Andrew J. Bacevich
I have reached the age when it seems important to give attention to the books I ought to have read long ago but skipped past. As an American born in the middle of the 20th century, I’m drawn to the literature of that era. Lately, I have been reading for the first time John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath (Penguin, $18), published during the Great Depression.
Of course, I have seen John Ford’s gripping interpretation of the novel, starring Henry Fonda as Tom Joad. It’s a great movie. In my estimation, the novel itself is also a masterpiece. Of course, it is necessarily a product of its time, saturated with a sentimental depiction of those dispossessed by massive economic upheaval. Steinbeck makes no effort to disguise his sympathies: he is with the plain folk and against the bosses. This is the world of the Old Left, where distinctions between good and evil are crystal clear. In our own morally confused age, things appear somewhat more complicated. Yet perhaps I am myself given to sentiment. I find Steinbeck’s depiction of that era utterly compelling.
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