For all that he wanted to ‘rip a reader’s nerves to shreds’, Steinbeck’s tale of drought-stricken farmers makes a heart-warming case for the extended family
People often reach for the familiar when they near the 25 December. Whether it be through rewatching The Great Escape or Love Actually, or by listening to the Queen’s Speech, the bottom line is usually cosiness and dependability. But when it comes to festive cultural consumption, I am not like most people. I crave something that can cut through the mawkishness of all the Shakin’ Stevens, Cliff Richard and Wham! And in my reading life I have found few palate cleansers to match The Grapes of Wrath.
Some might ask what a 500-page novel about the suffering caused by the Great Depression and the Oklahoma drought has to do with the festive season – especially in our current, British, faux-snow-flecked incarnation. But beyond being a Christian celebration of the birth of Christ – or a pagan celebration of the winter solstice, depending on who you talk to – isn’t Christmas really a time for exchanging gifts with loved ones and reuniting with family members scattered across an increasingly globalised world? Steinbeck’s magnum opus is obsessed with what the narrator calls the “citadel of the family” and demonstrates at great length the bonds that can unite blood relations despite twists of fate and ill fortune. Losing yourself in a Californian labour camp certainly helps to put your Uncle Chris’s feeble ability at charades into perspective.
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