Steinbeck, anyone?

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lisateb
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Re: Steinbeck, anyone?

Post by lisateb »

The Grapes of Wrath is one of the best books written! I love Of Mice and Men but not as much as GOW. Both are very powerful stories. Everybody should read them. Give GOA a chance. It is such wonderful story. Don't read them just for a class. Read them because they are excelled stories.
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patrickt
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Post by patrickt »

When I was about 13 I discovered two sets of books at my grandmother's house. One was the works of Steinbeck and one of Hemingway--up to that time. My grandmother tended to collect things and the books had never had the pages cut. I read all of them over the summer. I really enjoyed "Of Mice and Men", thought "Grapes of Wrath" was good, and enjoyed "Cannery Row".

I did not enjoy Hemingway's books.

Many years later I was a police officer on foot patrol downtown one morning. I saw a man, a Mexican, who looked distressed. I talked to him and he'd just recieved a letter that said his brother had died and it took the letter three months to catch up with him. I invited him to have breakfast with me and we chatted. His English was fair. He was raised in a small village with no school but his father sent him to a larger village to stay with a friend, and help the family, and go to school. He had three years of school.

As we talked he reached into his shirt and showed me the corner of a book. "The greatest book ever written. The greatest author ever." It was "Grapes of Wrath" in Spanish. We talked about the book and I marveled at a man with three years of school who not only read "Grapes of Wrath" but appreciated it. Then I thought of people I worked with who had 16 or 18 years of school and hadn't read a book since finishing school.
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Mavens
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Post by Mavens »

Having a tattoo that says timshel is a good gauge of my admiration. I think I have read all his books and East of Eden is still my favorite. The Moon is Down is a close second. Grapes of Wrath is definitely my least fave. It is a grueling book. I thought it was full of hopelessness, while East of Eden is all hope and light. Or maybe that is just how my brain reads it.
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Post by lincolnp »

patrickt wrote:When I was about 13 I discovered two sets of books at my grandmother's house. One was the works of Steinbeck and one of Hemingway--up to that time. My grandmother tended to collect things and the books had never had the pages cut. I read all of them over the summer. I really enjoyed "Of Mice and Men", thought "Grapes of Wrath" was good, and enjoyed "Cannery Row".

I did not enjoy Hemingway's books.

Many years later I was a police officer on foot patrol downtown one morning. I saw a man, a Mexican, who looked distressed. I talked to him and he'd just recieved a letter that said his brother had died and it took the letter three months to catch up with him. I invited him to have breakfast with me and we chatted. His English was fair. He was raised in a small village with no school but his father sent him to a larger village to stay with a friend, and help the family, and go to school. He had three years of school.

As we talked he reached into his shirt and showed me the corner of a book. "The greatest book ever written. The greatest author ever." It was "Grapes of Wrath" in Spanish. We talked about the book and I marveled at a man with three years of school who not only read "Grapes of Wrath" but appreciated it. Then I thought of people I worked with who had 16 or 18 years of school and hadn't read a book since finishing school.
Great story!! As they say "never judge a book by its cover" - never judge a person by your first impression. I have read East of Eden which I enjoyed. I will probably try Of Mice and Men next since so many have words of praise for the book.
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Post by Redlegs »

I read a bit of Steinbeck in my youth and I recall that I was generally quite fond of all of them.

I recently read The Grapes of Wrath as a (much) older man, and didn't recall having read it before. Frankly, it blew me away just how good it was - I was so impressed! Steinbeck's research to capture the culture and speech patterns of the characters resulted in a story that resonated with authenticity.

I would heartily recommend this book to anyone as one of the finest examples of classic American literature. I am very keen to read more Steinbeck novels, even those I may have read once before many years ago.

