Oh man, it’s the end of Laura’s readalong! Which makes me sad, because I love our little gang and the hilariousness and gifs and with this book, the awesome semi-political discussions.
So, the book ended with Rosasharn breastfeeding a dying man. That was the LAST PARAGRAPH.
Didn’t see that comin.
I totally get the whole message behind this – no matter what you should always help people, blah blah blah. But one – gross. And two – you have no other food, and this man is like at death’s door. You can’t feed him, so really by trying to save him, you’re just dragging out his starvation. What the hell. And what a messed up way to end the whole book, Steinbeck.
Anyways, on to my usual chapter recaps…
Chapter 26: Ma tells the men to man the hell up and think of something, because while the camp is nice and all, they’re about to starve because there’s no work. And while the men listen to her, Pa gets all asshole-y and says he should beat her for thinking she’s head of the family and taking the man’s place. To which Ma is like
Al is dying to go off on his own and get a job as a mechanic somewhere, and the family won’t let him, which sucks. He’s the only one of them with a skill that’s actually useful and he has the chance to get a good job somewhere, but they’re all “No we need you to drive the car.” which is kind of selfish. He could have made some money to help out the family. So, they find a really crappy peach farm to work on, but it’s heavily protected with armed guards, which means OF COURSE T.J. goes looking for trouble. He sneaks out, finds Casy and learns that Casy’s been leading strikes against the farm owners for paying low wages, and Casy promptly gets his head bashed in by the patrolmen (which was actually pretty sad, because I kind of liked Casy). T.J. snaps and kills yet again, gets his face busted up, and runs back to the family. Now they all have to leave just to protect his stupid ass.
Chapter 27: Cotton-picking is great, except just like everything else once the farm is overrun with workers and it all gets picked, you have no more work.
Chapter 28: The Joads are doing okay, living in a boxcar and picking cotton and actually making a little bit of money – enough to eat regularly and to save. Ma kind of annoys the bejeezus out of me in this chapter, which is disappointing since she was so awesome throughout the rest of the book. Ruthie (she’s so annoying, I’m actually disappointed she didn’t get written off somehow) gets into a fight with another girl and BLABS ABOUT TOM HIDING BECAUSE HE KILLED A MAN. After Ma expressly told her and Winfield to never tell anybody. And Ma is all “No, I won’t beat her, it’s not her fault.”
So, it seems we know why Tom has no self-control when it comes to his temper. Because apparently if you screw up in a fit of anger and kill a guard or blab the family’s secrets around, it’s not your fault. Come on Ma! You should’ve beaten her ass so that she would learn to shut her mouth and control her anger. So, Ma is awesome when it comes to standing up to Pa, but sucks when it comes to disciplining her kids after they royally fuck up.
Anyways, Ma gives Tom $7 of the family’s money to run away. The Joads worry about what they’ll do when there’s no more cotton to pick. Al gets engaged to a girl, and this upsets Rosasharn so much that she insists on helping to pick cotton, and then promptly gets herself sick.
Chapter 29: There’s rain. Once again, Steinbeck is kind of angry at all the California people for not being more charitable when Mother Nature strikes. When a group of migrants flood an area, there will ALWAYS be sickness, starvation, theft, mistrust, anger, etc because these people show up with nothing and there’s not enough work for them. You can’t be pissed at California because they’re not willing to feed and give land to the random 200,000+ people that suddenly showed up in their area. It’s not their fault either.
Chapter 30: The rain is coming down hard and ends up flooding the boxcar camp, and Rosasharn goes into an early labor. The baby is born dead, which was sad but I also feel like it was for the best, because Rosasharn was convinced her baby was going to grow up terrible and messed up. And let’s face it, they’re not in any condition to care for a newborn right now. Al stays with his fiancee and her family, and the Joads decide they need to get to higher ground. They find a barn on top of the hill, which is where the starving guy and his son are, and voila. We know what happens then.
Sooooo… I don’t know how I feel about the book overall! I didn’t hate it – I would have hated it if I had been bored to tears. But I don’t feel like things got that sad, and I feel like that was where Steinbeck kind of failed – while he’s a good writer and obviously can write beautifully, he let his politics kind of take over the show and it overshadowed the family, which kept me from really connecting with most of them. I guess I just need to like my characters more in order to feel badly for the things that happened to them… but some of it was kind of brought on by themselves, too. I’m disappointed that we’ll never know what actually happened to Connie. Actually, because of the INSANELY screwed up way that Steinbeck ended the book, we don’t know what ever happened to any of them – for all I know, the Joads are still shivering in that barn and trying to figure out their next move. Ma was BY FAR the best character, even if she did disappoint me in the end.
If nothing else, I actually enjoyed the book because it gave me LOTS to talk about. Lots of fun conversations with both the honeyman and fellow bloggers. And like I said, I liked Steinbeck’s writing – it was so awesome in the first section. But then he kind of forgot about things like character development and plot and said “Fuck it, I’m just gonna rant about how unfair Californians/farm owners/cops/businessmen/tractors are.”
I’m going to write a non-spoiler-y review later, for the people who didn’t readalong with us. But overall, yay! And if anyone wants to host an East of Eden readalong, I will TOTALLY sign up for that.
~Sarah
Great blog posts. I’ve read GoW years ago and your summary brought it all back. I’d join an East of Eden readalong.
