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    The Grapes of Wrath
    The Grapes of Wrath
    The Grapes of Wrath
    Audiobook1 hour

    The Grapes of Wrath

    Written by John Steinbeck and Frank Galati

    Narrated by Shirley Knight, Jeffrey Donovan and Full Cast

    4.5/5

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    About this audiobook

    A heart-wrenching full-cast adaptation of the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by John Steinbeck, starring Jeffrey Donovan and Shirley Knight. Set during the Great Depression, The Grapes of Wrath tells the powerful story of the Joad family’s trek from the dust bowl of Oklahoma to the promise of a new life in California. But what they find threatens to rip apart their lives, and sever the ties that bind them together. Starring Shirley Knight as Ma Joad, Frank Galati’s finds its timeless heart in the generous spirit of the common man.

    A L.A. Theatre Works full-cast performance featuring:
    Shirley Knight as Ma Joad
    Jeffrey Donovan as Tom Joad
    Emily Bergl as Rose of Sharon
    Michael Buie as Connie and others
    Daniel Chacon as Al Joad
    Maurice Chasse as Deputy Sheriff and others
    Shannon Cochran as Mrs. Wainwright and Elizabeth Sandry
    Trista Delamere as 2nd Narrator and Al’s Girl
    Francis Guinan as Jim Casy
    Charlie Matthes as Willy and others
    Gas Station Attendant and Hooper Ranch Guard
    Rod McLachlan as Uncle John
    Robert Pescovitz as Pa Joad
    Joel Rafael as Car Salesman and Man with Guitar
    Stephen Ramsey as 1st Narrator and others
    Nick Sadler as Agricultural Officer and others
    Andy Taylor as Gas Station Owner and others
    Floyd Knowles and Weedpatch Camp Director
    Todd Waring as Hooper Ranch Bookkeeper and others
    Fredd Wayne as Grampa, Mayor of Hooverville and Camp Guard
    Michael Weston as Noah Joad and others
    Kate Williamson as Gramma and others

    Live music performed by the Joel Rafael Band. Adapted by Frank Galati. Directed by Richard Masur. Recorded before a live audience at the Skirball Cultural Center, Los Angeles.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherL.A. Theatre Works
    Release dateMar 3, 2003
    ISBN9781580816908
    Author

    John Steinbeck

    John Steinbeck (Salinas, 1902 - Nueva York, 1968). Narrador y dramaturgo estadounidense. Estudió en la Universidad de Stanford, pero desde muy joven tuvo que trabajar duramente como albañil, jornalero rural, agrimensor o empleado de tienda. En la década de 1930 describió la pobreza que acompañó a la Depresión económica y tuvo su primer reconocimiento crítico con la novela Tortilla Flat, en 1935. Sus novelas se sitúan dentro de la corriente naturalista o del realismo social americano. Su estilo, heredero del naturalismo y próximo al periodismo, se sustenta sin embargo en una gran carga de emotividad en los argumentos y en el simbolismo presente en las situaciones y personajes que crea, como ocurre en sus obras mayores: De ratones y hombres (1937), Las uvas de la ira (1939) y Al este del Edén (1952). Obtuvo el premio Nobel en 1962.

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    Reviews for The Grapes of Wrath

