Friday’s Read it or Rant: The Grapes of Wrath
Alternate Title: Read it or Rant, 11:45 on Sunday counts as the weekend
Alternate Alternate Title: Dear God Why did I choose this book?
Oh, The Grapes. Sigh, I shoulda just watched the movie. You should just read my review and save the six hours it took me to read it. Really. I usually really like John Steinbeck, in fact East of Eden is one of my favorites. I picked The Grapes, because I wanted something deep, a thinker, something to counteract all the Sandra Boynton books I read each week. Yeah. Um, I was really wishing I was reading Hippos go Berserk three chapters in. I now think that John Steinbeck is a communist, racist, sexist, ageist, ignorant of female anatomy, homophobic, sadist, bipolar tool. I could go on for pages about all of the inconsistencies, and explanations for the above list but, eh. It has been done already by more qualified readers than I, so if you are interested go Google some reviews. Make sure you pick one that mentions the lack of editors during the Depression, that is the only explanation for this book! Now for the plot…only plot, don’t go looking to the Grapes for any characters you can’t describe in a five word sentence. One dimensional would be half a dimension too much. Anyway, on to the story…
The Grapes start with Tom Joad just after he is paroled from prison after serving four years for manslaughter (He kilt him a man with a shovel). As he walks home, he meets a preacher, (a former, disenfranchised minister) Jim Casy, who baptized him in a ditch when he was a kid, and Tom invites him home with him. When they arrive at the Joad home, they find it deserted. They are then off to his Uncle John’s residence a few miles away, where he finds his family loading an old clunker truck(the used car chapter was one of my favorites actually, very poetic) with everything they own; he learns that his family’s crops were destroyed in the Dust Bowl and that they were forced to default on loans, and they were “tractored off” (a tractor pushed over their house to make longer rows of cotton. Or corn. Or pot or whatever.) With their farm repossessed, the Joads put all their hope on yellow handbills that are distributed everywhere in Oklahoma (And Arkansas, and Kansas, oh and Missouri ), describing the beautiful country of California and the high pay you get for doing easy jobs, like picking peaches. (FWIW, I have picked peaches, and they are itchy, and the fuzz sticks to your arms, oh, and they are full of June Bugs). Okay, so anyway, the Joads, along with Jim Casy (hey, anybody notice who else has JC initials? hmm, not too creative are we Steinbeck?), are seduced by the handbills and invest everything they have into the exodus. Although leaving Oklahoma would be breaking parole, Tom decides that it is a risk he has to take.
Moving on, Grandpa and the dog die within the first 24 hours, they should have taken it as a sign and turned around. They soon discover that the roads are crowded with thousands of other families making the same trip all on the faith of those friggin yellow handbills. As the Joads continue and hear stories from other road weary travelers, and meet some coming BACK from California, they are starting to think that all may not be as the handbills promised. So by this time they are pretty much there, and they have to find work, because they can’t afford to go back! By the time they do get there Grandpa and Grandma (and the dog) are dead and Noah (the elder wackadoo Joad son) and Connie (the ((strangely named)) husband of the pregnant Joad daughter, ((strangely named))Rose of Sharon), have left, yup, just up and left.
The shriveling (in numbers and in weight—turns out not much to eat for migrants) family find hordes of applicants for every job and little (no) hope of finding a decent wage, because of the oversupply of dust bowlers. All they want is the simple American Dream: a house, a family, and a steady job. At first they have a glimmer of hope at the government camp, Weedpatch,(BEEP< BEEP<BEEP, COMMUNIST ALERT!). At Weedpatch they are clean, and safe, and have flushing toilets, but still no jobs, no food, and no money.
