quite vivid.

Why I feel so compelled to focus on the characters in this story mystifies me a bit.

Betty also talked about how hard it was for people forced to move to choose what to take and what to leave, and that the choices were often quite heartbreaking. Can we even conceive of having to make such choices in this day and age? One thinks of people having to do this in the event of war or natural disaster, but when since the dust bowl and the great migrations westward has this country experienced such a vast movement of people?

Betty, I also loved your allusion to our collective consciousness as Americans to "go west," and the turtle's facing west as a reminder of this point. Does that consciousness still exist today?

Certainly we experienced a new "gold rush" in the dot-com boom/bust cycle we just went through, but I wonder how many more of those rushes west we Californians can weather!!

Lorrie talked about the structure of the novel and JS's constant movement from the specific to the general. (I had never heard that word "intercalary," Lorrie; wherever did you find it?) We have whole chapters about a turtle, or about used car salesmen, or even about those choices of what to take and what to leave behind. Then JS continues the Joad story. Why this constant weaving back and forth, do you think?

Lorrie also mentioned that corporations sent flyers back to Oklahoma to advertise work in California. There was something so insidious in the way they did this, and continued to do this even after the markets were oversaturated with workers in order to drive labor rates ever downward.

As Wilan asks, who really WAS responsible for what happened to the Joads and those like them?

Wisteria and Ila talked about madness and a fear of madness, and you're right to question why the characters so feared madness, Wisteria. I have always assumed that the madness sets in after the crisis, and that the human being's desire for survival gets us through when things are toughest. I've heard it said - although don't know if it is fact - that folks found things harder to take after the Holocaust ended, once life returned to "normal." I wonder if madness truly beckoned, or if folks in this story simply had no way of knowing how strong they truly were. Had the Joads' mettle ever been "tested" before?

And Brumie pointed out that JS seems to want us to feel just how people felt at the moment they were forced to leave - in the midst of the crisis. Is this moment as important as how people feel after reality has sunk in?

Finally, thank you Kiwi, for reminding us that the US was not the only country to suffer during the depression. I think we often forget that. Please tell us more about what happened in New Zealand.

Thank you for your thought provoking remarks. Take a look at the questions Lorrie prepared in the heading as we continue our discussion!!

Ila, It is so good to see you posting again as I have missed you, but as you know I do not post much any where but I see you. (Peek). Smile. Welcome back and I do agree with you as to your Welcome back to Sarah

Sarah, Keep reading this and watch what is happening Today as History has a way of repeating it's self some how. Boom/bust cycle as you say is the same as what went on in 1929. As you know I have been watching the cycle that is happening today for a long time and as you know from my email to you some of us here have been concerned much longer than most. If We Could Just get More people to read this book it would help them to learn how to scrimp and save during crusial (sp) times. I see so many mansions being built around here and fear for the people.

I have said to much, Sorry.

Ginger

Oh, Good, we are all back together now, and rarin' to go! Sarah, it's so good to hear from you. I even heard from Joadie who says she has been busy but will be back to post. Joadie, as you know, actually lived this trek that the Joads made, so I feel she/he is a living example of the people of that time.

Lorrie

Chapter 11 is a real gem! It's very brief, and has no dialogue at all, but the eerie description of how the abandonded old Joad house begins to deteriorate is fascinating. The way Steinbeck describes it, it's almost like listening to a ghost story, complete with night creatures, bats, owls, mice, and cats that have gone wild. Spooky!

Lorrie

I still have not caught up. However I am reading all the posts and the mention of the truck brought the picture of the truck into my mind as portrayed in the film version of the book. I can see the board sides and all the Joad's possessions balanced precariously all over the truck.

It was no different in New Zealand as far as people leaving the land went. It was however landowners with mortgages who walked off the land. Some of the land had been in the families since the British Government had granted the land to their forebears during the first years of settlement. My mother said it was very sad. The banks had no mercy with the farmers. Our suffering was directly related to the Wall Street Crash. It was a domino effect.

In the cities there was great unemployment also. People were evicted from their rented homes. Those who had relatives with freehold property moved in with them. My grandparents had one family and a maiden aunt living with them as well as one set of parents. My grandfather was fortunate to keep a position throughout the depression albeit on half pay. My grandparents lived in the country and had a pig and a house cow as well as a big vegetable garden.

