Steinbeck, anyone?

[BarryEM]

I reread "The Winter of our Discontent" a few months ago. I reread a lot of his books over the years but I hadn't read this one since shortly after it was written. I had vague memories of it but once I began reading it I realized most of what I remembered was wrong. it was a new book to me all over again.

I don't think it's one of Steinbecks better books but it's still better than most author's better books. He had some kind of magic.

Barry

[Kourtney Bradley]

The first and only Steinbeck book I have read is Of Mice and Men, and now I can't wait to try other pieces of his work.

[Danessa]

Steinbeck is brilliant! Every book I read of his made the hair on my arms stand up. He has this capability to share his stories in a rather captivating nature.

[Joshiemic2]

East of eden is one of my favorite books of all time. The character cast in East of Eden are some of the cast and most genuine I've come across in all the literature I've read. I really enjoy this rendition of Cain and able that takes you through this immense and complex family saga that shows the effects of one family generation on another! One of the best pieces of literature I've ever read!

[zachariahs]

Goodness gracious, I adore Steinbeck. The first book I read of his was Of Mice and Men, just for fun one summer. I read the whole thing cover-to-cover and cried so much!!
Then I read Cannery Row and Sweet Thursday. I love Sweet Thursday so much, I consider it one of my favorite books ever. It's got such unique characters, such a lovely, quaint plot, and it's just so romantically endearing and gorgeous. I recommend it to all. Steinbeck really writes special things.
Of course, I have not yet read East of Eden or Grapes of Wrath, which seem to be books that are more disliked than liked. But I'm sure I'll get to them sometime because Steinbeck has yet to disappoint me.

[Chris Manning]

I absolutely love Steinbeck. I've read The Grapes of Wrath, East of Eden, Of Mice and Men, and The Winter of our Discontent.

The Grapes of Wrath is one of my favorite novels (right up there with Roots by Alex Haley). Steinbeck paints such vivid descriptions of his characters and settings, and his ideas and themes are so thought-provoking and philosophical.

Although I know it's quite long, it's a shame that The Grapes of Wrath isn't required reading in all US high schools. I read it in college, and it instilled a deeper sense of empathy within me that I still carry to this day. Perhaps if it was more widely read in schools, the Wall Street bankers, politicians, lobbyists, and the "1 percent" would realize that the vast inequality pervading our country is morally unacceptable. The Grapes of Wrath reminds us that the plight of the working class is not just about facts and statistics: it's about real people, real families, unable to escape their desperate circumstances and forced to fend for themselves.

[BarryEM]

Perhaps if it was more widely read in schools, the Wall Street bankers, politicians, lobbyists, and the "1 percent" would realize that the vast inequality pervading our country is morally unacceptable. The Grapes of Wrath reminds us that the plight of the working class is not just about facts and statistics: it's about real people, real families, unable to escape their desperate circumstances and forced to fend for themselves.

I don't really know this but I suspect that a lot of the people you list have read "Grapes of Wrath". It's too often recommended by readers not to have been. I do know that a lot of those same people have read "The Fountainhead" and the other books by Ayn Rand, who had almost the exact opposite point of view.

Maybe 30 or 40 years ago the magazine "Intellectual Digest" did a survey of CEO's of major corporations and world leaders and successful lawyers, doctors and educators, asking them which authors and books had influenced them the most. I think I remember Steinbeck being mentioned by a lot of them although it's been so long I'm not really sure. I do remember that the author that was mentioned most by most of them was Ayn Rand. Something like 60%, as I recall, said she influenced them more than any other author. The results were a big surprise to the people who organized the survey.

In case you haven't read "The Fountainhead" or "Atlas Shrugged" or one of her others, these are truly beautiful novels about, to use one of her titles "The Virtues of Selfishness". Ayn Rand would have seen the farmers hoarding their food as the good guys and the Oakies trying to get it as the villains. I don't know that she ever actually commented on "The Grapes of Wrath" but I'm quite sure that would have been her viewpoint even if she'd been as moved as you and I and most people were by the plight of the Oakies. And I suspect she would have been moved. But she believed in following the judgement of our intellect and not our emotions.

