Grapes of wrath - a book like a roller
The Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
In the 1930s, a family from Oklahoma leaves their farm due to climate change, namely extreme drought and dust storms, and sets off for California, where, according to a pamphlet circulating at the time, endless work awaits them. What awaits them, however, is endless hardship- only a lyrical road trip one might think.
The Dust Bowl Lore. 1930. Courtesy of The Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture
Even the grand masters of misery, Charles Dickens and Victor Hugo, were unable to portray the struggles and hard battles of the lower working class as tangibly and vividly as Steinbeck. Steinbeck dispenses with the humorous, heart-warming scenes of a Dickens or the moral commentary of a Hugo, and relentlessly and rationally escalates the progressive inner and outer despair of the Toad family to the point of sheer unbearability. Yet there is hardly any violence in the book. It is the ice-cold, calculating, almost mechanised injustice and exploitation that makes the reader clench their fists in anger. You really want to intervene yourself and help this family. Is this the striking and dramatic (socialist) glorification of the proletariat that Steinbeck was loudly accused of at the time?
I don't think so.
Opposition came not only from conservative circles, but also from left-wing hardliners. If you read enough reports from the period after the Great Depression, you will find more than enough credibility in Steinbeck's description. Additionally, as a voluntary migrant labourer, Steinbeck himself was so close to the milieu that the book is brimming with authenticity.
‘...and in the eyes of the people lies failure; and in the eyes of the hungry, anger grows. In the souls of the people, the grapes of wrath fill and become heavy, heavy for the grape harvest.’
What sentences. Meaningful, powerful like a hammer blow.
“If he needs a million acres to make him feel rich, seems to me he needs it 'cause he feels awful poor inside hisself, and if he's poor in hisself, there ain't no million acres gonna make him feel rich, an' maybe he's disappointed that nothin' he can do 'll make him feel rich.”
With total assets of US$18.3 trillion, the number of billionaires exceeded 3,000 for the first time in 2025. This increase within a single year is almost equivalent to the total assets of the poorer half of the world's population, which comprises more than four billion people. Since 2020, billionaires' assets have increased by over 80 per cent when adjusted for inflation.
In THE SINS series, I tried to personally address greed, also known as avarice, with the fascinating result that the price of the bottle at auction more than doubled within a year of its release price. It's just in our nature.
As a libertarian who is always in favour of the free market and little interference from the state, this book was also a powerful warning for me. If you give the entrepreneur absolutely no rules, slavery is never far away. The intensification of power relations through AI and the resulting rapid transformation of the world of work make this book more relevant than ever.
Working-class families from Oklahoma who housed in emergency camps for years under the most precarious conditions
But what makes the book truly special are the interludes that regularly interrupt the plot. Here, Steinbeck not only demonstrates his storytelling prowess, but also showcases his lyrical brilliance with his symbolic descriptions of the landscape and character studies of the inhabitants of the current location. As you read, you can almost feel the heat on your skin and hear the dust crunching between your teeth. The diner scene makes you smile and feel as if you have been transported into a lonely Edward Hopper painting. Pure art. Yet he does not write in particularly long sentences like Thomas Mann or use complex constructions, but rather, like Hemingway, reduces his sentences to the absolute essentials. The truth. No showing off, just razor-sharp precision.
Oklahoma family entering California, searching for work.
An uncomfortable book. Full of hardship but also incredibly touching humanity.
The fact that the author was constantly confronted with death threats after the release and that even the then President of the United States publicly insulted him speaks volumes about its importance and effectiveness.
Rarely has an author been more deserving of the Nobel Prize in Literature.
The Grapes of wrath is a bock like a roller that slowly but surely rolls over the individual and leaves it shattered.
Most propably one of my top 5 novels ever.