The single unemployed men moved about the country often begging or working just for a good meal. My grandparents often gave hospitality to these men. They had an outdoor laundry with a boiler. My grandfather would light the boiler in the winter and leave bedding - the door would be left ajar so that any itinerant would have a warm bed for the night. If they knocked on the door of the main house they would get a meal and breakfast the next morning. The men left signs outside the gate to tell other tramps that it was a welcoming home. My grandmother would often give the men clothes or shoes. Some men came several times a year for food and shelter. It was a terrible time in our history.

Carolyn

kiwi lady, appreciate your post.

As do I, Kiwi. Why do you think people were so generous with the single men then when they are not so generous today?

Yes, Ginger, you're right that the boom-bust cycle continues. For some reason, however, the memories seem too dim - no one seems to believe that we could ever enter another Great Depression. Why do you think that is?

Lorrie - there's another of those intercalary (??) chapters - where we just watch the house deteriorate. Again, JS intersperses the general and the specific. Readers, does this technique "work" for you - or would you prefer a more linear, character driven story?

People in NZ were generous to the single men because in many cases the poverty of their forebears in the old country had been ingrained in their minds by their parents and grandparents. People also in those days had experienced a much lower standard of living than we are used to today. Even when I was a child not many young couples owned their own homes. It took years of saving as the banks were not as generous with the mortgages as they are today. The only luxury we had in those days was our mantel radio. I was about 5 before we owned a car and my grandparents although they could well afford one never did own a car. I think people who have experienced hardship in their lives tend to be more compassionate. Also many of the single men were veterans of the Great War 1914-1918 and people respected them for the terrible times they had endured fighting in this war for King and Country.

Carolyn

Ginger, I don't post in too many discussions either and it is always nice to see you in one of the ones that I do lurk in or post in.


Carolyn, that is so intersting about your grandmother and grandfather having an open door policy for the single unemployed men and how they would help them. I guess times were tough all over the world during that time.


I think most houses when left empty deteriorate amd become enfested with rats and other varmints. It makes me sad to be driving along a country and see old houses that are falling down. My dad used to say "If that house could only talk, I'll bet it would have a tale to tell." I always think of that when I see one. I wonder what sort of family lived there and how many people there were in the family and how their lives were and what happened to them that the house was left to stand empty and fall down.


Carolyn, I agree, times were different back then. People were more compassionant and you could trust most people. Today we don't know who may be out to get you or steal from you or even kill. Back then everyone seemed to be in the same boat and were willing to help each other most of the time.


We didn't have a car either until I was in the fifth grade. Then we got one only because mother had to work a swing shift between two towns and had to have transportation to get back and forth. She didn't even know how to drive, so dad taught her how to drive the car in just a couple of days as she didn't have much time to learn.

Sarah, i sort of like the contrast with the general/specific method of these chapters. I can't remember having seen this particular style done before by other writers. It makes me wonder if perhaps JS had originally planned for this epic to be a sort of documentary, or essay?

Lorrie

I think that I was awestruck at how fast all of man's work is destroyed-this house returned to the wild (so to speak) in the time that it took themn to get to California! It was as though the family did not exist anymore at that place-they had moved on-the truck was their home for now and it was almost as though the house knew this. I found it eerie and so very sad!

I love JS's style-it makes you SEE and FEEL what is happening-one bad thing that happens to a group affects all of the others within reach-land, houses, animals, people and even car salesmen!

The relationship between the car salesmen and the finance companies? Pimps and whores, maybe!!

The only significance to slaughtering the pigs that I saw was foresight-the Joad adults knew hunger was out there and hard times were ahead. Besides, they certainly did not have room to take them with them!!

I do not think that Ma had any idea of capitalism-she just loved and worked hard for her family. JUST! They were so lucky to have her and knew it. I believe that there were many women like her-I believe that there are many women like her, now! I believe there are many men and boys like the Joad men and boys. Times were very different, but the spread is almost the same. We call it stress today, but it all boils down to feeding and housing the family! Perhaps it is a comment on the system-most hard working men and women don't have too much time to figure it out! Wilan

Sarah, We will not be heading for California as they did but to answer you Why people don't think a deppresion could happen: It has been over 60 years of the good life so no one thougt about it however if this and or when the next one hits it will be world wide with much hunger etc.

