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The Grapes of Wrath (Penguin Classics)
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Manufacturer: Penguin Classics
Author: John Steinbeck
Publisher: Penguin Classics
Average Customer Rating:
Our Price: $11.20
You Save: $ 4.80 ( 30% )
Usually ships in 24 hours
Manufacturer: Penguin Classics
Author: John Steinbeck
Publisher: Penguin Classics
Average Customer Rating:
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The Grapes of Wrath (Penguin Classics) Description
Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.52
EAN: 9780143039433
ISBN: 0143039431
Label: Penguin Classics
Manufacturer: Penguin Classics
Number Of Items: 1
Book Pages: 464
Publication Date: 2006-03-28
Publisher: Penguin Classics
Studio: Penguin Classics
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.52
EAN: 9780143039433
ISBN: 0143039431
Label: Penguin Classics
Manufacturer: Penguin Classics
Number Of Items: 1
Book Pages: 464
Publication Date: 2006-03-28
Publisher: Penguin Classics
Studio: Penguin Classics
Editorial Review of The Grapes of Wrath (Penguin Classics)
Today, nearly forty years after his death, Nobel Prize winner John Steinbeck remains one of America’s greatest writers and cultural figures. Over the next year, his many works published as black-spine Penguin Classics for the first time and will feature eye-catching, newly commissioned art.
Of this initial group of six titles, The Grapes of Wrath is in a new edition with a completely revised introduction and, for the first time, detailed notes by leading Steinbeck scholar Robert DeMott.
Penguin Classics is proud to present these seminal works to a new generation of readers—and to the many who revisit them again and again.
Customer Reviews of The Grapes of Wrath (Penguin Classics)
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: The Grapes of Wrath
Review: Steinbeck's novel of social injustice was from the beginning considered a Great American Novel selling over 300,000 copies in its first year, "a phenomenon on the scale of a national event. It was publicly banned and burned by citizens, it was debated on national radio hook-ups; but above all, it was read." Steinbeck scholar John Timmerman sums up the book's impact: "The Grapes of Wrath may well be the most thoroughly discussed novel - in criticism, reviews, and college classrooms - of twentieth century American literature." Within a year John Ford made a major movie starring Henry Fonda and in 1962 the Nobel committee cited The Grapes of Wrath as a "great work" and as one of the committee's main reasons for granting Steinbeck the Nobel Prize for Literature.
Perhaps it's most fundamental message is the equality of life, there is no difference between the poor and rich, other than a bank account, all life is sacred. Treat a poor person with dignity and respect and they will and can do as well as anyone else. It is a timeless message and one that bears constant repeating, although Steinbeck's treatment is a bit folksy and sentimental.
Contemporary critic Carl Van Doren said "This novel did more than any other Depression novel to revise the picture of America as Americans imagined it." The American image of the frontier pioneer moving westward had shifted to the Joad family. The Joads encapsulated the American character and spirit of independence, scrappy can-do hard-working virtuous, an American hero archetype. Martin Seymour-Smith says the work is fundamentally flawed because Steinbeck can not show why the California businessmen's behavior is wrong - after all, they are just trying to make a living, would the Joad's in their shoes have acted any different? "There is a conflict in him [Steinbeck] between the philosophical unanimist and the humane socialist," in other word how the Joad's treat animals (as objects) but demand equality in humans. Thus the books message of all life being sacred, no matter its circumstance, is fundamentally contradicted.
In the end Grapes of Wrath is of epic proportions and a gripping story. It's often seen as the quintessential American novel of the 1930s and certainly one of Steinbeck's best (along with Of Mice and Men).
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: One of the greatest stories ever told.
Review: This is one of the best books I have ever read. Although it can be very depressing at times it is very well written and it truly captures the strength of the human spirit. From beginning to end this book captures the reader in a way few books ever have. The ending will blow you away.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Fine Music to a Trained Ear
Review: Whenever I revisit a classic I'm struck by how much more I get out of it now than I did when I was 24 or 19 or, God forbid, 15. Giving a book like the Grapes of Wrath to a 15 year old serves largely to put them off fine literature for the rest of their lives. The depth of understanding and compassion for the human condition as communicated by a book like this is simply unfathomable to those who haven't lived much life yet, but after you've gotten a healthy dose of living, it comes across like fine music to a trained ear.
