7 out of 7 people found this review helpful.
The Arbor Forever Green
Date of Review: Dec 13, 1999
I dream of writing timeless fiction such as Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath, and come up with potboilers. I find reassurance in the knowledge that Steinbeck received rejections ON THIS SAME NOVEL no less than 29 times before it was finally bought for publication -- by the publisher who had rejected it six times previously.
Grapes is timeless for the simple reason that poverty, illiteracy and homelessness are also timeless. No matter how much publicity is given to these conditions, no matter how much political oratory is devoted to them, no matter how much band-aid legislation is directed at them, they continue to plague us. The saddest aspect of it all is that, because most of us will never experience these conditions, we can burrow deeper into our recliner, tch-tch at the shame of it all, open another beer and click the remote to surf the channels while we forget it again.
This is where men like Steinbeck come in. He, through his travels in central California, paints excruciatingly vivid pictures of the world's peons. The cannery workers of Cannery Row, the itinerant crop workers of Of Mice And Men, the migratory Mexican workers of Tortilla Flat, and the emigrant Joads who flee the desolation of the Oklahoma dust bowl to find the heartless exploitation of California croplands.
It takes guts to write with the honesty of Steinbeck. Some will rave about the fluidity and grace of his words, but that's wishful thinking. No matter how effectively he strings words together, there is nothing beautiful or graceful about his writing. It is raw reality. Even in his later works like The Moon Is Down, he writes of the reality from which many people would prefer to turn away.
We need writers like Steinbeck to rub reality in our faces and remind us that no matter how good, or how generous, or how comfortable we may be, we still need to try and be better. Whether or not we realize it, many of us now staring at computer screens are just a heartbeat away from becoming the Tom Joads of the new millenium. If you're looking for a nice, pleasant, happy ending book to while away a few hours, NEVER pick up Steinbeck. If you are looking for a book that will impress you with the incredible survivability of mankind, with the refusal to give up hoping, with the indestructible nobility of the common man, and will live throbbingly in your memory, John Steinbeck is the perfect choice. You will never regret the reading.