Ila, Always good to see you.

Ginger

Wilan and Ila, great point about how quickly the house returned to the earth. This idea of the connectedness between the creations of man and the earth seems to run through the first part of the book. The preacher Casy while saying grace before the family set out for California talked about this:

"I ain't sayin' I'm like Jesus.... But I got tired Like Him, an' I got mixed up like Him, an' I went into the wilderness like Him, without no campin' stuff. . . . There was the hills, an' there was me, an' we wasn't separate no more. We was one thing. An' that one thing was holy."

Beautiful. JS seems to be telling us that it is the "unholy" divide between man and the land that drives them apart and leads them to ruin. So at least one thing to blame for the dust bowl in his mind, perhaps, is the mechanization of farming, and the harm that comes when the people making decisions about the land are far from it. If you're on the land, and see the results of overfarming, maybe you think twice about what you're doing. If the land is owned in large parcels, from afar, it is hard to see the results of your decisions about how to manage it.

Hmm, Lorrie, I had never even thought that perhaps JS orignally planned this book as a work of non-fiction. I will need to investigate that and report back.

Ginger, what you say about how easy it is to forget the past is sad but true. For some reason today, though, when I heard the stock market had had its - what, 8th?? - down week, a little voice in my head told me to think hard about what is to come. Does anyone think that this country simply will not ever suffer an economic downturn that is the equivalent of the Great Depression?

On another note, I was very touched by Tom's last pilgrimage on the land before the family took off. There was something so tender about it:

He visited places he remembered -- the red bank where the swallows nested, the willow tree over the pig pen. Two shoats grunted and squirmed at him through the fence, black pigs, sunning and comfortable. And then his pilgrimage was over, and he went to sit on the doorstep where the shade was lately fallen.

Such a sad moment....

And then Ma immediately speaks what all of the Joads are probably feeling: "Tom, I hope things is all right in California. . . . Seems too nice, kinda."

One almost wants to scream out at them - don't leave! Stay! Figure something else out. There must be something you can do!!

Yes, Sarah, but I wonder if anyone, when reading about the Stock Markets collapses, ever gets a feeling of deja vu? I have heard and read a lot about 1929, the Stock Market Crash, and how some brokers were throwing themselves out of windows, etc. Things went really bad after that.

In Chapter 12, there's a real foreshadowing of what their route all along Route 66 might entail---undependable auto parts, poor tires, lack of water, and a hostile attitude most everywhere they stop.

As this family treks on, does anyone see a comparison here of a biblical journey? I see the journey of the Joads along the highways to California somewhat like the exodus of the Israelites out of Egypt and their eventual entrance into the land of Canaan. These "okies" were also a people in flight.

Lorrie

Lorrie makes a fantastic point about the similarity of the Joads' journey to the Israelites' exodus. What do others think about this point? Joadie, are you still out there? Would love to hear your thoughts.

In addition to the religious "take," there is also a clear political one. As JS says in one of his "general" chapters (14), if people banded together, they might grow stronger:

"The baby has a cold. Here, take this blanket. It's wool. It was my mother's blanket - take it for the baby. . . . This is the beginning - from "I" to "we."

"If you who own the things people must have could understand this, you might preserve yourself. If you could separate causes from results, if you could know that Paine, Marx, Jefferson, Lenin, were results, not causes, you might survive. But that you cannot know. For the quality of owning freezes you forever into "I," and cuts you off forever from the "we."

What do you think of the juxtaposition of Paine and Jefferson with Marx and Lenin? What is JS trying to tell us here? Do you agree with it? Is the concept he raises - that ownership of private property is an evil - dated? Will such concepts ever come around again?

For this coming Monday, let's read through Ch. 18.

Sarah, I think that Steinbeck is more getting at the idea that owning more land than what you need to feed your family and make some extra money with is evil. Is it a concept that is dated? I don't know. In our modern society with the majority of people living in cities, large farming operations are needed to feed those masses of people.

Lorrie, what a marvelous thought! That the journey of the Joads and others like them is similar to the exodus of the Israelites.

You know what I was just thinking? That no one goes east. I suppose that is because of those handbills offering work in CA?