So they move on and find other laborers have begun to join unions (have I mentioned anywhere that I am a Republican, and how I feel about unions?). The surviving members of the family unknowingly work as strikebreakers on a peach orchard that is involved in a strike that eventually turns violent, killing the preacher Casy and forcing Tom Joad to kill again and become a fugitive(again or still or whatever). As he bids farewell to his mother in a (supposedly tear jerking) speech (whatever, I am just pushing through at this point, the end and my Marie Clarie are near!), and promises that no matter what happens, he will be a tireless advocate for the oppressed. Blah, blah, Yada, Yada. Rose of Sharon’s baby is stillborn (this would have been more sad if she were not such a sniveling moron((and she is supposed to be the Madonna archetype?!?)). Ma Joad keeps the family moving(if not the plot) and forces the family to leave another camp that has been flooded out. It is winter, and there is NO work. They have NO money, and NO hope. In the end, (next sentence is not mine, Thank God. I just stole it so that you could see how full of himself Mr. Steinbeck truly is) Rose of Sharon commits the only act in the book that is not futile: she breast feeds a starving man, still trying to show hope in humanity after her own negative experience. This final act is said to illustrate the spontaneous mutual sharing that will lead to a new awareness of collective values. Okay, whatever you say. As for the part about her breastfeeding, shall I point out how wrong this is? Cause ya know, I know a thing or two about breast feeding. No, I will move on! YEAH book OVER! Yippee!
So I copied and pasted some of the symbolic parts of the book, all VERY obvious, a ninth grader could have caught each of them, so read them for you’re your own edification, and so you can win the The Grapes of Wrath Section of Jeopardy with out having to actually, you know, read it.
The turtle in Chapter 3 is a metaphor for the working class farmers whose struggles are recounted in the novel. Significantly, the dangers posed to the turtle are those of modernity and business. The intrusion of cars and the building of highways endangers the turtle, and the truck that strikes the turtle is a symbol of big business and commerce. The struggling of the turtle also evokes the workings of narratives in general, since the trajectory of the turtle mimics the trajectory of the novel: moments of action and pauses, slow process, peripecias. This land turtle becomes a proleptic device for the following chapters.
Rose of Sharon’s pregnancy holds the promise of a new beginning. This promise is broken when she delivers a stillborn baby. However, the family moves boldly and gracefully forward, rather than slipping into despair, and the novel ends on a hopeful note.
There are numerous Judeo-Christian symbols throughout the novel. The Joad Family, like the Israelites, are homeless and persecuted people looking for the promised land. Jim Casy can be viewed as a symbol of Jesus Christ, who began his mission after a period of solitude in the wilderness. When the group first leave for their journey West, there are thirteen of them, representing Jesus Christ and the twelve apostles. Like Jesus, Jim offers himself as the sacrifice to save his people. Jim’s last words to the man who murdered him was: “Listen, you fellas don’ know what you’re doing,” similar to Jesus’s “Father forgive them; they know not what they do.” Tom becomes Jim’s disciple after his death.
A great flood at the end of the novel is related in the Bible as the story of Noah and the Great Flood. A flood symbolizes uncontained water, which has gone beyond the basic boundary between the earth and water. Floods also symbolize the end of one cycle of time and the beginning of a new cycle of time. Therefore, a flood symbolizes both death and regenerative birth at the same time. The image in which Uncle John disposes of the stillborn baby recalls Moses being sent down the Nile River, suggesting that the family, like the Hebrews in Egypt, will be delivered from the slavery of its present circumstances.
Next up for the Read it or Rant? I don’t know yet. I will pick something up at the library tomorrow, and let you know.
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Happy Birthday Friar Tark!
Better late than never! We miss all of our Darling Tarklings.
Friday’s Read it or Rant: Incomplete
A few of the things I have done today other than write a review of the Grapes of Wrath:
- opened all my windows,
- flew a kite,
- taught The son how to climb the wobbly ladder at the park,
- laundry,
- watched The Son eat powdered parmesan cheese and crushed ice for lunch (though served something much tastier and slightly more nutritious), and
- took a nursey-nap
Despite set backs, I actually did finish reading the Grapes this week. It just turns out that writing this review is a little more time consuming than others I have done. I will try to get it posted this weekend, my apologies for the tardiness. In the mean time, A GUEST REVIEWER!!
“Son, hey! Hey, hold still a minute! Tell me about what book you are reading right now!”
“Boouck?”
“Yes, book. Hey, come back here! ”
(He returns with Monday the BullFrog, and plops himself in my lap.)
“BOOOCK! BOOOCK!”
“Okay, we can read Monday again.”
(reads Monday the BullFrog for the twelve hundredth time this week.)
“So what did you think?”
“aapergthableph! Boouck, rempick, clemgfghff. Appy.”
“ooookay. Um, what about the plot? The characters? The syntax?”