I'm not trying to pick a point of view here. If I was I'd pick Steinbeck's, although reluctantly. The thing is that both authors were very one sided. "The Grapes of Wrath" did describe incidents that actually happened but it made light of the reasoning of the farmers. Rand, at the same time, ignores the reasoning on the other side. These books present very biased and simplified views of situations that aren't simple at all.

We live in a capitalist country where the guiding principle is to make controlled greed work to improve our lives. No-one pretends it's a good system but it did get us where we are today and where we are today is a lot better off than we were when I was a kid in the 1940's and 50's. Life just isn't all that simple. Books like this make emotional appeals by pretending that it is. Capitalism, as they say of democracy, is a very ugly system whose only saving grace is that it's better than all the other systems. It works to give us a better life. They don't.

Both books, "The Fountainhead" and "Grapes of Wrath" are among my very favorite books. I've read and re-read them every few years since I was a teen. I love them not only for the ideas they represent but even more because they're beautiful, powerful stories written by masters. These just might be the two great American novels.

Steinbeck won a Nobel Prize, mostly on the basis of "Grapes of Wrath", as he should have. No-one would expect Ayn Rand to win one with her views, but in a perfect wold she would have.

Barry

[Chris Manning]

You're right of course. The Grapes of Wrath is one of the most widely read in history. Perhaps these CEO's just gravitated towards Ayn Rand because it already fit their world view. Who knows?

However, while it's been years since I've read The Grapes of Wrath, I don't remember Steinbeck presenting a biased view of the situation. The banks (motivated by profit) pushed tenant farmers off their land, and with little money and no work, they traveled to California in hopes of a better life. Unfortunately, corporate farmers (also motivated by profit) exploited them because of their circumstances.

Steinbeck wasn't attempting to demonize anyone or any one group, he was just portraying the terrible injustices occurring across the country, all in the name of capitalism. Money and greed had become more important than compassion for our fellow man/woman.

I will have to give The Fountainhead a try. I have to admit, Ayn Rand has never been on the top of my reading list, but you've piqued my curiosity!

[BarryEM]

You're right of course. The Grapes of Wrath is one of the most widely read in history. Perhaps these CEO's just gravitated towards Ayn Rand because it already fit their world view. Who knows?

I don't remember enough about that study to be sure but my impression of what I remember is that most of them read it in college long before they were CEO's and doctors and world leaders. Of course it's to be expected that the world view of college students will be different from farmers.

Steinbeck wasn't attempting to demonize anyone or any one group, he was just portraying the terrible injustices occurring across the country, all in the name of capitalism. Money and greed had become more important than compassion for our fellow man/woman.

Of course you're right. Steinbeck saw a problem and made sure people were aware of it. That's a good thing. Probably one of the results of this book was that some corporate people and government people and voters looked for and found ways to sometimes avoid those problems.

The reason I say his view was biased and one sided was that money and greed are also among the reasons we have jobs, I have social security income, there are medicines available for diseases, people live far longer than they used to, the death rate among the world's children has been cut in half in the past 30 years, etc. Money and greed have their good sides too.[/quote]

I will have to give The Fountainhead a try. I have to admit, Ayn Rand has never been on the top of my reading list, but you've piqued my curiosity!

These days "Atlas Shrugged" is the more popular of her books but I think "The Fountainhead" is both the better novel and the better starting point for her writing. "Atlas Shrugged" is more science fictiony and that's why people turn to it today. It's a very good book. "The Fountainhead" is a brilliant book. You can expect that it will shock you and it'll take some time to come to understand her characters. They tend to seem very paper-thin at first, kind of like comic book characters, because each has precisely those qualities that are needed to make the story work. I always think of it as reading a black and white novel. Black and white as opposed to color, as in old movies, not as opposed to greys. But once you accept the characters and begin to believe them, and you will, the beauty of the thing begins to show itself.

Most people think of Ayn Rand as a philosopher who wrote books to sell her philosophy and of course that's exactly what she was. What gets overlooked is the beauty of those books.

