Just Finished Reading The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck

The Grapes of Wrath is one of those books that I should have been assigned during high school English class...how I missed it is beyond me.  In the ninth grade, I did get assigned The Pearl, another novel by John Steinbeck, one I intensely disliked at the time and which kept me from approaching this great author's other works for many, many years.  But a few years ago I read his Of Mice and Men, a brilliant work, and just now finally tackled what is probably his most famous novel, which came out in 1939 and just the following year was made into a classic movie starring Henry Fonda.  Fonda's character, a young man named Tom Joad, has just been released from prison and is returning home to his family of tenant farmers in rural Oklahoma...only to discover upon arriving that they have had "their" farm seized by the bank after Dust Bowl failures in crop yield had placed them behind in payments.  Many of the Joads' neighbors are likewise pulling up stakes and heading to California, where handbills flooding their area are proclaiming jobs abounding in that state's diverse agricultural community.  It is the ordeal of the Joads...with Tom's blunt, common sense take on the proceedings, that defines this story of greedy exploitation by the wealthy, irrational prejudice by those feeling threatened by the incoming "Okies", and the bonds that develop among the poor families desperately searching for work to feed and shelter themselves.  The Grapes of Wrath is an exposé story of this dark period in our country's history...I haven't yet seen the movie but plan to soon: I've read nothing but good things about it, although I suspect that some of the book's rawness may have been smoothed over for the big screen.  But first I recommend you read the book: Steinbeck makes you feel like you're right there with the Joad family, alternately suffering and rejoicing with them along their troubled journey.  As for other John Steinbeck novels, I'm currently reading his more lighthearted Cannery Row and look forward to East of Eden and a hopefully more mature rereading of The Pearl...