The Grapes of Wrath (Penguin Audio Classics)
The Grapes of Wrath (Penguin Audio Classics) book cover

The Grapes of Wrath (Penguin Audio Classics)

Audio CD – Unabridged, June 29, 2011

Price
$22.92
Publisher
Penguin Audio
Publication Date
ISBN-13
978-0143145158
Dimensions
5.98 x 1.52 x 5.86 inches
Weight
15.8 ounces

Description

"It is Steinbeck's best novel, i.e., his toughest and tenderest, his roughest written and most mellifluous, his most realistic and, in its ending, his most melodramatic, his angriest and most idyllic. It is great in the way that Unlce Tom's Cabin was great. One of the most impassioned and exciting books of the year." — Time "One comes away moved, indignant, protesting, pitying. A fiery document of protest and compassion, as a story that had to be told, as a book that must be read." —Louis Kronenberger, The Nation From the Artist John Steinbeck

Features & Highlights

  • The Pulitzer Prize-winning epic of the Great Depression, a book that galvanized—and sometimes outraged—millions of readers.
  • First published in 1939, Steinbeck’s Pulitzer Prize-winning epic of the Great Depression chronicles the Dust Bowl migration of the 1930s and tells the story of one Oklahoma farm family, the Joads—driven from their homestead and forced to travel west to the promised land of California. Out of their trials and their repeated collisions against the hard realities of an America divided into Haves and Have-Nots evolves a drama that is intensely human yet majestic in its scale and moral vision, elemental yet plainspoken, tragic but ultimately stirring in its human dignity. A portrait of the conflict between the powerful and the powerless, of one man’s fierce reaction to injustice, and of one woman’s stoical strength, the novel captures the horrors of the Great Depression and probes into the very nature of equality and justice in America. At once a naturalistic epic, captivity narrative, road novel, and transcendental gospel, Steinbeck’s powerful landmark novel is perhaps the most American of American Classics.

Customer Reviews

Rating Breakdown

★★★★★
60%
(11.8K)
★★★★
25%
(4.9K)
★★★
15%
(3K)
★★
7%
(1.4K)
-7%
(-1381)

Most Helpful Reviews

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Little more than bad propaganda

Steinbeck wrote some good novels, some that are even almost great (East of Eden comes to mind); this, however, is not one of them. The Grapes of Wrath is little more than bad communist propaganda.

It isn't that the kinds of things he describes didn't happen, but the way he presents them---without looking for the deeper cause (rather than pulling out the tired old scarecrow of "greed", an abused and vague term anyway) or offering a real solution but rather simply pushing for a (dubious at best) political program---is not only unrealistic, it isn't artistic either. About the only time it approaches the level of genuine literary expression is when Casy goes on about how his idea of holy is for every man to be harnessed, not even to every other man, but to Mankind as a whole. That's a horrible thought, but at least it's a somewhat deeper one.

Even Tom Joad's famous "Whenever you seen a cop beatin' a guy..." speech is all about the insignificance of the individual, and as if to prove his point, Steinbeck continues the story for quite a while after that but Tom (despite having been the main character up to that point) does not reappear.

And stylistically, this is one of Steinbeck's worst...it could be described as faux-Hemingway---lots of awkward sentences, unnecessary repetitions of words rather than using pronouns, etc. But it actually reads more like Socialist realism than anything else. It has a lot in common with some stuff put out by the Union of Soviet Writers under Stalin around that time. East of Eden is much better written, though Steinbeck is still using some techniques he seems to have learned from writers like Kataev.

I did a bit of research after finishing this, and it looks like Steinbeck actually joined and had further involvement with the League of American Writers, which was set up by the Communist Party USA in 1935 in sympathy with the Union of Soviet Writers putting its policy of controlling and censoring the output of authors into effect the year before. Anyway, enough was known here about what was going on under the Soviet system by the time he wrote The Grapes of Wrath that he couldn't have had any honest excuse for glorifying it like that.

I suspect that the only reason The Grapes of Wrath is considered such a great classic is that it was heavily pushed by the press which was highly sympathetic to communism in this country at the time of its release, and because of the movie version with Henry Fonda. People like to pretend that Steinbeck wrote books like this for "the common man", but the truth is it's incredibly patronizing and condescending; he really wrote it for wealthy intellectuals like himself to feel better about themselves. As someone who's in the working class himself (but doesn't intend to stay there his whole life), I think if I ever met Steinbeck I would have slapped his face, because The Grapes of Wrath is basically a slap in mine.
15 people found this helpful
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Steinbeck!

Yay John Steinbeck
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Five Stars

Wonderful book, great recording
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Great satisfaction to listen through.

I liked the presentation of the characters by the narrator, Dylan Baker. In the monologues I could easily recognize who was talking, even a gender of a person! Amazing reading! I also have to say, this epic book received the Pulitzer Prize not for nothing. I was able to live through the tough times, see and feel what was happening with the family. Great book, well presented by the reader, great satisfaction to listen through!
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Five Stars

awesome
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My favorite!

Can't believe it took me this long to read/listen to this book. My favorite!
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Listening and witnessing

Of course, there is a reason this is a classic work. By some educational lapse my husband had never read it so I sent the cd's with him on a long driving trip. He was driving through Oklahoma and the Texas pan handle while listening and had real life illustration of that flat red dust plains. I'm so glad I bought it,
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One Star

Really slow narration! He'll put you, and your class to sleep.
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Audiobook review

Obviously a terrific book/story. The voice acting of the reader was great and was a nice compliment to the writers prose. The harmonica interludes dispersed between chapters were painful and detracted from the overall experience.
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Loved this product

I have tried to read this several times and for one reason or another, I never could get past the first few chapters. Listening to it in my car got me over the hump, and I now fully understand why this book is such a classic. I have loaned this to a friend, but will listen to it again.