Grapes of Wrath

John Steinbeck won a Pulitzer for this masterpiece in 1940. I am no literary critic and hence cannot claim to dissect it, but I can recall very few books that drew me into the story as much as the saga of the Joads did. An open ended story - not a happy tale by any standard. No inkling of what happens to the Joads and their future as the story draws to a close. The brash remarks by the preacher and other characters about God and the christian faith must have stirred quite a storm. It is a story of a displaced people and their travails, of the connection that a man had with the soil he tilled, of a simple life that went on no matter what, of a way of life destroyed, of families torn apart by circumstance, of courage shining through at unlikely places in unlikely people, of people sticking together, of people standing by each other in tough times, but above all of the strength and dignity of the human spirit.

I somehow find a parrallel between what happened all those years ago and what is happening in India in some pockets now. The controversies in west Bengal with respect to Special Economic Zones (SEZs) and even in my own vicinity… Pune is the focus of the auto giants for mega projects… and how agricultural land must make way for “progress”. There is no denying that factories and workshops create jobs for thousands. Blue collars and white alike – but at what cost?

John masterfully interposes chapters depicting the times and scenes from all aspects of life which compliment the Joad story and one cannot help but feel that he perhaps observed things up real close – the details of camps, of the food, of living conditions, of events, places and conversations which are all so vivid in their minute details. One part of the story that stands out in memory is the bit where the turtle keeps crawling in the same direction... all the while to the south-west. There are many a poignant moments and the last passages are unforgettable - a truly unsual ending that curiously made me feel like the story does go on even long after I kept the book down.

I guess the Sunday Times in its review said it simply, yet effectively. “A novelist who is also a true poet”