My son read this book in his AP Freshman English class. I don’t remember ever reading this book but since I just read The Grapes of Wrath I thought I’d read this one as well, especially since it is only 100 pages. I think I’ve had my fill of early 1900’s poverty in California but thanks to Steinbeck, I think I’m leaning a little more towards socialism. I had grown up thinking that America takes care of its own people.
How naive I’ve been. With the hollowing out of the middle class over the past couple of decades in the never ending chase for even greater profits and my own experience in corporate America I’ve learned that this country runs on profit. America is a business and we’re currently seeing the middle class not only continue to struggle but VOTE against their own interests! They want the billionaires to profit even more while those billionaires hike up prices, lay people off and blame the Democrats.
This is something I’d expect from Republicans but was very surprised when I learned Nancy Pelosi also participated in insider training and with her husband is worth upwards of $250 million or so.
Anyway, we’re not back in the 1920s but it sure feels like this could be a new iteration but instead of landowners making everyone else miserable it will be the tech overlords.
On to the passages I’ve highlighted – there are not many.
“Well . . . tell you what. Curley’s like a lot of little guys. He hates big guys. He’s alla time picking scraps with big guys. Kind of like he’s mad at ’em because he ain’t a big guy. You seen little guys like that, ain’t you? Always scrappy?”
Little man syndrome?
“She slang her pups last night,” said Slim. “Nine of ’em. I drowned four of ’em right off. She couldn’t feed that many.”
This makes me sad. I’ve come to the point in my life where I don’t kill anything: I catch spiders and release them, I don’t step on bugs, I feel bad for ‘feeder fish,’ etcetera. (I do eat meat, perhaps I’ll get to vegetarian one day.) This made me think of a rather dark scene from the old Tom and Jerry cartoon where a bag of drowned kittens arrives at Heaven’s gate.
And the meanness and the plannings and the discontent and the ache for attention were all gone from her face. She was very pretty and simple, and her face was sweet and young. Now her rouged cheeks and her reddened lips made her seem alive and sleeping very lightly. The curls, tiny little sausages, were spread on the hay behind her head, and her lips were parted.
Nothing much to say on this passage. I had remembered that somebody died but couldn’t remember any details about it. This is why I started highlighting passages I like in books I read and post them here. I realized that I couldn’t remember much about many of the books I read in the past and this was rather shocking to me. By writing down passages here I can easily look them up and quickly remember everything as well as what I thought about that particular passage. With age 50 on the horizon I’m very thankful for this journal because I’m realizing just how much people forget about their own lives, including myself.