Nellie, could it be because all these west-bound people are farmers and people connected to the land? In those days, California was considered great crop country, and then, too, those handbills drew a lot of them.

Lorrie

Whenever people are in need of basic 'stuff' such as money, food, housing and those that have more than they can possibly use, but won't share it (the haves and have nots) those that need become 'we' in their misery and anger. It has been ever so. All immigrants and emmigrants remind me of the Israelites!

I do not agree that 'owning' forever shuts you off from 'we'-that comes from owning without any sense of 'my brother's keeper'that does that IMO. I do agree that Jefferson and Paine chose a different way than Marx and Lenin, but they all were results of poverty and need. I am so glad that I live with the choice that Jefferson and Paine made!

Isn't there always 'hostile' attitudes present when there are great emmigrations or immigrations? Doesn't speak English, my taxes paying for such and such to help 'them', 'their' music, 'their' food, 'their' culture and on and on?! My rights! Grumble, grumble! That's hostility! Wilan

Lorrie, yes they are farmers and would be drawn to a place where one can grow things.

I have been thinking about something from in the beginning of the book. The owners of the land that the Joads and others like them are tennants and sharecroppers on, is taken over by the owners of that land who have it plowed under for planting crops like corn. But what made those owners think that the corn would grow any better for them given the same drought conditions?

Willan, doesn't a great influx of immigrants into an area seem like an invasion to the people already living in the area? And hence the unfriendly attitudes on the part of those who are settled in place and may have been there for many generations.

I like how the first part of chapter 12 traces the route of the journey the Joad's will be taking in the chapters that follow: we have a sort of foreshadowing here.

That overloaded truck -which was actually an old car converted into a truck-going along at 35mph on the paved road reminds me of the time we moved north to Peace River from Edmonton because there was work there for us. We packed as many possessions as possible into our old car, including a pile of mattresses, which us kids were supposed to lay on in the back. Those mattresses ended up in the dump because we kids kept sliding off onto the front seat and interfered with the driving. We had a better time after we arrived at our destination than the Joad's did -my dad right away got a job, and I did too.

Just a thought or two again.

I think one reason that we seem to resent immigrants moving into our land is because they take work away from the locals. However, now days the locals don't seem to want to do the "Grunt" work that the immigrants will do for a lot less wages. Yet we tend to gripe about that also. Guess it is just human nature to never really be completely satisfied.

Ila, Our family were All immigrants at one time.

The Big problem is when our Companies took the work overseas for cheap labor that could not buy our products. Well now we cannot by there products either with our loss of jobs etc. so here we are. Where do you think we are going? Ginger

Wilan, Ginger, Lorrie, Nellie and Ila, your remarks give us a nice segue into Chapter 16, where the Joads finally meet someone who has been to California and back. Ginger talks about the companies who take work overseas for cheap labor, and I think that is rightfully where the blame belongs, rather than on the foreign workers, or immigrants, or in the case of this book, migrants who are simply pawns in a chess game. As the ragged man the Joads meet on the porch at a campground explains:

"This fella wants eight hundred men. So he prints up five thousand of them things (handbills) and maybe twenty thousan' people sees 'em. And maybe two-three thousan' folks get movin' account a this here han'bill. . . ."

So, is the tragedy of the Joads just the result of the greed of a few businessmen?

Are the Joads at all to blame for taking the bait - or are they simply pawns in a terrible game?

Should the Joads have given up when they met this man?

When Casy (the preacher) announced that the ragged man was telling the truth, Tom demanded "How about us? . . . Is that the truth for us?" "I don' know," said Casy. "I don' know," said Pa.

Why does human nature work this way? We hear the worst possible story about the next guy, and somehow aren't ever willing to believe the same thing will happen to us until it actually happens? Is that something typically American?

Do we still feel this way as Americans?

Have you done this - gotten into a situation despite all the signs and signals and warnings that all before you have failed - and nonetheless plowed ahead out of desperation or just dumb optimism? I certainly have!

Then the Joads meet a second man who is making the return trip, and he tells them that he's been to California:

"She's a nice country. But she was stole a long time ago. You git acrost the desert an' come into the country aroun' Bakersfield. An' you never seen such purty country -- all orchards an' grapes, purtiest country you ever seen. An' you'll pass lan' flat an' fine with water thirty feet down, and that lan's layin' fallow. But you can't have none of that lan'. That's a Lan' and Cattle Company. An' if they don't want ta work her, she ain't gonna get worked. You go in there an' plant you a little corn, an' you'll go to jail!"

