I am 40 years old and just read this book for the first time. I found this story to be a page-turner and very absorbing. Excellent local color and superb character development. You know, I think today's younger generation could take a few lessons from this story - the stocism these people demonstrated throughout their ordeal was fascinating. The simply did what they had to do and only complained periodically (with exception of Rosasharn - who bitched and whined all the time). This is also a great review of a bleak period in American history.

My advice to people who haven't read it is: by all means, read it, learn something about history and the human spirit.

Now for the oddities:

1. Maybe this was symbolic and I just glossed over it, but several times in the book, drivers (including the protagonists) are squashing with their vehicles animals who have the misfortune of using or crossing the road they use. Well, that was kind of strange I thought.

2. Why Connie left Rosasharn is sort of a mystery. She was pregnant for crying out loud. Was her constant carping about her wanting a house and nice things just driving him bug-s---?

3. Noah left and was never heard from again. I suppose you could argue that this was symbolic of a family disintegrating and how they dealt with it.

4. Now the really odd thing. It ended at a weird spot. Not much closure. I had to check to make sure pages weren't torn out of this old paperback. Wonder if other reviewers thought that was kind of dissatisfying....?

Quite simply, The Grapes of Wrath is THE Great American Novel.

This is the powerful story of the Joad family, "Okies" who are forced from their bank-foreclosed farm during the depression.

John Steinbeck's writing is sheer literary art. There is beautiful description, incredibly realistic dialogue, and a compelling story that captures the heart and seeks out the very core of one's conscious. And the beauty of it is that it's thoroughly understandable. The eloquent writing and flawless story can be savored by anyone from a junior high school student to a PhD.

The book is also innovative, intertwining short chapters that capture the plight of the dispossessed with longer chapters that follow the long road traveled by the Joad family to California. This is accomplished without at all disrupting the flow of the story.

No wonder that this book won the Pulitzer Prize and was the key work cited for Mr. Steinbeck's Nobel Prize.

It's a mighty piece of literature.

This book cannot but be considered one of the greatest works of American literature. Its plot is simple, almost literally pedestrian, but it magically conveys the feelings not just of its characters, but of an entire social movement and era.

The device of alternating chapters between the tale of the Joad family and descriptive narratives of the society around them only strengthens things. This is no academic, dusty view of history; this is reality, as people lived and thought and experienced.

The human attachment to the soil, the desire for home and community, the struggle for social justice, the tyranny of property, the myth of the Promised Land, the hope and dreams of a new life - there is something here on every level, the social, the spiritual, and the emotional.

The beginning of the novel is a bit slow, but it slowly picks up momentum as it travels west. By its end, one cannot but be riveted by the Joads and the struggles they endure. And one can feel the grapes of wrath building, the knowledge that some way, somehow, the human will to survive can never be defeated.

But, despite its clear social messages, this is not a political tract. The novel's ending takes one of the most intimate of human actions into a bare, stark necessity. Eroticism, motherhood, generosity, desperation - what is it? We cannot tell for sure, but we know only that it is human. The most horrific of our trials only serve to bring out our humanity. A haunting and unforgettable message.

Peter Lisca's book is an intelligent review of Steinbeck's novels. In it he links up all the novels and gives a kind of charted history of when and under what circumstances STeinbeck wrote his novels. He explores the themes in the novels and links them with each other. For example, when talking about land in Grapes of Wrath he links back with man's relationship to land in To a God Unknown. I found his introduction one of the most interesting chapters in the book as LIsca has given a kind of history of criticism of Steinbeck's works. He is not always in STeinbeck's corner when it comes to some of his works which is a refreshing and interesting point of view. As one who is writing a thesis on STeinbeck at the moment I found the book very interesting, very helpful and incredibly easy to read. I would recommond this for anybody who is interested in STeinbeck's work.