This morning's Writer's Almanac had a lot of good background about The Grapes of Wrath, which was published today in 1939. Originally Steinbeck was asked to do a piece for Life magazine, but when it wasn't published he ended up writing a novel, finishing the first draft in 100 days.
A quote taken from the article:
I break myself every time I go out [in the fields] because the argument that one person's effort can't really do anything doesn't seem to apply when you come on a bunch of starving children and you have a little money. I can't rationalize it for myself anyway. So don't get me a job for a slick. I want to put a tag of shame on the greedy bastards who are responsible for this.
I think you succeeded in doing that and more, John. Good job.
Showing posts with label John Steinbeck. Show all posts
Showing posts with label John Steinbeck. Show all posts
Thursday, April 14, 2011
Thursday, June 05, 2008
"The Grapes Of Wrath" Is One Of The Best Titles Ever
I took The Grapes of Wrath with me on my trip last week, thinking it would be a good mix of travel and agriculture. (I had forgotten how sad it is, though; I had to stop reading in the Denver airport because I was getting weepy.) Reading it now, right after all my other books about alternative farming and eating locally, and after visiting the family farm that miraculously still struggles on, I'm really struck by how current it is--Steinbeck saw the writing on the wall in 1939:
"...crops were reckoned in dollars, and land was valued by principal plus interest, and crops were bought and sold before they were planted. Then crop failure, drought, and flood were no longer little deaths within life, but simple losses of money...[until the landowners] were no longer farmers at all, but little shopkeepers of crops, little manufacturers who must sell before they can make. Then those farmers who were not good shopkeepers lost their land to good shopkeepers. No matter how clever, how loving a man might be with earth and growing things, he could not survive if he were not a good shopkeeper. And as time went on, the business men had the farms, and the farms grew larger, but there were fewer of them."
"...crops were reckoned in dollars, and land was valued by principal plus interest, and crops were bought and sold before they were planted. Then crop failure, drought, and flood were no longer little deaths within life, but simple losses of money...[until the landowners] were no longer farmers at all, but little shopkeepers of crops, little manufacturers who must sell before they can make. Then those farmers who were not good shopkeepers lost their land to good shopkeepers. No matter how clever, how loving a man might be with earth and growing things, he could not survive if he were not a good shopkeeper. And as time went on, the business men had the farms, and the farms grew larger, but there were fewer of them."
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)