My heart doesn't bleed for the Joads today as it might have 25 years ago. Yes, it's grim and unfair, but it's no longer shocking or disturbing, and I can see now that Steinbeck didn't intend sensationalism to be the main point. What he's about is revealing the human dignity, the innate goodness and unbreakable pride of these people, and by extension the American people in general, something that still resonates today, especially with reference to the working classes. When the Joads and their kind decline government hand outs, requesting instead the simple opportunity to work hard and be rewarded commensurate with their labor (even if it means a grueling cross-country journey to a place they don't know) one can hear today's white working poors' exasperated disdain for government, insisting that they simply be allowed to keep more of their pay and not be held back in their efforts by nit-picking legalities and cultural trivialities that disapprove of their lifestyles.
Sadly, most such people will never read the Grapes of Wrath. Worse yet, many liberal lawmakers won't read it again after high school and won't glean from it an essential understanding about the pride and perseverance of the American working class that could benefit them in cultivating this constituency. A book like the Grapes of Wrath should be required reading - for every American over 30.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: The All American Novel for a reason.
Review: Few novels portray the Hunger of the human spirit with more compassion and talent than Grapes. This was Steinbecks strong suit. Say what you will about his leftist, "Socialist", leanings, I believe Poore said it best; "Steinbeck didn't need the Nobel Prize the Nobel judges needed him." Poore concluded: "His place in [U.S.] literature is secure. And it lives on in the works of innumerable writers who learned from him how to present the forgotten man unforgettably." And this, Steinbecks masterpeaice, remains their blueprint.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: "I'll be there..."
Review: "Ya gotta eat..." Dad used uto say if we thanked him for taking to the local hamburger stand; he could have, just as easily, been stating the obvious theme of Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath. One can easily imagine Tom Joad or, more to the point, his sister Rosasharon saying it in her "sharing" scene in the closing pages of the book. I read this book, the first time, in sophomore study hall just before lunch in small town Wisconsin; largely as a result of the wretched deprivations depicted in the book, I remember rushing home, sure I would starve to death if I didn't immediately ingest the bowl of soup and sandwich my mother had waiting for me. As the Joad family move out of Dustbowl Oklahoma toward the promised land of California, the Joads must survive on fried dough and unripe fruit (from which they are warned they may "get the skitters"); Along the way they meet tragedy and, in most cases, their dreams of a better life are smashed like last year's fallen fruit...And, yet, they still hope for the best. Maybe the next Hooverville will be different, maybe the next fruit ranch; if they could only make it there. Government offered little or no help. Long before the rest of the nation hit the skids, farmers were getting the short end of the stick; they never saw any of the prosperity of the 1920's, and the Dustbowl didn't help either. But Tom Joad sees hope in numbers, "Wherever a guy is hungry, I'll be there...", he says, urging the readers to come along, to fight injustice wherever they can: a challenge as urgent today as when Tom made it in this wonderful book.
Review Summary: The Grapes of Wrath
Review: Steinbeck's novel of social injustice was from the beginning considered a Great American Novel selling over 300,000 copies in its first year, "a phenomenon on the scale of a national event. It was publicly banned and burned by citizens, it was debated on national radio hook-ups; but above all, it was read." Steinbeck scholar John Timmerman sums up the book's impact: "The Grapes of Wrath may well be the most thoroughly discussed novel - in criticism, reviews, and college classrooms - of twentieth century American literature." Within a year John Ford made a major movie starring Henry Fonda and in 1962 the Nobel committee cited The Grapes of Wrath as a "great work" and as one of the committee's main reasons for granting Steinbeck the Nobel Prize for Literature.
Perhaps it's most fundamental message is the equality of life, there is no difference between the poor and rich, other than a bank account, all life is sacred. Treat a poor person with dignity and respect and they will and can do as well as anyone else. It is a timeless message and one that bears constant repeating, although Steinbeck's treatment is a bit folksy and sentimental.
