John Steinbeck's bitter fruit: remembering The Grapes of Wrath
It was the bestselling book in America in 1939. A film version starring Henry Fonda and directed by John Ford followed, itself a classic. Arthur Miller wrote of Steinbeck, "I can't think of another American writer, with the possible exception of Mark Twain, who so deeply penetrated the political life of the country." And yet Steinbeck was also called "a liar", "a communist" and "a Jew acting for Zionist-Communist interests". The book was burned in the streets; it was banned in schools and libraries, with its explicit sexuality given as the excuse. It was virulently attacked in Congress, and Steinbeck's subsequent success in Russia eroded his reputation from the cold war onwards. He bought himself a revolver for self-defence and had good reason to fear for his life. The book has sold about 14m copies and still sells steadily.
Dorris Bowden, Jane Darwell and Henry Fonda in The Grapes of Wrath film (1940) Photograph: Allstar/Cinetext/
Dorris Bowden, Jane Darwell and Henry Fonda in The Grapes of Wrath film (1940) Photograph: Allstar/Cinetext/
Steinbeck went on to develop his interest in natural science and to write many more books. His large attempt was to find common ground between the observable natural world and the worlds of myths and mysticism. His reputation was blasted regularly by the new metropolitan tastemakers. The New York Times poured bile over his head the day before he won the Nobel prize, in 1962 ("The Swedes have made a serious error by giving the prize to a writer whose limited talent is in his best books watered down by 10th-rate philosophising"), though there were many fine writers who rushed to defend him. Steinbeck answered his critics in his acceptance speech in Stockholm. "Literature is not a game for the cloistered elect. Literature is as old as speech. It grew out of human need for it and it has not changed except to become more needed."
