Andrea in Dutchess Posted September 12, 2011 Share Posted September 12, 2011 heard a little about profane language etc, enlighten me please Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AK_Mom4 Posted September 12, 2011 Share Posted September 12, 2011 Maybe because it's sad and quite depressing? I didn't find the language inappropriate for high school age and above, but YMMV. My grandparents were migrant farmworkers during the same time period. Grandma described it as a "hellish life" and parts of what Steinbeck wrote ring true with her stories. So, while I am not a huge Steinbeck fan, I would not myself take this one off the reading list because we have a personal connection. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Candid Posted September 12, 2011 Share Posted September 12, 2011 It's a long big novel and depending on your student might be too much. Try The Pearl which is a good shorter alternative. It is still dark and depressing, but much shorter and the meaning will be clearer to high school student than The Grapes of Wrath is likely to be. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andrea in Dutchess Posted September 12, 2011 Author Share Posted September 12, 2011 I wonder why I heard so much about profane language? maybe it was the time period? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Julie in MN Posted September 12, 2011 Share Posted September 12, 2011 The movie might be enough? It's a Henry Fonda movie, so nothing too profane. I haven't read the book, so maybe someone can share whether there are any discrepancies (besides being less graphic & profane), but I felt the movie got across the desperation of the dust bowl well. Not an encouraging movie, which I wouldn't expect from Steinbeck (whom I don't care for, for that reason), but probably a fairly true one. Once in a while we "study" movies :o) Julie Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LatinTea Posted September 12, 2011 Share Posted September 12, 2011 (edited) I wonder why I heard so much about profane language? maybe it was the time period? The first chapter has one of the most awful yet beautiful descriptions of what those people went through that I have ever read. I have tried to get through this book a few times now and never have made it through the first couple of chapters. I believe it is the second or third one that really gets to me. Lots of swearing (the big, ugly words) and a big put down on religion (particularly a small town pastor if my memory serves me right). I know Sonlight uses it in Core 400 so it can be done in high school. I don't think it's necessary though. There are plenty of books that cover that time frame. Out of the Dust comes to mind. I loved that book for it's poetic quality. One more thing. After reading that first chapter in The Grapes of Wrath, something like 3 times now, I never have gotten tired of it, and since you are asking and I do need a new book to read, I think I'll give it another try. Yet again. ;) Edited September 12, 2011 by LatinTea Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
beachpotato Posted September 13, 2011 Share Posted September 13, 2011 Uh, it's boring. Well, at least, the first part of the book before they get out to California moves very slowly, IMO. I loved the second half of the book Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IsabelC Posted September 13, 2011 Share Posted September 13, 2011 I read this recently for the first time and found it brilliant, beautifully written and fascinating. It deals with a number of adult concepts, but I'd have no hesitation in recommending it to a mature older child with reasonably strong reading skills. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
asta Posted September 13, 2011 Share Posted September 13, 2011 heard a little about profane language etc, enlighten me please Profanity? Well, like another poster wrote, I guess one must put everything in context. My grandfather swore up a storm. Drank too. He was also one of kindest, most devout Catholics I've ever met. He spent the great depression surviving on the piece of bread with pig's lard spread on it his mother was able to give him in the morning and the kindness of street vendors who would periodically give him a piece of fruit as he sold newspapers on street corners. When someone discarded a paper, he would carefully smooth it out and refold it to resell it. I would have been swearing my @ss off too. A Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SailorMom Posted September 13, 2011 Share Posted September 13, 2011 My only concern would be the scene at the end of the book - the very end - where one of the characters loses her newborn baby, and ends up nursing an elderly man who is about to starve to death. It is hard for an adult to take that in.... I did read the book as a teen, and it wasn't a big deal to me then. I actually think it bothered me more as an adult. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iluvmy4blessings Posted September 13, 2011 Share Posted September 13, 2011 You could just watch the Veggie Tales Version "We are the Grapes of Wrath" ;) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
J-rap Posted September 13, 2011 Share Posted September 13, 2011 I haven't read it in years, but I do remember some profanity. More than that, I remember it being very gritty and depressing. BUT, I remember thinking it was a real classic and was glad I read it. My daughter who reads everything read it in high school, and it is her all-time favorite book. I did see the old Henry Fonda movie recently and loved it. I believe it was very well done, and does a great job capturing the bleak, despairing theme. On the side -- I grew up in Steinbeck's hometown. We learned that Steinbeck was not very popular there, and in fact often used real people and events to base his stories on -- causing him to have many enemies in the area. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Greta Lea Posted September 13, 2011 Share Posted September 13, 2011 It was just SO weird. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