I first read "The Fountainhead" as a teen and it changed my life, probably more than any book I ever read. I became insufferable. I outgrew most of her philosophic conclusions soon enough and went back to my old quasi-liberal self, but it left me with an understanding that the other guys make sense too.

Barry

[Natalie Charlene]

The Red Pony by John Steinbeck is simultaneously one of my favorite and least favorite books, and I can't help but sit down at read it about once a year. The book is graphic and detailed; it is stomach-churning and sad. The characters are well developed, but not always loveable, and the story ends leaving you wanting more. This doesn't sound like the most positive review, but it is a fantastic book. In reality, not everyone is a hero. No one is perfect, and life, most certainly, is going to throw a ton of difficult curve balls. It's not always pretty, but it's life, and, in The Red Pony, Steinbeck captures life.

-- 05 Jan 2017, 20:28 --

The Red Pony by John Steinbeck is simultaneously one of my favorite and least favorite books, and I can't help but sit down at read it about once a year. The book is graphic and detailed; it is stomach-churning and sad. The characters are well developed, but not always loveable, and the story ends leaving you wanting more. This doesn't sound like the most positive review, but it is a fantastic book. In reality, not everyone is a hero. No one is perfect, and life, most certainly, is going to throw a ton of difficult curve balls. It's not always pretty, but it's life, and, in The Red Pony, Steinbeck captures life.

[KatMint]

I think I can honestly that "Grapes of Wrath" shaped a part of my world view. View of politics, history, the worker's world, human suffering, relationships. Never before nor after has any book touched me in so many ways. Intellectually and emotionally.

[missjo]

My first encounter with Steinbeck was about three years ago, while I was still in University. I started with "The Grapes of Wrath", that I had heard and read about for a while then but hadn't gotten to it. I was studying Finance and Banking and The Great Depression was discussed in a lot of classes, as it had been a "global event, a worldwide crisis, a very difficult period....and so on", that we had to talk about because no matter how many thousand miles away we were, no one had gotten away from it. Of course we were told about its causes, the context, the consequences, the costs, we had graphs and diagrams, numbers and assumptions, we had serious looks on our faces and cold conclusions. And that was pretty much it.

And then I read "The Grapes of Wrath" and it got to me. It touched me in a such a way that my brain took all the numbers and graphs and squeezed them till they turned to dust and settled on the Joad's Dodge. This book made me look at things very differently and think about people and times, about suffering and survival, about dreams, empathy and solidarity. It touched me in such a way that I decided to start my presentation for my final paper with a quote from it, as my paper was about banking crises. I was utterly disappointed when the examiners asked me to go straight to my case study with no introduction whatsoever, cause I'm sure this would have started an interesting conversation, even though in the book the bank is more of a symbol:

"The bank is something else than men. It happens that every man in a bank hates what the bank does, and yet the bank does it. The bank is something more than men, I tell you. It’s the monster. Men made it, but they can’t control it."

After "The Grapes of Wrath" I also read "Of Mice and Men" and then didn't touch any other of Steinbeck's books, for unknown reasons. Last week, however, I managed to finish "East of Eden", which was a great, great work, and I'm now planning my future Steinbeck reads.

Jo

[BarryEM]

My first encounter with Steinbeck was about three years ago ...

Thank you for a really fine essay on Steinbeck and his affect on you. I began reading his books as a teen, back in the 1950's when they weren't classics but were just good novels by a very popular contemporary author. He soon became one of my favorite authors and he still is today. I've read most of his books and every year I re-read one or two of them and sometimes more.

Barry

[Scerakor]

I love Steinbeck. I can't even say that I have read his "big-hitters" but rather a smattering of his shorter stuff, which in my opinion, is complete genius. Besides the commonly quoted "Of Mice and Men" I thoroughly loved his works that take place on Cannery row ("Cannery Row" and "Sweet Thursday"). "The Pearl" is also an excellent piece of his.

[BarryEM]

Do you mean to say that you didn't like "Of Mice and Men"? I find that amazing. I think it's not only among his best books but among the best books I've ever read.

Barry