And yet they keep on going: "Nothin' won't be changed from what I tol' 'em, 'cept they'll be mis'able 'fore they hafta."

What was it about the Joads that made them continue when so many others turned back? Were those others smarter, more sensible? Or were the Joads just stronger?

Sarah, I am not sure why the Joads made the choice they did but I sure do respect the fact that they had a choice. The Joads Had a Choice be it Good or Bad they had to live with it as we all do when we Chose what we chose. Who is the stronger or more sensible, WoW that is what makes the world go round even today with all the fighting going on in the world today to find out who is the stronger. will brb.

Sarah:  What other recourse did the Joads have except to continue on?  Where would they have "gone back" to?  They continued toward their dreams of the future, obscure as it seemed.  Can man ever be explained?  Once man (families) have set their determination and their course, I believe it was impossible for the Joads to alter that course.
So--- the question remains.  Does man invite these sorrows to himself OR are these hardships wrought by nature??????????
I do believe that materialism and capitalism lends to this ruthlessness but the Joads had a dream- the promise of a new and decent life in fertile California.  Together, as a "team" they made the decision to journey to that promised land.  Who can blame them for that?  There were no other choices if they were to survive .  The drought forced their hand and as Ginger said, "be it good or bad" it was a choice.

When I was faced with a dilemma at an early age, my Daddy used to say to me, "think it through, make a decision and act. If it shows itself to be a wrong decision, there are other pathways to consider at a later time, but at least ACT!" Honestly, I have kept that advice with me throughout my life.

Sarah, those are some good questions. And like ALF, I ask 'where would the Joad's have gone back to?' -their home didn't exist any more. And the drought meant that any work for those who owned the big farms would be short term. So they could only go forward.

Is there any significance to the two deaths related in chapter 13? First the hound is run over, and then Grandpa dies of a stroke. I think in a way the journey was too hard for both.

But the Joads meet the Wilsons at a roadside campsite and a new alliance is formed.

Ginger, your post is so intriguing. Why is a choice between nothing and nothing really a choice? I lean towards ALF's point of view - that they really had no option but to keep plodding forward even though it was fairly clear they were going to nothing.

Is that right? If you have lost everything at home, and objectively speaking will be worse off if you leave, is it still the right choice to leave? Did the Joads benefit by leaving? Was the journey worthwhile in any way? Did they make the right choice in your view? Would the deaths Nellie alludes to have happened had they stayed put? Do the deaths indicate they made the wrong choice? Clearly some people stayed behind in Oklahoma, so there must have been some choice in the matter.

I know there is little time left in the month and that, inevitably, summer pleasures have crowded out our little neck of the woods. I am happy to continue this discussion a bit into August if you'd like. By the same token, we can also agree to discuss the last half of the book in the time in July that remains. What say you?

Sarah, I think that no matter where the Joads had been the old folks would have died. I for one think that our lives are numbered and each of us will die when the time is right. We may just go to bed one night and not wake up the next morning, or as my Dad used to say, "Go to bed one night and wake up dead the next morning." I do think that the old folks were upset by having to leave their home and so grieved themselves into either a stroke or heart attack. A person can make themselves ill by grieving or when they are depressed and surly these people were all in some degree of depression at having to leave their homes. The older ones just were not able to stand the hardship of the trip. IMO. But I think they would still have died even if they had stayed in Oklahoma as they were worried about being thrown off their land and out of their homes with no way of making a living.


What ever you think is okay by me. I just roll with the punches or go with the flow.

I agree with you all about "what was there to go back to?" I do think that man's ever hopeful dream that it is better 'there' was the driving force, though. It just had to be better than what they left as far as they knew. Ma dreamed of a nice white house, Roseasharn and Connie dreamed of education, having a car and living in town, Pa dreamed of working and feeding his family and maybe getting ahead a little, Tom and Al dreamed of a few drinks, maybe a girl and getting on with their lives and Noah found his dream by the river! Dreams of a better life have always led man and it is always "going to be different for them!"