emubird Posted September 13, 2011 Share Posted September 13, 2011 My only concern would be the scene at the end of the book - the very end - where one of the characters loses her newborn baby, and ends up nursing an elderly man who is about to starve to death.It is hard for an adult to take that in.... I did read the book as a teen, and it wasn't a big deal to me then. I actually think it bothered me more as an adult. Yeah, that was kind of over the top gritty -- but it does kind of go with the theme of desperation, and rebirth and all that. (The fact that the girl who loses the baby is only about 14-15 years old might be a little much to take as well.) The movie ended before it got anywhere near that point. So one could watch the movie instead. (The latest play does have that scene in it.) We also watched Bound for Glory (about Woody Guthrie) as sort of a minor unit study. But that movie is a bit, um, realistic, too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RubberChickenGirl Posted September 13, 2011 Share Posted September 13, 2011 It was just SO weird. Totally.:confused: Express the milk anyone!?:confused: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mom2abcd Posted September 23, 2011 Share Posted September 23, 2011 My only concern would be the scene at the end of the book - the very end - where one of the characters loses her newborn baby, and ends up nursing an elderly man who is about to starve to death.It is hard for an adult to take that in.... I did read the book as a teen, and it wasn't a big deal to me then. I actually think it bothered me more as an adult. I was (and am) a voracious reader. But I hated Grapes of Wrath. Like others said, it was boring. And that scene... It is a very depressing book. There are so many other good books... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spy Car Posted September 23, 2011 Share Posted September 23, 2011 A classic!!! Bill Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
happyhomemaker Posted September 23, 2011 Share Posted September 23, 2011 I disliked the book when I read it in high school. That being said, I am glad that I read it. The emotions and images conveyed through that story bring the time period to life in a way that most (if not all) other books on the subject cannot. I am definitely planning to include this selection for my dc sometime in their high school studies. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chepyl Posted September 23, 2011 Share Posted September 23, 2011 Some things, if well written, are worth the read even with questionable material. I would not have a 4th grader read it; but a late jr high or high school aged student should be able to handle the language and adult content. I don't use questionable language, but I don't steer clear of books that include it. My son is not allowed to use certain words, but as he gets older he will read Shakespeare and other classic pieces of literature that contain those words. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rockala Posted September 23, 2011 Share Posted September 23, 2011 a love or hate of Steinbeck. My dd, 15 read it last year and absolutely loved it. She just loves the way he describes things, people and their personalities. In fact she is finishing Cannery Row now, just for fun because she loves Steinbeck. Some ps kids she knows were supposed to read Grapes last year, but just read cheat notes and not the book like they were supposed to. I have not read it, so I do not know, but can apprecaite that you eithier love his writings or hate them. I am glad she tried it, as she seems to have developed a want to try to get through some deeper literature since then. On the other hand, she has not been able to get through Pride and Prejudice yet because of boredom, but she struggled through the first half of Jane Eyre, and ended up loving it at the end, we had to see the movie. Perhaps I should be concerned she likes dark and depressing- though she is 15 and they do generally like drama right ;) Kathy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nan in Mass Posted September 23, 2011 Share Posted September 23, 2011 Maybe she just likes vivid and not understated? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spy Car Posted September 23, 2011 Share Posted September 23, 2011 On the side -- I grew up in Steinbeck's hometown. We learned that Steinbeck was not very popular there, and in fact often used real people and events to base his stories on -- causing him to have many enemies in the area. Steinbeck was actually run out of Salinas, there were even threats on his life. The reasons for his "unpopularity" was that as a reporter he was exposing official corruption in government including local law enforcement and he took the side of farm laborers against the powerful growers, which put him on the wrong side of the people with clout at a time when Salinas was a powder-keg. It is ironic today that the Steinbeck Center in Salinas is a point of civic pride and boosted as the town's premier tourist attraction, and he is the home town hero. Bill Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bkpan Posted September 23, 2011 Share Posted September 23, 2011 I read the book a couple of years ago, a little slow at the beginning, but I ended up