Contemporary critic Carl Van Doren said "This novel did more than any other Depression novel to revise the picture of America as Americans imagined it." The American image of the frontier pioneer moving westward had shifted to the Joad family. The Joads encapsulated the American character and spirit of independence, scrappy can-do hard-working virtuous, an American hero archetype. Martin Seymour-Smith says the work is fundamentally flawed because Steinbeck can not show why the California businessmen's behavior is wrong - after all, they are just trying to make a living, would the Joad's in their shoes have acted any different? "There is a conflict in him [Steinbeck] between the philosophical unanimist and the humane socialist," in other word how the Joad's treat animals (as objects) but demand equality in humans. Thus the books message of all life being sacred, no matter its circumstance, is fundamentally contradicted.
In the end Grapes of Wrath is of epic proportions and a gripping story. It's often seen as the quintessential American novel of the 1930s and certainly one of Steinbeck's best (along with Of Mice and Men).
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: One of the greatest stories ever told.
Review: This is one of the best books I have ever read. Although it can be very depressing at times it is very well written and it truly captures the strength of the human spirit. From beginning to end this book captures the reader in a way few books ever have. The ending will blow you away.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Fine Music to a Trained Ear
Review: Whenever I revisit a classic I'm struck by how much more I get out of it now than I did when I was 24 or 19 or, God forbid, 15. Giving a book like the Grapes of Wrath to a 15 year old serves largely to put them off fine literature for the rest of their lives. The depth of understanding and compassion for the human condition as communicated by a book like this is simply unfathomable to those who haven't lived much life yet, but after you've gotten a healthy dose of living, it comes across like fine music to a trained ear.
My heart doesn't bleed for the Joads today as it might have 25 years ago. Yes, it's grim and unfair, but it's no longer shocking or disturbing, and I can see now that Steinbeck didn't intend sensationalism to be the main point. What he's about is revealing the human dignity, the innate goodness and unbreakable pride of these people, and by extension the American people in general, something that still resonates today, especially with reference to the working classes. When the Joads and their kind decline government hand outs, requesting instead the simple opportunity to work hard and be rewarded commensurate with their labor (even if it means a grueling cross-country journey to a place they don't know) one can hear today's white working poors' exasperated disdain for government, insisting that they simply be allowed to keep more of their pay and not be held back in their efforts by nit-picking legalities and cultural trivialities that disapprove of their lifestyles.
Sadly, most such people will never read the Grapes of Wrath. Worse yet, many liberal lawmakers won't read it again after high school and won't glean from it an essential understanding about the pride and perseverance of the American working class that could benefit them in cultivating this constituency. A book like the Grapes of Wrath should be required reading - for every American over 30.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: The All American Novel for a reason.
Review: Few novels portray the Hunger of the human spirit with more compassion and talent than Grapes. This was Steinbecks strong suit. Say what you will about his leftist, "Socialist", leanings, I believe Poore said it best; "Steinbeck didn't need the Nobel Prize the Nobel judges needed him." Poore concluded: "His place in [U.S.] literature is secure. And it lives on in the works of innumerable writers who learned from him how to present the forgotten man unforgettably." And this, Steinbecks masterpeaice, remains their blueprint.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: "I'll be there..."
Review: "Ya gotta eat..." Dad used uto say if we thanked him for taking to the local hamburger stand; he could have, just as easily, been stating the obvious theme of Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath. One can easily imagine Tom Joad or, more to the point, his sister Rosasharon saying it in her "sharing" scene in the closing pages of the book. I read this book, the first time, in sophomore study hall just before lunch in small town Wisconsin; largely as a result of the wretched deprivations depicted in the book, I remember rushing home, sure I would starve to death if I didn't immediately ingest the bowl of soup and sandwich my mother had waiting for me. As the Joad family move out of Dustbowl Oklahoma toward the promised land of California, the Joads must survive on fried dough and unripe fruit (from which they are warned they may "get the skitters"); Along the way they meet tragedy and, in most cases, their dreams of a better life are smashed like last year's fallen fruit...And, yet, they still hope for the best. Maybe the next Hooverville will be different, maybe the next fruit ranch; if they could only make it there. Government offered little or no help. Long before the rest of the nation hit the skids, farmers were getting the short end of the stick; they never saw any of the prosperity of the 1920's, and the Dustbowl didn't help either. But Tom Joad sees hope in numbers, "Wherever a guy is hungry, I'll be there...", he says, urging the readers to come along, to fight injustice wherever they can: a challenge as urgent today as when Tom made it in this wonderful book.