The old folks roots were in the land that they had to leave. It was time for them to go to a place even better than California. And, they did!

The people who owned the land-no, I don't think they were totally responsible for what happened to the Joads and all the other farmers but they sure had their eye on the bottom line and figured out what was best for them. No concern for the farmers that had worked for them for so many years-sound familiar!? Wilan

You are right Ila. My daddy used to say "When the good Lord says "come forth, he don't mean fifth."

I would love to continue because there is so much in this great novel but I'm heading on up north on the 1st of august, for the month. We'l be visiting in No.Carolina, and spend time with friends in Baltimore , crabbing , clamming and golfing. Then up to the grands.

I'm willing to continue however long you like.

In Chapter 16 we have the mention of turtles again -"The land turtles crawled through the dust..." But are these real turtles or the trucks and cars making their slow way west? I would almost think it is both.

The highway becomes the Joad's and Wilson's new home. It seems strange to me to have a home in which you are ever moving and never settled; I don't think you could call that a home at all. I see home as the place where you stop moving, the place where you come to rest. How about you?

Thinking about the Joads...I think their biggest problem is being poor. That and the drought. Their greatest asset is that they are survivors-no matter what happens they will make things turn out for the best for themselves.

On the question of why the Joads didn't turn around and head home to Oklahoma (where, at least, they knew people) after they met a few people who were on their way back to Oklahoma, a few things come to mind. They had invested so much in this new dream. They had burned prized possessions that couldn't be loaded onto the truck and made many other sacrifices. The deaths along the way were also part of the cost of this dream. So, the cost or investment in the dream had been high....they needed the dream to work out to justify what had been paid into it. Also, related to this was a certain momentum in the westward direction that would have been difficult to reverse.

The last thing is what I call "crazy making." To admit or realize that they had been tricked by ruthless business people into coming west for jobs that might not be there would be so at odds with what they believed and what had cost them so much already.....would be "crazy making,"....too much to absorb, too awful to even comtemplate.

Betty

Perfect Nellie! The Joads, like the turtle, carried their only remaining home on their backs in the form of a very broken down jalopy.

And of course, Wilan, ALF and Betty, you are all right about why the Joads didn't turn back, but futile missions always are "crazy making" (to use Betty's perfect description) to me. I find myself wanting to SOLVE the problem, rather than simply taking it in and realizing there was nothing that could be done.

Have you ever found yourself in a similarly impossible situation? How did you survive it?

I think I have had the advantage of living in a time when I have never been faced with such impossible choices. I feel very lucky to have been born when (and where) I was, and yet I still feel compelled to try to FIX things or reason out a better solution for the Joads even when there is none. Where does that come from?? Do you feel that way at all?

What characters in this book most appeal to you, and why? Are they believeable? Are there any you dislike in the Joad family?

Does this book make you angry? - at big business, at land management policy, at car salesmen, at corporate farms, at the government, at God, at religion? Is that what Steinbeck wants us to feel?

Does Steinbeck offer us any solutions for the plight of folks like the Joads? Is there a moral to his story? Is it a book of any hope or of sheer desperation and hopelessness?

Sarah, I have thought as I read this book if the Joads were doing the best thing by going to California. Perhaps they would have been better off if they had gone to work as tractor drivers for the big land owners who drove them off their farm? I think the situation would have been impossible for them no matter where they were.

I don't know that the book made me angry at all the things you mentioned; it more made me sad to think that there are people in this world who only see the 'almighty' dollar and who have lost their humanity because of it.

Ma Joad is the character who most appeals to me because of her strength. She is always there holding the family together.

Does Steinbeck offer a solution in the book for people like the Joads? I think he does. He mentions working together, organizing, to get what they want. It is not an easy solution for there will be lots of opposition from those who have their eye on the bottom line.

the country to see and face the plight of the poor, and as a result of this book, it is my understanding, many safety nets were established to help people out, and the unions became powerful in order to protect the worker. It was a turning point in our history, which is why the book is considered a classic--it had so much influence. And combined with some of the photographers who worked in that medium at the same time, with photographs of the poor and dispossed farmers, it put a burr underneath complacent saddles throughout this whole society.

What a great image, MountainGal. Great to have you here - are you new to SeniorNet books? Welcome whatever your background!!

