Five Best Sellers: "Grapes of Wrath", "Moon is Down", "Cannery Row", "East of Eden" and "Of Mice and Men" [Hardcover]

Who am I to review one of the greatest literary works of all time? Could I possibly give this book anything less than the maximum rating it so richly deserves? Should I even commence? Those were just some of my private thoughts as I finally put down a copy of this book - read. This is the book which stirred the American conscience, caused political reform and brought about change when first published in 1939. This is the book which described how families were starving to death because of corruption. This is John Steinbeck at his exceptional best. For those people who never got around to reading this engaging and absorbing account of the Joad family, may I suggest you actually purchase a copy (any copy!) and finally read it.

Today the world is either in recession or emerging from the dark grip of this latest financial catastrophe. Whilst we may live in a time when millions of families are no longer allowed to starve to death - well, not in the developed world at any rate, I earnestly believe there are lessons to be learned from this book about the rich and powerful who care not for their fellow man but only for personal gain. More importantly, those lessons are as relevant today as they were in 1939.

Another similarity also failed to escape my notice; In this book we see how US police and other officials use their positions of authority to threaten and even blackmail the many thousands of American migrants who were simply looking for work in order to feed hungry mouths. These people had not arrived from any foreign country and were not even black - something which would have made their persecution much easier. No!, these ordinary white American folk were honest farmers who had been forcibly evicted from their homes and the land they had worked for generations. Seventy years on, here in the UK, we are besieged by TV programmes depicting our different police forces undertaking their various duties around the country. Yet more cheaply produced "reality" television! Significantly, however, I have occasionally noticed how some police officers deliberately provoke a hostile situation where exists. Whilst not on the scale portrayed in this outstanding work, it is interesting that I should recognise that underlying attitude of arrogant superiority.

Whilst some may find the book slow going at the start, Steinbeck quickly gathers in those loose strands until they suddenly pull together to assume a story, reveal a mental photograph and produce a relevance into which the reader becomes fully immersed. I promptly learned local words and understood the dialect in which they were spoken as the Joad story unfolded. I could hear those southern accents as hardships are endured and explained through the actions of those who lived them. This was the organised, legalised daylight robbery and exploitation of the poor by the rich who were actively supported by the law enforcement agencies. A week's work for 1,000 fruit pickers paying 50 cents an hour is advertised to 3,000 hungry people who then pass on the message. Consequently, 5,000 starving workers arrive in search of that employment. With so much competition, the rate is lowered to 30 cents - take it or leave it! It was a deliberate ploy repeated time after time. Anyone attempting to organise his fellow workers is photographed, black-listed and branded a communist. Now feed that to your children. Then the banks insist the farmers reduced the rate to 25 cents and any landowner who questions that decision is swiftly reminded of his own vulnerability as a mortgagee! In short, either you pay them 25 cents or you join them! My own immediate reaction was to recognise a similarity between then and now - specifically with those modern banking practises which preyed on the sub-prime market. Anyone who cared to consider precisely what "sub-prime" meant, knew it was a policy destined to fail. And fail it did in spectacular fashion - and yet, the fat cat bankers still draw bonuses based on "personal performance" and not on their company's overall profit or loss...

I note from some of the comments appended to certain editions of this book, that various issues have been produced in which, apparently, Steinbeck's prose are changed to make the work an easier read. Please don't take the easy option, take the version written as it was intended to be read - i.e. the version written by Steinbeck. If not, you cannot claim to have read this book at all - instead you have the equivalent of, say, a Romeo and Juliet story - set in Manhattan in the 21st Century - and there are plenty of those...

In closing, I would urge anyone (indeed everyone) who has not already read an original version of this book If to go out and buy a copy - any old copy and then simply read it. Having done that, you too will draw parallels with our modern age and understand what I mean. You will also be richer for having done so - as would those fat cats who, unfortunately, will probably never bother. Having finally finished reading this outstanding work, I wonder how many of you will still be wondering whatever happened to that perfectly matched pair of Bays! I do...

NM

› Go to Amazon U.S. to see the review  5.0 out of 5 stars