“Nack?”
“No, not snack. SYNTAX.”
“Nack! PAPLE!”
“Okay, we will have an apple after you finish your review.”
“NOOOOO! PAPLE! PAPLE! OOkie?”
“Good enough.”
(hands The Son some dried apple slices and a Tagalong)
Filed under Read it or Rant, The Son | Comments (5)Five things
The five things I want The Son to know before he is an on-his-own adult:
1. Because he has enough to eat, access to medical care, a roof over his head, an education, a family that loves him, basic human rights, and the right to worship freely, he is in the top 99.997% of blessed people in this world. It is, therefore, his responsibility to use his blessings to help the hungry, scared, and down trodden.
2. That God loves him, and gave his Son so that he has the chance to truly live.
3. That I will always, ALWAYS, no matter what, LOVE, and BELIEVE in him. That my house will always be a soft spot to land, and my ear always open to his tears and joys.
4. To listen to his Dad. He is almost always right.
5. That kindness is it’s own reward, and wealth has nothing to do with dollars.
What do you want your Sons and Daughters, present or future, to know?
Filed under Parenting for Dummies, The Son | Comments (6)Hupdates: How much for an American Classic, and matters of the heart.
Last week we had a garage sale! Well, it was held at my parent’s house, and was full of my grandparents stuff, but I helped (insert southern twang, “I haeleepd”). It sucked. I did not have enough sleep, and it came the day after a little storm. Okay, a huge storm. A kinda tornadic storm. So I was making signs for the garage sale and I hear this noise, look at The Husband, “is that what I think it is?” “tornado sirens.” I RAN to my bed, pulled off the pillows, and down comforter, and threw them in the tub. RAN to The Son’s room, yanked him out of his crib, and within 7 seconds of first hearing the siren, The Son, The Dog, and I were in the ugly tub, (the nicer tub was wet ((and on an outside wall))) huddled under downy comfort. The Husband was still walking back from the front of the house. I said, “get in here! I will kick out the dog!” “Nah, I am fine.” Sigh! Men are so stubborn. Does any man do what they are supposed to to stay safe? I sincerely hope that it does not take a house falling on him to prove that I am always right. So we were in the tub for almost an hour, and The Son slept through the whole thing. Yes, this is the same child who wakes up if you sneeze across the house. Anyway, when it became pretty clear that we were not going to get blown away just yet, and I had clipped the baby’s nails, counted the fish on his jammies (they had a 6:1 ratio of sharks to lobsters), and examined the grout around the faucet, I unfolded all of the legs and arms and tails out of the tub and got back to work getting ready for the sale.
Friday morning dawned gray, cold, and with intermittent thunderstorms. I was certain that no one would show up for a garage sale in this mess, so I brought a book. Well it turned out that there was a steady stream of customers the whole day. I went home exhausted, and forgot all about my book for this week’s Read it or Rant. The next morning during a lull of the sale, I asked The Mom, “Where is my book?” “What book?” “Grapes of Wrath, I left it here yesterday” “Uh-oh! I think I sold it. Some lady brought up a book with an armload of stuff, and asked how much it was. It was a paperback so I let her have it for 50cents.” “MOM!! That was my Book, it was a library book! It had a bookmark in it, and was sitting with my stuff!” “Oops!”
Anyway, my book got sold, I owe the library 13 dollars, but it was a very successful sale. We managed to hock most of my grandparents valuables, and unvaluables. We were so tired that we stopped for fast food on the way home, and while I was at the drink machine, on his daddy’s watch, The Son fell off of a booster seat that was balanced on the top of a booth. BLOOD was EVERYWHERE. He had a fat lip, and was a little bruised, but fine.
The Husband and I had his and her dentist appointments yesterday, and on the way home we got…..a call. A bad call. My FIL was in the hospital. Again. My FIL is beyond awesome, and I credit my husband’s wonderfulness directly to his parents. FIL has always looked like he was in good shape, had an active job, and ate…well it could have been worse. Last September MIL and FIL came to our town and we all took The Son to his first fair. We noticed that FIL was not being himself, and he said that he had hurt his back working. I even teased him for not riding the scary rides with me. The next day we got a call that he had had a heart attack and was being helicoptered to Capital City. He wound up having quadruple bypass surgery. We PRAYED in all caps for several weeks, but we recovered really well, and seemed to have been in better shape than ever. Back to yesterday. A call. chest pains. Admitted to hospital. The Husband and I hightailed it to The Hospital in the Middle of Nowhere (who did not have a second floor, straight from 1 to 3. Really!) while The Son stayed with his Grammy and Grandpa. Today FIL had a stint put in, and hopefully that is the end of his heart problems. FIL, we will come visit you even if you are not in the hospital!!