At the beginning of this discussion a participant placed a link to an article discrediting Steinbeck's reporting of the situation during the dust bowl. It suggested, among many many other things, that the New Deal was in fact partly to blame for the situation of the "Joads" in society. I suspect, MountainGal, that you see things quite differently!

Reading this book did not make me angry, but did make me very sad and sorry for all the people who were so poor and looking for jobs. Having trouble finding work when they were so eager to work in order to feed their families. The way they were treated by the Land Management people and other's who were just looking out for themselves, trying to get rich off other folks hard luck.


I too like Ma Joad the best because she was kind, strong, and the glue that held the family together through the hard times.


I would like to add something here about our family. We were poor, Lived in the back yard of a friends home in a part wood part canvase building. Although we were poor, mother always had a little garden of some sort. While we lived there she planted vegetables in big wash tubs so that we would have something to eat. No matter where we lived she always planted either in tubs or in flowerbeds. Also although we were poor, I never felt poor because we had so much love in our family and friends and we did manage to have a lot of good times. My dad worked first spraying DDT on the peach trees then later when the fruit was ripe he worked picking peaches until he got sick from the DDT and ended up in a hospital out there. Then mother had to find work.

Ila,Oh Ila, We also used DDT not knowing what was to come and it is still going on today as they use us as guinea pigs for research. This is why I do not so far believe in new medicine's as I belive to use the tried and tested process for whatever and try to find out what the medicine is made from and use the natural thing.

Land management still goes on today Only in a different way Such as Our Social Security being put into the stock market as was suggested and I am so glad it was Not.

We Must Watch out for the New Land Management's. I remember Not to long ago that Farmers put there land to no use and the goverment paid them to do it with our Tax Dollars. OH Ila, I could go on and on but this is the wrong discussion and I am sorry for taking up space here.

Sarah please forgive me as you know I get carried away about what is going on today as the past does seem to repeat it self only in a diffent kinda way that adds up to the same type of thing.

Watching to much news, Ginger

during the summer I'm too busy with other things to read much, so I also participate less here. But John Steinbeck is one of my FAVORITE authors, and I've traveled most of the places in and around Salinas California where he had his home. So this discussion just caught my eye. I will participate more in the winter time, as I pefer being outdoors when the weather is nice.

It's wonderful to have you MountainGal. It's so cold BRRRR here in San Francisco during the summer that I'm not outdoors that much.

MountainGal, have you ever read To a God Unknown by Steinbeck? It's an early work, but I really loved it and plan to host a discussion of it here this fall, so stay tuned!

I also was rifling through my dad's old bookshelves, which my brother thoughtfully alphabetized about 20 years ago, and found all sorts of really odd Steinbeck books with tawdry, bodice-ripper covers and titles like The Wayward Bus and The Pastures of Heaven (described as being about "men and women . . . in a warm and seductive valley). There's also a beautifully illustrated hardcover jacket on The Long Valley. I had neither read nor heard of any of these before hitting the bookshelves - have you? If so, any thoughts on any of these?

Thank you so much for this offering. I had never read Steinbeck and decided to read this along with all of you. I will be reading more of his classics. Couldn't get into it at first - think that the dialect rubbed me the wrong way. But soon I couldn't put the book down. Steinbeck is truly an artist with words.

So interesting as the characters developed, most getting stronger. By the books end, Al was taking over Tom's position and the death of Rosesharon's child gave life to another. I don't think Ma Joad got stronger, though; she was always strong, but very quiet about it.

The 'big' farming is still going on. We raised four kids on 120 acres, sending them all to college. This couldn't be done today.

bodice-ripper covers on them when I first began reading Steinbeck in high school. I'm pretty sure I read all of them and felt after doing that, that a book cannot always be told by it's cover, as the saying goes. One of my favorites was "East of Eden". It's been a long time though since I've read them, so it's hard for me to remember except the general impression of California land and the people who came here to farm it. I also loved "Travels with Charlie" as I do the same sort of thing except for me it's "Travels with Roxie". There are some of his characters I do have a hard time relating to, those in "Cannery Row" for instance and the characters in "Of Mice and Men", but I suspect that the reasons are my own peculiar tastes and shortcomings, not shortcomings with Steinbeck's writing.

