The Grapes of Wrath

A novel is a world of landscapes, characters, and emotions. A great novel immerses you in this world; you feel that you have walked the landscapes, commiserated with the characters, and shared their emotions. The world of The Grapes of Wrath is 1930s America, a time of economic depression and desolation. By the time I had finished this book, I felt I had lived in that era.

The Grapes of Wrath impresses on you the terrible power of poverty. This is a poverty that came close to crushing the Joad Family, our protagonists, in their journey from Oklahoma to California. John Steinbeck describes every detail of the Joad Family's experience: the intricacies of their car, their daily meals, and their nightly sleeping conditions. The detail is so evocative that you eventually feel the family's hunger, homelessness, and even hopelessness.

This novel edged close to despair, but fortunately ends on a note of hope. I'm not entirely sure of Steinbeck's philosophy. The novel is an indictment of capitalism. The novel also favorably portrays citizen-run communities in which egalitarianism and cooperation reign supreme. These communities are in line with the novel's odd pantheism (as expressed by the preacher character) in which holiness is found in all things, and not in a distinct deity. Fortunately, these philosophies are not fully worked out, as they would have transformed the book into a polemical work. What is left is a great novel and an impoverished world that will remain in your imagination.