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Stumpage Reports
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Thursday, May 20, 2004 :::
The Wrapes of Gath
About a week ago I began reading The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck. I am enjoying it the hell out of it, have a hard time putting it down, and am over halfway through it. I've seen the movie before, but its been a long time and I'll have to hunt up a copy when I'm done with the book.
I know this book has been challenged for being on school reading lists. It has some pretty explicit sexual references in it, and of course the left-wing, anti-business politics so evident in it probably upset a few comfortable folks.
As most people probably know, the book chronicles the adventures of the Joad family as they trek west with everything they own packed on a truck. The parts that really impress me are the little interludes Steinbeck puts in amidst the main plotline. Of particular note were Chapter 7 (all about used car lots) and the scene in the diner in Chapter 15. I'd give my left nut (I mostly use my right one) to right a short story like either of those, and here they are, tiny parts of a huge-ass novel.
Quote of the Day:
One man, one family driven from the land; this rusty car creaking along the highway to the west. I lost my land, a single tractor took my land. I am alone and I am bewildered. And in the night one family camps in a ditch and another family pulls in and the tents come out. The two men squat on their hams and the women and children listen. Here is the node, you who hate change and fear revolution. Keep these two squatting men apart; make them hate, fear, suspect each other. Here is the anlage of the thing you fear. This is the zygote. For here "I lost my land" is changed; a cell is split and from its splitting grows the thing you hate -- "We lost our land."
--- John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath, 1939.
::: posted by tom at 4:42 PM
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