    4.5/5

    354 ratings143 reviews

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    • 4/5
      from la theater works.
      I wanted the book but scribd don't have it on audio.
      short and abrupt. like reading notes on the book instead of the book. no room for character development. hardly room enough to understand what's going on.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      I fully recognize that what I say about this great novel won’t amount to a hill of beans compared with the many erudite, perceptive, and occasionally dull things that have already been said about it. But I feel that if I don’t say something, I will be a criminal haunted by his own silence and laziness. The Grapes of Wrath is such an important book that I feel I must, at the very least, tell people who haven’t read it that they simply can’t afford to put it off any longer. The perspective gained will help them understand the corporate arrogance and corrupt politics that create and profit by the world’s problems, as well as the harsh and increasingly violent economic reality faced by growing numbers in the United States and abroad. The Grapes of Wrath is a history lesson, a call for justice, and a literary achievement all in one. It is an eloquent poem of the downtrodden, who are unable to speak for themselves. It is an epic journey filled with hardship, sorrow, and strife miraculously illuminated by human decency, kindness, and hope. It is also a warning against complacency, and a reminder that quite often what is assumed to be a right has been built upon the misfortune of others and the cruelties they have endured. Steinbeck accomplishes all of this by telling the story of the Joad family of Oklahoma, tenant farmers compelled to leave their Dust Bowl home by economic forces too great for them to resist. In so doing, they become part of a westward migration made up of thousands of uprooted families lured by the promise of agricultural work in bountiful California. To their horror, they are met with hatred and mistrust, and soon discover that work is nearly impossible to find, and that when it is found, it doesn’t last and isn’t enough to live on. And so the Joads find themselves faced with a great paradox: that of starving in a land of plenty. Caught up in the battle between Labor, Big Money, and increasing mechanization, the Joads and other migrant families are used as strike-breakers one day, only to have their meager wages cut in half the next. As soon as a given crop is harvested, they are kicked out of their subhuman accommodations and told to move on under threat of violence. Roadside camps are burned; scapegoats are picked at random and labeled as communist troublemakers. The hungry migrants are seen not as fellow Americans down on their luck, but as a filthy, inferior race that threatens to infect the native population. This novel is a classic example of a personal story set against a giant backdrop of events. As such, it is impossible to read it without putting oneself in the time and place of Ma Joad, as she clings to her pride while giving strength and encouragement to her family as it grows angry and resentful with hunger and threatens to unravel, or her son, Tom, who is so outraged by the way his people are treated that he decides he must somehow learn to champion their cause. Thanks to Steinbeck’s realistic presentation, after spending some time with the Joads, the reader sees the food on his plate — if he is lucky enough to have food at all — in a completely different light. A great part of Steinbeck’s success comes from his use of everyday language and dialect. The story isn’t told in a detached or elevated manner, but in an earthy way that is a natural outcome of the subject matter. Some reviewers at the time thought the use of dialect was foolish or contrived — the same criticism once leveled at Mark Twain. Having heard the dialect as a kid in Central California myself, it is my feeling that Steinbeck would have killed his book by sanitizing it. Through talk, he established a sense of immediacy and familiarity. The Joads were real people, and their predicament was as real as the Depression era that spawned it. Also not to be overlooked is the book’s humor. This is something else Steinbeck understood: the roots of laughter are nourished by hardship and sorrow; humor, like song and dance, is an expression of pride and survival. Finally, though I hope it isn’t necessary, I want to offer one last reason to read The Grapes of Wrath, and that is Steinbeck’s triumphantly sad and beautiful ending. If the end of this book — both in terms of its final pages and its final paragraph — doesn’t change the way you look at things, then perhaps nothing will.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      Excellent
      I love John Steinbeck. He's one of my favorite authors. He writes about one of my favorite eras in history.
    • 5/5
      Very well done, great characterizations and true to the book!
    • 4/5
      This presentation is more radio drama than audio book, and I enjoyed it. The actors all did well, even if the repetition did make some of the characters hard to differentiate. I’d recommend it to those who have read the book, and those who are new to it, though there is no substitute for reading the actual pages yourself and hearing their voices.