Pa REALLY annoyed me in this section. I was just like ‘DUDE, you don’t even know what you’re doing, and Ma does, so stop threatening to beat her, yeah?’ It was a bit brutal that they wouldn’t let Al go off, BUT the family has to stay together, AND it all worked out ok cause he found his ladyfriend! I mean, wife.
It’s totally not the people of California’s fault that all of this happened, and I don’t think Steinbeck necessarily even wants to blame them or make them feel bad or anything (other than in generally being nice to the Okies, which they are NOT) but just wants the whole system to change so people don’t starve to death in the winter. (Really, he wants the whole system to change? Bet you didn’t know that!) So yeah.
And the breastfeeding. Yep. Gross and weird but ALSO kind of nice, and yeah, totally weird way to end the book, but what else could he have done? I just don’t know.
WE SHOULD TOTALLY READ EAST OF EDEN! I feel like, as I’ve gotten older, East of Eden has become more my favourite, and The Grapes of Wrath has gotten less so (I mean, I love them both OBVS. But it has gone like that). SO yeah. Your turn to host, Sarah?
Hmmmmm… I’ve never attempted to host a readalong before. I’ll give it some thought.
Yeah Pa was ridiculous in this section. Like dude, what’s your problem all of the sudden? You’ve been fine with everything for 3/4 of the book… And I was happy that Al found a wife and was able to essentially escape his family by creating his own.
And I think I would’ve been a lot more into Steinbeck’s desire to change the whole system and whatnot like 7 years ago, when I was in college and still a bit of an idealist. Now I’m like “No, our system is good for the most part, it just needs some tweaking. But you know, some stuff will never change, so whatever.” I’ve apparently grown equal parts pessimistic and apathetic.
Ah, Grapes of Wrath. Even reading summaries bums me the hell out. I haven’t finished this yet, but the readalong has still been so awesome. And I WILL finish it, at which point I will have more Thoughts. But right now – sad face. And also that first gif is SO on the money.
This HAS been an awesome readalong. It makes me happy. Well, as happy as you can be while discussing GoW.
I read this around two years ago and frankly, the only thing I remember of it was that weird ending. :/
That ending will forever be burned into my mind. And I’ll enjoy making fun of it, just like the ending to Ethan Frome.
“…he let his politics kind of take over the show and it overshadowed the family, which kept me from really connecting with most of them.”
Yes, THIS EXACTLY. If there hadn’t been those non-Joad chapters that were kind of strange and soap-boxy, there would have been more room for character development. Maybe a character who wasn’t a poor migrant worker could have actually had some depth, too. There was, I think, only one decent character who wasn’t on the verge of starving to death, and that was the store worker who let Ma buy something on credit. Everyone else was just one-dimensional and evil.
Ohhh yeah, I forgot about the store worker. And I totally felt bad for him because those people like Ma begging him to let them take stuff on credit probably happens all the time, and he’s just trying to not get fired. AND I don’t remember Ma going back to pay him… did she, or did they not mention it?
I totally agree that Rosasharn’s baby being born a still birth was for the best. The ending bothered me so much, not so much because of the breastfeeding, but because of how Rosasharn seemed to ENJOY it. It was just creepy. But ya, I really wish we had been given a LITTLE bit more in the ending about what happens to the Joad’s. I don’t want just hope, I want to KNOW.
Yeah, that ending was hella creepy. Goddamn Rosasharn and Steinbeck and just GRRRR.
How things go in my head: Starving man dies anyways, Rosasharn then tries to breastfeed everyone and when she realizes that no one wants that, she “wanders off” like Connie. Ma and Pa die of pneumonia from all the rain, Ruthie accidentally kills Winfield and then joins a gang of bullies, Tom is promptly murdered when he tries to make himself the new leader of the strikes, and Al and Aggie have babies and he works as a mechanic and they live happily ever after. Oh and Uncle John disappears at some point.
Seeee Steinbeck, I can be depressing too.
Haha *bravo, bravo* – at least *that’s* an ending! I like to know what happens!
That “come at me bro” gif totally captures the essence of Ma in that chapter. What’s up Pa? You want to try to take on Ma? And that Nathan Fillion gif. perfect. Kudos on your animation choices!
I actually think Al was being the selfish one, by constantly bitching about working as a mechanic. I didn’t feel like the family was keeping him from a job, had such a job actually existed. But it felt more like he was going “You guys this blows. Screw family, I’m off to try to find a job that prob doesn’t exist because odds are they have mechanics, and even if they need one they HATE Okies which means they probably wouldn’t hire me anyway. So long, losers! Have fun being stranded here cos none of you know how to drive or fix that crappy car.”
Aw, thanks
Yay for GIF’s! I think I’m finally getting the hang of it, lol.
I can see where Al was being a bit selfish… but maybe it’s part of the modern times that I’m just like “Why are you holding him back? ESCAPE your family, Al, you’ll probably be better off on your own!” Because I like to think that parents nowadays would care more about their kids going off on their own and being happy and attempting to be successful than to just stick around to be part of the family. And you know, he might have a better shot if he doesn’t have to worry about everyone else.
AAaannd it’s THAT thought process that makes my honeyman worried that I’ll abandon him in a zombie apocalypse situation… Hmm.
Well a zombie apocalypse is a different scenario… haha
This book definitely seems like a book for discussion, but from the posts I’ve seen it sounds like there are a lot of WTF moments! I’m not sure if I’ll give it a go, but it’s been fun reading the posts!
If you do read it, I totally recommend waiting and then reading it with a silly group of people. I don’t know if I would have finished it just reading it on my own.