I am looking forward to a nice boring week from here on out, now I am back to reading “The Grapes“.
Filed under Family-blame the DNA, lexapro lexplains it | Comments (4)Finding Wonder in the Mundane
Everybody say Hi to our guest poster Grammy! Hi Grammy! More coming soon about why Grammy was babysitting….
Yesterday afternoon Hey You and The Husband needed a helping hand with The Son. I was fortunate enough to be able to oblige.
We began this several hour blessing together at the Huckablogs. After The Son was in his quiet bedroom for an hour, without successfully taking a nap, I took him up and got him a snack of apple slices, which he promptly fed Katy. Then we decided the weather was too pretty to remain inside, so we went out to practice riding his tricycle. This lasted a few minutes and then he hopped off and ran over to his pedal car with a pusher handle in the back, yelling, “Shar, shar”. So we decided maybe we needed a walk around the block.
Again, after only a few minutes, The Son wants to get out of the “Shar”, so I stopped only a few houses away to let him exit. He then wanted to push the car, so we turned around and began heading back to the Huckablog. He was doing fine until we came to a small puddle (around 10 inches at its widest and perhaps 4 feet long), which resulted from the enormous amount of rainfall we’ve had recently.
The day was pleasant, The Son had on his Converse Hightops so I thought no damage could be done, so I slipped off my shoes and wiggled my toes in the water. In no time he got the idea and promptly waded in. Between the exploring every inch of the puddle, which coincidentally expanded as he overflowed it and it ran down the gutter of the street, several times, and feeling under the water for any loose rocks that were once a part of the cemented street we must have spent half an hour at the puddle. In fact I began to be concerned that I didn’t put sunscreen on him.
picture from the last mud day!
Well I finally took his hand and walked him away from the puddle as he showed no sign of tiring with the exploration. After only a short distance, with the car in tow, we came to a real mud hole beside the street, he ran to it and waded in before I could stop him. Thinking this might be beyond the bounds of tolerance for even a grandparent’s permissiveness, I walked him back to the puddle to get the mud off those shoes.
Oak pollen is falling here and makes things green overnight. The Son’s car we’d been walking with was no exception, so I decided that this would be a good opportunity to wash the pollen off the car and the mud off the son. We played carwash! He happily took his plastic cup and bowl from the kitchen and soaped up his little red convertible and then rinsed it off. I managed to get some of the soapy water on his feet too.
After a short nap and fresh clothes and shoes, we moved this adventure to our house where Grandpa, Great Grandma and Great Grandpa occupied him while I cooked dinner and then we ate out back. Still not ready to come inside he explored a great pile of leaves (the closest thing to a mulch pile we have). In spite of all the rain they were not wet on the top six inches or so. I allowed him to climb all the way to the top of the heap where he sat and I showed him how to throw them up in the air and create a leaf storm. He then lay on his tummy spinning the wheel of the upside down wheelbarrow which lay on them.
Proceeding to run around in circles chasing our two dogs, and letting them chase him, he made his way to the front of our house and to Grandpa’s GARAGE, where he visited each of our cars which occupy its domain, in which he is so enthralled, and finally made his way to the toolbench.
Climbing up the stepstool in front of it he inspected some of Grandpa’s tools, as I took them down for him to handle. This did not satisfy the curiosity, so I just sat him on the tool bench where he stood up and began taking each one down and tried to determine its purpose. Its amazing how many he understands already!
By then, we’d made it to the much needed bathtime and came in to have a short video of some Veggie Tales while I undressed him. He made a game out of bathtime with a sliding shower door. A cookie (another Grandparent indulgence) and a glass of milk with a story, prayer and a song was all it took to put down this wondrous, little child who had totally enamored ME all afternoon and evening.