    • 5/5
      Great listening experience. Love it when the readers are really playing the characters. Very immersive.
    • 5/5
      Great piece of literature. Easily the best audiobook I heard in 2019
    • 5/5
      What a great book. It speaks of times before the growth of worker rites and human rites in the USA ??.
    • 4/5
      I think that my expectations for this book were wildly overinflated. I so loved reading other books by John Steinbeck that I expected this, his most-acclaimed work, to be eons better than the others I'd read. It's a good story, heart-breaking and well-told, but it didn't grab me as much as some of his "lesser" works.
    • 4/5
      If only Steinbeck would have shown the reader the California growers as anything but caricatures.
    • 5/5
      The Grapes of Wrath is a great American novel that depicts the story of a family that migrates to the west in search... of... *falls over snoring zzzzzzzzzzzzzzNo really. This book is about the Joad family. Their farm is messed up by the Dust Bowl and the bank takes it away. Or something. Anyway, they have to leave, they go to California in search of work. PROBLEM! everyone else had the same idea. So they're a-goin' to California and on the way they see how people are: good and bad. What they find out is that they're being treated like outsiders... like how immigrants to the United States were discriminated against... they're also facing discrimination. THe Joads are helped by fellow travelers along the way, and learn that some people can't be trusted.It was a good book, but it had an odd ending because it wasn't a happy one. The conflict of the novel was not really resolved. It just ended when they were in a cabin to escape the rain, and Rose of Sharon "helped" this guy that was going to die. So they didn't find a house, or get work, but their story definitely doesn't end there. I think the novel was meant to be kind of like a peek into their lives as migrant workers in the 1930s. or whatever decade it was in.I liked this book a lot better than Invisible Man It was a lot less... abstract. yes, I'm gonna go with that.
    • 5/5
      Easily Steinbeck’s best work. Follows the migration of the Joads from Oklahoma to California. Startling depiction of the migrant worker situation in California in the 1930s and the Depression Era. Fantastic ending that serves to drive home nothing but pure hope as the woman gives her breast to the ailing man. Religion plays a part in this as well. The fallen preacher Casey is an interesting character to pay attention to.
    • 5/5
      Set during the Dust Bowl, The Grapes of Wrath tells the story of the Joad family and the hardships they face as they make their way to California. The book was very simply written. The characters are pretty one dimensional, but it seemed fitting for the time period that the story took place in. I'm glad I finally gave it a chance. I'll be reading this one again sometime in the future.
    • 5/5
      The Grapes of Wrath tells the story of the Joad family, forced by the Oklahoma dust bowl and unscrupulous capitalistic business interests to migrate west to the "promised land" of California. Instead of a land of milk and honey, the Joad's find poverty and despair as they, along with many other destitute people, are forced into migrant crop work owned and operated by those who exploit them. Steinbeck alternates chapters of the Joad's story with experimental prose and dramatization which paint the larger picture of the "Okie" migration west. I found these narratives to be rich and descriptive, adding depth and insight into the social, environmental and genetic forces fighting against those who had migrated west in search of work. At first the Joads are only concerned about the well-being of the family, but soon realize that they belong to a larger group suffering the same difficulties and hardships, which can only be overcome through a collective effort. As the Joad family begins to shrink in blood relations, it expands to include those related by plight; the poor helping the poorer. “In the evening a strange thing happened: the twenty families became one family, the children were the children of all. In the evening, sitting around the fires, the twenty were one.” Toward the end of the novel, one of the Joads remembers a passage from Ecclesiastes illustrating one of the main ideas in the novel, “Two are better than one, for they have a good reward for their labor. For if they fall, the one will lif’ up his fellow, but woe to him that is alone when he falleth, for he has not another to help him up.” This was a compelling read which I highly recommend. While the poverty and suffering depicted in the novel is depressing and sometimes difficult to read, the message of love, compassion, dignity and courage of the human spirit is uplifting overall.
    • 5/5
      A very tragic, loving story of survival. It is the type of story which will make one reflect of the quality of life during this era. Both the greediness of mankind and the struggle and strength of the poor are capture in this story.
    • 3/5