(I found reading To Kill A Mockingbird again recently about 40 years after first reading it that I loved it just as much but got even more out of it.)
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Post by sieting_gough »

Of all of Steinbeck's works, The one that stuck with me the most was probably The Pearl. I related to that particular story at the time of reading it. I also enjoyed reading Cannery Row, and have since put it on my list to read again. I have always been a fan of Steinbeck though, because it makes me take a closer look at how I view my life and society, and how we interact with different people. It's been a while since I have read one of his works so I won't say anything more for now, It's nice to find other fans though, as he is a writer that is hard to read and not have something to say afterward. I can't wait to speak more about it.
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Post by jules23958 »

I have to teach Mice and Men and have probably read this novella about 30 times now but each time I find new things I didn't notice before. It is a book to be read to interpret what Steinbeck intentions.
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Post by Aspen_Reads »

The first Steinbeck I read was Grapes of Wrath, and I LOVED IT! I have since read many other Steinbeck novels, and he is one of my favorite classic authors. I hold Grapes of Wrath as my favorite, though. They are all very dear to me.
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Post by Happily Candied »

I'm going to have to go with Of Mice and Men. I have fond memories of reading it and I genuinely loved the story.

Also, the book served as part of a twist of fate for me; I ended up meeting my husband through the project that required me to read the book in high school. I owe a lot of thanks to Steinbeck.
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Post by pageturnerreviews »

In high school my AP English teacher read Of Mice and Men to our class. It was a very emotional story that I find myself constantly thinking back to from time to time. The same could be said for Grapes of Wrath. Steinbeck is one of my favorite authors due to his ability to portray such dynamic events.
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Post by DATo »

ZackandMack wrote:My favorite Steinbeck novel is Cannery Row. Tortilla Flat is also an excellent companion. We use quotes from Grapes of Wrath all the time for when our vehicles enter a lot for the first time (talking fairgrounds here), the looks from everyone are comparable to the looks the Joad family received when they entered the ad-hoc migrant camp... Living life on the road like we folks do is a lot like an okie migration, so we can relate to that.
I strongly agree with you about Cannery Row and Tortilla Flat. Both of these books maintain the Steinbeckian penchant for describing life as it is - raw, and not sugar-coated - but also exhibit a rare sample of Steinbeck's amazing sense of humor. I think he was reversing field in these books because as many would cite the gloom and doom aspects of his stories I feel he was aware that life is not ALL sadness and despair but also funny at times.

I mentioned in an earlier post a short story by Steinbeck called Saint Katy the Virgin which was a totally comic and sarcastic dig at the Church - laugh out loud funny.

STRONGLY recommend all three of these lesser-known Steinbeck stories mentioned above.
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Post by _M_ »

I read Of mice and men in class in grade eight, and as much as i found it interesting, it was highly confusing to my peers. Steinbeck has a style which is almost fully based on confusing the hell out of you
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Post by richt394 »

I am on Chapter 15 of East of Eden as per my brother's recommendation, and I agree that it's very good so far. The only other Steinbeck book I've read is The Moon is Down, which I also enjoyed.
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Post by rcratty »

Reading Steinbeck, is really reading about California. I do enjoy the area and history of the Monterey area, which is where and what he was writing.
It wasn’t until 1935 that Steinbeck achieved his first critical success, with Tortilla Flat a humorous novel set in post-war Monterey, California, that won the California Commonwealth Club's Gold Medal. It portrays the adventures of a group of homeless young men in Monterey after World War I, just before U.S. prohibition.

Steinbeck began to write his series of "California novels" and Dust Bowl fiction, set among common people during the Great Depression. These included In Dubious Battle, Of Mice and Men and The Grapes of Wrath.
Of Mice and Men about the dreams of a pair of migrant agricultural laborers in California. It was critically acclaimed and Steinbeck's 1962 Nobel Prize citation called it a "little masterpiece."
He wrote The Grapes of Wrath (1939), considered by many as his finest, most ambitious novel, based on newspaper articles about migrant agricultural workers that he had written in San Francisco. Later that year it won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.
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Post by TLGabelman »

I just picked up East of Eden at a used book store. Im excited to read it when Im done with my current selections, especially after reading what everyone else thought!
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