What a blessing to be a grandparent! He reopens my jaded eyes to the wonders of the ordinary.
Filed under Family-blame the DNA | Comment (1)Welcome to Here. By way of Live Oak.
My Brother, JHJ, is the writer in the family. The Writer and the musician. The Writer, the Musician, and the cook. The Writer, the Musician, the Cook, and the photographer. I am the……um. I am the one who realizes how talented my brother is. Below the line is an essay he wrote about my grandparents. I feel some ownership here, enough to post it on my blog, because it was MY TREE TOO! And they are MY GRANDPARENTS TOO! And it’s MY PAIN TOO! and because he is not HERE to watch what happens with me. He was not here to see them not be able to live at Live Oak anymore, to have to move to a town (my town) only because they know they cannot do it on their own any more. He is not here to see my Grandma forget what a coffee table is called. He is not here to watch my Grandpa touch The Son’s face because he cannot see it clearly. He is not here to see us sell off all of their things because they will not fit in their postage stamp sized and sterile apartment. He does not feel like he needs to keep one more momento to make it a little easier. One more teacup. One more rabbit. One more old picture. My heart, and house are too full HERE. And He is GONE. And, I feel the weight of us being the only two grandchildren, and being the only one HERE. Here is hard today.
This is his, written October of 2007. I am posting it because the memory is mine too, and I feel like we have to look out for each other.
I miss you JHJ!
_____________________________________________
Welcome to Live Oak
A plane flies overhead. “We get a lot of those, because of the Naval airport nearby. We don’t even hear them anymore.”
That’s my grandfather. This is me: “Like the trains where I live. They’re loud, but we never even notice.”
“I like the trains.” Grandma. “There were trains when I was a little girl.” Her eyes wander away from mine as she speaks. “During the depression, hobos would jump from the cars.”
We turn the corner, walking back to their town house. They’ve taken me on a tour of their little community, like a country neighborhood except for the iron gates at the entrances. And the exits.
“They knew my mother was a soft touch and came to our house to eat while Daddy was out. They’d come and…” She trails off and fidgets with a button on her coat. Lots of stories end like that, with her breaking off in the middle. I’m disappointed. I wanted to hear about the hobos.
“They’d come and Mom would give them a meal.” I smile. She’s having a Good Day. “She’d keep one of us kids home from school — so she wouldn’t be at home alone with him, you see — and give the hobo something to eat. They were always very nice.”
She threads her arm through mine and leans on me a little as we approach their home. “Those were hard times. Everyone had to look out for each other.”
***
This is Live Oak Village, nestled on dozens of acres of land in southern Alabama. It’s set up like a few little neighborhoods connected by shady, tree-lined roads. There is a full-care neighborhood, for people who can’t do much on their own; there’s an assisted living neighborhood, for people who do okay but need help with meals and chores; and there are the town houses. These are for the most capable of the lot. My grandparents are Townhousers.
The name Live Oak Village is supposed to bring to mind huge stately trees draped with spanish moss, like you might find around the beautiful plantation homes that once littered this part of the south. It’s a nice image, nostalgic and reassuring. Live oaks, you see, are known for their longevity.
It makes me think, though, of a tree I once knew. It was a live oak, an enormous and ancient one. They said it was here as Europeans first came here, when Henry VII ruled Britain. It stood for five hundred years, growing and rustling, inhaling its carbon dioxide and exhaling its oxygen in peace. In 1990 someone tried to cut it down. He went all the way around it with a chainsaw, cutting a foot or two deep. The man was never found and the tree didn’t seem to notice anything.
It soon became clear that something was wrong. The community hired a tree doctor “from up north” to save it. He and his team spliced and grafted and supported and pruned and medicated The Big Tree, and we visited it often, we kids hugging it and wishing it better, our parents talking with the experts, sighing and shaking their heads.
The tree succumbed when I was a teenager. We cried. A lot of people cried for that tree, people from all over the world. The experts tried to preserve it, to keep it as a monument, but it rotted. Our tree, our ancient tree, The Big Tree, rotted away, and the experts left and the park surrounding it fell into disrepair, and now all we can do is remember it.
This is what I think of when I see the sign in front of my grandparents’ idyllic gated community. I keep it to myself. These are hard times. We have to look out for each other.
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