      Grapes of Wrath could be seen as two books, and I mostly liked one, aside from the ending, and mostly hated the other, while admiring aspects of the style even of that part. The book I mostly liked (until the cringe-inducing ending) was the story of the Joad family. During the "Dust Bowl" era of the 1930s, due to a decade-long drought and long-term soil erosion caused by poor agricultural practices, there were terrible dust storms throughout the American Plains that carried away soil making large tracts of farming land useless, forcing hundreds of thousands to move west in search of work. The Joads as tenant farmers are dispossessed of their home, and the entire family, Grampa, Granma, Ma and Pa Joad, their married teen daughter and her husband, and their five other children pick up and leave for California. About half of the book that deals with them tells the story of their leaving Oklahoma and travel along highway 66 to get to California. The other half tells of their experience as migrant workers there--during the height of the Great Depression. I loved Ma Joad especially among the characters, and have to tip my hat to Steinbeck. There aren't that many classic books by male authors that I've read recently where the author creates a strong and credible female character. That "other" book I didn't like? Well, most of the Joad chapters alternate with what might be called the preaching with a choir chapters. That is, Steinbeck preaches to us about all the evils of capitalism, the "monster banks" and how business is "curious ritualized thievery." Oh, and how the tractor is EVIL since it keeps man from melding with the land. (I guess a flint and wood plow bound together with rope would be better for that.) It's not a view I'm sympathetic to, and I sometimes thought that this book should be named the official manifesto of the Occupy Wall Street movement because it so well fits their world view. Well, at least Steinbeck manages better than Tolstoy did in his digressions on the forces of history in War and Peace. Some parts of what Steinbeck called the "interchapters" really sing and are interesting stylistically. They remind me of the chorus in an Ancient Greek play as Steinbeck makes his point through these collective voices. But that doesn't keep them from mostly clanging like an anvil repeatedly hitting the walls on the way down. Oh, and there's that cringe-inducing ending imbued with all this humanistic symbolism, which I'm sure is supposed to bring tears to my eyes, but only made me think, ZOMG, he did not just do that! (To say nothing of the chapter of the turtle and the curious incident of the pig and the baby.)
    • 4/5
      I finished this book on Mar 17, 1949, and my comment on it was as follows: "Found it overdrawn and if it intended to be stark, I failed to find it so. I don't like Steinbeck--when he wants power, he uses little words and leaves things unsaid, and it doesn't give me the impression of power. It was recitably, with good people amd bad ones drawn so simply (in his concept) as in 1920 movies. All in all. it failed to move me as the movie had, or as I might have been in 1939."
    • 4/5
      I would like to read this book again. It was a wonderful look at the Dust Bowl and reminded me a lot of current immigration views.
    • 5/5
      It was high school required reading. I was on a three day weekend vacation with my parents, and I sat in a window seat in a little cabin we had rented - it was raining - and I read this straight through. I especially liked the non-Joad family chapters that described the migrants movements and struggle as a whole. It spoke to me. A definite re-read for the future, and most highly recommended to anyone.
    • 4/5
      What else can you say; one of the greatest novels of the 20th century. An epic tale of a family coming to terms with a new age that will make them or break them. I love the way this book is written.
    • 4/5
      It was a bit of a struggle to get through it, but I am glad I got it done. I have a lot of respect for this book as a piece of literature and it did give me new perspective on the human condition during the depression. It also made me think that government intervention is sometimes necessary when conditions deem it necessary. I really enjoyed the short chapters that provided details of the life and times - they were written beautifully.
    • 4/5
      Just read through The Grapes of Wrath after 35 years...I understand the context much better, and am probably able to pick out details that I missed as a teenager. I can also better appreciate the broader, human themes that aren't specific to the historical or political story - especially the parts about religion and holiness, and about sexual roles. And I suspect I can savor the writing more at this age - I most enjoyed the short, thematic chapters this time whereas I remember finding them a chore back then.But overall, the story and characters felt pretty flat this go around. My main impressions from reading this years ago was shock and outrage at how the "Okies" were treated during the depression, and Steinbeck's political statements about the evils of capitalism and the importance of labor organization. The book had a huge impact on me back then, in the same way I was influenced by Upton Sinclair's The Jungle. On reading it now, I find the Joad family story simplistic. The good guys are just too selfless