Sometimes revisiting a classic can be disappointing—the book isn’t the way that you remember it, or it feels too much like homework, or it just doesn’t seem very relevant.
But that is not the case with John Steinbeck’s classic of the Great Depression, The Grapes of Wrath. As I reread this novel, I discovered again just how good it is (and how incredibly pertinent it is today).
I have to admit that the first few chapters were a little slow (probably because I was trying to read in a very distracting environment), but I absolutely could not put the book down during the last 300 pages.
What I most appreciated on this return to The Grapes of Wrath was the intercalary chapters. I remember that I found them really frustrating when I first read the book many years ago—they kept interrupting the progress of the plot. On this reading, though, I found them to be powerful passages that are as important today as they were in the days of the Joad family.
If you missed this one in high school, you owe it to yourself to pick it up now.
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