really loving the book. In fact, it haunts me still, and I think that it really helped put my "lack" of suffering a little more into perspective. I would hope that each of my children read it sometime during high school, perhaps their junior or senior year. However, I am not bothered by realistic swearing in novels. A beautiful testimony to the human spirit. Kim Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joannqn Posted September 24, 2011 Share Posted September 24, 2011 My only concern would be the scene at the end of the book - the very end - where one of the characters loses her newborn baby, and ends up nursing an elderly man who is about to starve to death.It is hard for an adult to take that in.... I did read the book as a teen, and it wasn't a big deal to me then. I actually think it bothered me more as an adult. :iagree: I just read it for the first time a few months ago. The first 100 pages were very slow and took me a couple of months to get through. After that, the book grabbed me, and it went quickly after that. I found it incredibly descriptive. It really made you understand the great depression from the migrant workers point of view. It was dark and very depressing. I did not feel like the ending provided hope and rebirth; it felt like one final act of desperation. I felt really deflated by the ending. I wanted hope. That said, I fully intend to have my kids read it in high school. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
elegantlion Posted September 24, 2011 Share Posted September 24, 2011 :iagree: I just read it for the first time a few months ago. The first 100 pages were very slow and took me a couple of months to get through. After that, the book grabbed me, and it went quickly after that. I found it incredibly descriptive. It really made you understand the great depression from the migrant workers point of view. It was dark and very depressing. I did not feel like the ending provided hope and rebirth; it felt like one final act of desperation. I felt really deflated by the ending. I wanted hope. That said, I fully intend to have my kids read it in high school. ARgh, that sounds just like The Pearl, which I threw across the floor after reading. I guess Steinbeck never worked for Disney, huh?:lol: After reading all these posts, I think I'll have ds interview my mother instead. She grew up very poor, but not migrant worker, during the depression. She has a more hopeful perspective. We'll throw in the movie for good measure. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
regentrude Posted September 24, 2011 Share Posted September 24, 2011 I did not feel like the ending provided hope and rebirth; it felt like one final act of desperation. I felt really deflated by the ending. I wanted hope. . To me, this IS a very hopeful book. It shows the resilience of humans in the face of adversity. When the girl saves the man from dying in the final scene, this is an act of ultimate compassion, especially since it is weird and must have felt weird to her and she did it anyway. That, to me, shows that humans can be compassionate and good towards each other even if they are in very dire straights. If that is not hope? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maura in NY Posted September 24, 2011 Share Posted September 24, 2011 Wow - so much is the kid -- Kathy's (Rockala) post made me laugh. My son asked to stop reading Grapes (He was in 10th or 11th at the time) because he found it too crude. He was okay with Of Mice and Men, but really isn't a Steinbeck fan at all. This is a kid who will read pretty much anything and everything. The other book he balked at was The Invisible Man (Ellisons, not Wells -lol) -- a scene in the beginning that was too titillating for him to be comfortable. On the other hand, Pride & Prejudice is up there with with To Kill a Mockingbird on his list of favorite books (along with TSolzhenitsyn's A Day in the Life and Gulag Archipelago -- talk about bleak, but he was okay with that, because of the life affirming ethos.) I pretty much operate on a three chapter rule for most books. If they can articulate why they don't want to continue a book, I let my boys off the hook. There are a few exceptions each year that they have to read whether they want to or not. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phoatogirl Posted September 28, 2011 Share Posted September 28, 2011 I would just assign it ad see how it goes. Personally I love Steinbeck. My son read Of Mice and Men in 7th and Grapes of Wrath in 9th and clearly enjoyed both. They were among the few books he actually maintained a discussion about. He isn't a big reader unless it's fantasy type stuff like books like LOTR, Eragon, Hunger Games but he really, really did enjoy steinbeck. I think it is because he has a tender spot and like many teens today is concerned with justice and fairness. Grapes os Wrath is one ofthe most important American novels. There are some (by today's standards mild) curse words, but IMHO by the time they are in high school they should be ready for a challenge in the subject matter they read. It is really difficult to find high school level material that will challenge them that does not contain language representative of the people the story deplicts. My kids know we don't talk like that, and that most educated people don't talk like that, but of coursethey know it exists and I can't shield them forever As far as the movie, my son and the group or kids that read and discussed the book with him found of sorely lacking compared to the blol. Plot elements were changed and sequence of events reversed Read the book!!!!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.