and heroic, and the bad guys just too selfish and evil, and the social classes fit into their respective type almost without exception. The characters don't come to life the way they do under a pen like Wallace Stegner’s; they're archetypes rather than complex, conflicted, human beings. I'm much more cynical about the socialist critique of capitalism now, especially having studied socialist societies in college and lived in supposedly socialist China in the 1980s. I don't doubt for a second that this type of cruelty existed, or that people put up with it and made heroic efforts to survive as the people did in this novel. I also know that capitalism, if unchecked, can be a force for evil and destruction; even though I believe it can also be a force for good if channeled properly, and with the right protections for those that try but just can't make it. But it's a vastly more complicated story than this book puts across.All this compels me to give the book 4 stars, when I would surely have given it 5 as a more impressionable teenage reader. Still great, but unable to stand the test of time the way other books have.
    • 3/5
      This book has a great plot and storyline, but is hard to follow with the southern United States accent. It also has a terrible ending and does not leave you with an answer to the main conflict of the Joad family finding work in California and starting a new life. Finally, there are a few background chapters that are randomly thrown in that seem irrelevent to the rest of the book. I would only recommend this book if you like historical fiction and don't have a problem reading southern dialects.
    • 4/5
      Given the current economic crisis, this is an especially poignant story of one family (the Joad's)just trying to survive during the upheaval of the Great Depression. Although it can be a heavy read at times, several characters (namely Casey and Tom) provide incredibly insightful commentary on the human spirit and the way of the world. A classic and thus highly recommended. Appropriate for upper high school and beyond...
    • 5/5
      I probably could not write a review at this point that will do this book justice, but I would like to touch on a few brief points that tend to bother critics about this book. The Grapes of Wrath is a very much intimate novel that draws you in just as the sentimental novel Uncle Tom's Cabin does. As a matter of fact, while I was reading it, as audacious as it sounds, I felt like Steinbeck was sitting right next to me telling me himself about the issues he was concerned about during the Great Depression. I do believe this is why some people may not appreciate the book as much as I do; not everyone wants to captivated by all of the emotions in the novel, and I get that, but I think that's one of the reasons why this novel was so astounding.Even though some people felt that the ending came too suddenly, Steinbeck argued that he had the ending in mind the whole time he was writing which would make sense. Steinbeck wanted people to know how it felt to be one of the dispossessed - a stranger in your homeland where food and land are a plenty yet you have no permission to have any of it. When the Joads have finally reached the end of the novel, they are left in destitution yet they still have the humanity to help complete strangers out because those are the kind of people they are. Thus, the ending didn't just come out of the blue, but the Joads stayed in character throughout the whole novel while of course one character experienced a significant transformation in the end. What that transformation is, I'll leave you to find out for yourself.
    • 5/5
      Anone who wants to understand the American story needs to read this story. The descriptions are vivid and characters unforgettable. I read it in 1951. As the American story progresses the story seems more and more relevant. A truly great, class novel from one of the best American writers.
    • 1/5
      I'm going to be in the minority here I'm sure, because this seems to be such a beloved classic. Grapes of Wrath was the most painful read I've ever had. The writing itself was amazing. John Steinbeck knows how to smack down when it comes to the mechanics, but, the story was just boring. When grandpa died and they put him in the ditch with coins on his eyes (even though they needed that money desperately), right then and there, I was all for the Joads dying in a horribly firey truck accident. I couldn't believe people could be so stupid and gullible--perhaps this is what Steinbeck was going for. I definitely felt the apathy that the Joads encountered time and time again. But, COME ON! leaving money for a dead man to cross the river Styx just wasn't necessary. Grandpa should have just sucked it up and swam with the dead because doing the backstroke had to have been easier compared to the Hell of a life he was living. All the symbolism was distracting. Just tell me a story; don't get cutesy clever.
    • 5/5
