The Grapes of Wrath

My reading this week began on one of the interlude chapters.  These chapters are like nothing else that I have encountered in my independent reading career before.  This particular one was unique in that the narrator takes on the perspective of a car salesmen selling cars to desperate evicted farming families who are looking to head to California, just as the Joad family is.  These salesmen take extreme advantage of of the uneducated fearful families, being mean and rude to them, thus adding insult to injury to their standing condition.  Also in my reading this week, I met the rest of the Joad family.  This was a great ordeal because as I explained in my last post, Steinbeck likes to spend pages on just the details of one person and meeting many people of a family takes many pages.  

The Grapes of Wrath Chapters 1-6

I am really enjoying this second classic book that I am reading this quarter.  I believe the book deals with a deals with a deep subject being that it is set during the great depression following a poor family who has been evicted from their home.  This book is exceptionally written with vivid characters and small chapter long interludes that act as somewhat of a sub plot in the story.  These little interlude chapters are really very interesting because they bring the problems in the story into real perspective.  I like how Steinbeck makes strong points about events that are seemingly small to the reader, such as the several page passage about a turtle trying to cross the road.  This turtle goes on to be found and picked up by Tom Joad, the main character.  But it is interesting to see what happens to the turtle before Tom Joad finds it.