If you hold a discusson of "To a God Unknown" I will read it again and possibly participate, depending on my time constraints. Nice talking to you, and I'll continue to flit by and read here, since Steinbeck is of great interest to me.

Marylin - you point out one of the key reasons why I love these discussions: they often introduce our readers (and me) to new authors, books, or genres. I love that I've read things here that I would never have read otherwise.

Marylin - Can any family farmer raise a family and send kids to college anymore? I am so outside my element when talking about farming as a born and raised "city slicker," but I don't know how folks do it, especially here in California where the cost of living is so high. Frankly, I don't even know if there are any family farms left in California's Central Valley.

And Ginger and Ila talk about the DDT and that reminds me of so much farmland that has been ruined by overuse of pesticides. It's a wonder family farmers survive.

MountainGal - isn't it odd that the publishers thought they could sell more "literary" books that looked like bodice rippers? Seems the other way around these days - the trade paperback books look so impressive and literary, and often times are nothing but bodice rippers! How times change.

Do folks have some final commments about the Joads and their journey? MountainGal talks about how some family members changed along the way - growing, it seems paradoxically, stronger for their suffering. What do they say "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger"?

If you could predict what happened to the Joads after their journey - what would you say happened to them?

It's been a pleasure being with you this month. I know I was away for part of the time, but you've been a wonderful group. I hope to see you in the other Fiction Readers' Series discussions this year (they're listed in the heading).

An article in today's Sacramento Bee reports that Louis Owens, a renowned scholar, shot himself at the Albuqueque airport July 24.

His doctorial dissertation became the 1985 book "John Steinbeck's Re-Vision of America." Four years later he followed it with "The Grapes of Wrath: Trouble in the promise Land."

Owens admitted he had read each of Steinbeck's 17 novels at least two dozen times. "I always find something new. He gives us easy reading and lets us rest there, but there is always something more. I love the way he sets traps. I think Steinbeck did a lot of things as a writer for himself, and if a reader discovered these things, so much the better, but they're challenges he set for himmself."

At the time of his death he was working on another critical study of Steinbeck.

Seldom - are you telling us something about what will happen if we continue to read Steinbeck?!! :0

Yes, that is if you read all 17Steinbeck novels at least two dozen times!

Be careful.

At the end of the book, I think that we find the Joad's at the low point in their lives: what little they have might be lost to the flood, while they shelter in the barn to keep dry; and the book does not tell us what happens afterwards.

But I like to imagine that they make something of themselves -they are too tough not to-and end up with some little place of their own. I can see both Al and Tom go to work in some small town garage and eventually becoming the owners, and the rest of the family benefitting from that.

LOL I'm probably being overly optimistic.

In 1941 I got a summer job at Mare Island Navy Yard, CA thru pull from my Dad as a rod & chainman in a surveyor crew. The other two R&Cmen were both Oakies from Oklahoma. It was considered a decent job for those with no training. The Navy was gearing up for the coming war and lots of "Oakies" worked at Mare Island in various jobs. This is only two years after the book came out.

In the summer of 1942 I worked in the Kaiser shipyards in Richmond, CA building Liberty ships and there were thousands of Oakies working at very good paying jobs. So I think they made out very well for the most part.

My dad also worked in the shipyards here in the San Francisco Bay Area during WWII. He grew up in San Francisco, but I sure wish I'd known that the "okies" were there with him - I'd have asked him about them. I know a lot of our African American community here in the Bay Area also came here at the time to work in the shipyards, escaping poverty in the south. We have a lot of black Louisianas and Arkansans - as well as those from the deeper south - that came here during that time. What's interesting is that some are now going back "home" to the south 3 generations later to escape the high cost of living here.

Did the depression and war ultimately produce a change in our population and way of life - forcing large populations into the cities and away from their rural lives?

It appears this discussion has come to an end. I appreciate the participation of all of you, and remind you that if you ever want to go back and review this discussion, it will be in the Archives.

In the interim, please consider joining one of our current or upcoming discussions.

Ginny is leading the current Fiction Readers' Series discussion of Amy Tan's The Bonesetter's Daughter.

In September, Traude will lead a discussion of the great Wallace Stegner's Angle of Repose.

We also have novels lined up through December: Bel Canto, Hanna's Daughters and Atonement, so this should be an interesting fall and winter.

Thanks again.