I pick up my books from all sorts of places.
Book stores (obviously), bazaars, exhibitions,
second hand shops, pavements, friends houses :),
everywhere. My favourite though would be an old book store.
Particularly, because of the smell of old books.
Not to mention you just might get a good deal, too.
But I go mainly for the smell, yeah, that's honest,
mainly for the smell.
Strangely enough it is at one such place in Calcutta, that
I stumbled upon a very, very old copy of Steinbecks's
''The grapes of wrath''. Though in good condition,
the book was dusty and full of what appeared to be
silver fish, but were just dust mites. The owner sweetly decided to take on the responsibility of cleaning the book, (he was in desperate need of a sale) and handed me the book, free of dust mites, at a princely price of Rs. 15.
For the next three days, I did not do anything.
Nor that I could not, but I would not.
Mind you I was just 18 then, fresh out of high school.
Friends called up, Mum asked me to actually leave the house.
(fresh air,she claims is very good for you), Dad shouted (some forms needed to be filled), the dogs barked (no reason for that, being dogs, they are prone to barking), but I paid no attention whatsoever. You see, I was truly reading.
The Grapes -
The Book was written in 1939, just after the Great Depression.
America still reeling under the effects of the same.
It starts with Tom Joad, making his way back home
from prison. The time, early 20th. The setting, the dust bowl, Oklahoma.
The mood, depressive, dusty, beautiful.
It follows the trials and the tribulations of the ''okies'' as
they migrate towards the promising west. Hence, the grapes.
Why wrath? I will arrive at that, shortly.
The story unfolds from the point of view of the Joads.
A family that is forced to move. Poverty, barren lands,
lands that are being taken over by large companies.
Injustice that is made to look like commonplace.
That which silences them and almost destroys their spirit.
But they decide to move on. With dreams of luscious grapes
and peaches in abundance waiting to be picked, they load up
their belongings and begin their journey on Route 66 and head for Bakersfield, California.
The Joads were not alone. Along with them were
thousands upon thousands of other families. This would
ultimately lead to supply and demand. There would be too
many workers for the few jobs available and, consequently,
people would be agreeing to work for measly wages just enough
to make them feed their families.
Throughout the book the family encounters opposition from all
sorts of people, including land owning farmers who must pay
extremely low wages in order to make a profit, cops who cause
more trouble than good, locals who are afraid of the massive
influx of people, and a government that seems unable to help.
In the end it's sheer will that gives them the strength to
continue to fight as the Depression relentlessly tries to break
the people's determination and the family bonds. The Grapes of
Wrath gives a very realistic view of the Great Depression and
tells it from viewpoints you don't see from just reading about
it in a history textbook.
Steinbeck did not just write the book. he was deeply moved
by the whole move west. Anger was Steinbeck's motivation.
He was haunted by the plight of California's migrant workers.
Often he would visit the migrant camps in all their misery and
then come home, tired, dirty and angry to write about their condition
and the people who were singularly responsible for
that state.
The anger rises with the dust.
But human dignity refuses to settle with it.
''They're a-workin' away at our spirits. They're a tryin'
to make us cringe an' crawl like a whipped bitch. They
tryin' to break us. Why, Jesus Christ, Ma, they comes a
time when the on'y way a fella can keep his decency is by
takin' a sock at a cop. They're workin' on our decency.''
says Tom Joad.
Not an easy book to read. But if you will have,
it will be an achievement. Not an intellectual one
though, wherein you talk at fancy parties about the
''Ghost of Tom Joad'', but a more basic one, that of being human.
Pick it up, it looks great on the shelf too.