      "The concrete highway was edged with a mat of tangled, broken, dry grass, and the grass heads were heavy with oat beards to catch on a dog's coat, and foxtails to tangle in a horse's fetlocks, and clover burrs to fasten in sheep's wool; sleeping life waiting to be spread and dispersed, every seed armed with an appliance of dispersal, twisting darts and parachutes for the wind, little spears and balls of tiny thorns, and all waiting for animals and for the wind, for a man's trouser cuff or the hem of a woman's skirt, all passive but armed with appliances of activity, still, but each possessed of the anlage of movement."What a poet Steinbeck is! But what does anlage mean?1. Biology The initial clustering of embryonic cells from which a part or an organ develops; primordium.2. A genetic predisposition to a given trait or personality characteristic.3. A fundamental principle; the foundation for a future development.All three will come into play in this story. The Joads and others in Oklahoma don't want to move, don't want to change, but in the Great Depression, dispossessed of their farms, they have no choice. Handbills promising work in California entice thousands to take to the highway, Route 66, and migrate west. Stoic and determined, the Okies (a derogatory term out West), sell all they can, and pile high on old cars what they'll need for the journey and their new life. This much most people know without having read the book.What they may not know is the beauty of Steinbeck's writing, and how drawn into the Joads' lives the reader becomes. Ma Joad is the key to all of it - "from her great and humble position in the family she had taken dignity and a clean calm beauty." She "seemed to realize that if she swayed the family shook, and if she ever deeply wavered or despaired the family would fall, the family will to function would be gone." That realization is sorely tested at times, and its truth shines through in what was, for me, a jaw-dropping ending.Tom Joad the son is a passionate man, and a visionary, who incisively understands one problem after another and how to effectively address it. His integrity is unassailable; the difficulty he faces is keeping himself from losing his temper and striking out at the greedy oppressors and powerdrunk false authorities. His closest traveling companion is the ex-preacher Casey, who once used his exaltatory power to seduce, and now wants only to fully understand humanity and spirit without the trappings of religion. His eulogy for a deceased old man is filled with honesty rather than homilies. "I woudn' pray for an ol' fella that's dead. He's awright. He's got a job to do, but it's all laid out for 'im an' there's on'y one way to do it. . . . if I was to pray, it'd be for folks who that don' know which way to turn." And for all the salmon-like drive west to generate new lives, there are a lot of folks who end up needing that prayer.All of the characters in this story are convincingly drawn, and the depictions of their ordeals vivid. When I grew up I used to read, and hear people ask, Who is going to write the Great American Novel? That came to mind several times during The Grapes of Wrath and I thought, I'm reading it.Anlage of movement. There's the clustering of embryonic cells in a young woman's stressful pregnancy that symbolizes the new birth sought at the end of their travels. The Joads (and others) have genetic predispositions to prevail somehow, and to help others no matter how little there is to be shared. Finally, there's a fundamental drive to build in California a foundation for the family's future. Along the way we experience the dirt, the hunger, the passion, the inequities, bodies giving out, the will to survive, the enormous challenge of finding work and the next meal. This is an epic book, filled not with gods, but with people we know, or wish we did, or wish we didn't.
    • 5/5
      The great American novel. Or at least one of the greatest I have read. It is touching, thought-provoking, ACTION-provoking, and written really, really well.Before this I had read only "Of Mice and Men" by Steinbeck. I had no idea of how political he is. I myself lean heavily towards the left, but even I found the book too preaching at points. Although when I think about the context in which this book was published, the preaching must have been required. But all in all, I liked the idea that a book that is so blatantly political (and, from my point of view, in the right direction) is now considered a classic and a masterpiece.I liked the way the writing flowed all through the book. There was never a time that I stopped to think that I was reading a book. The book follows the people very closely and is so down-to-earth that I could almost feel the squishing of mud in my shoes.A masterpiece.
    • 3/5
      The Joads, as they travel west in search of a new life, see all sides of humanity. They and their fellow travelers extend unimaginable kindnesses to each other in order to survive, including the frankly strange ending, and face disheartening cruelty from the residents of the towns they pass through.This is as timely an issue as it was 80 years ago, as migrant workers are once again a political hot topic. The Grapes of Wrath should be required reading for everyone, and hopefully it will remind us all about our own humanity.That said, I didn't love this. It could have been edited (even 100 pages would have made it pithier) and I wish I knew how the Joads' story ended (as characters, beyond the novel). However, this is undoubtedly an important work, and I'm glad to have read it.