What Awards Have Novels By Steinbeck Won?

For me, a 'perfect' adaptation of Of Mice and Men would be the 1939 version. I appreciate the 1992 adaptation for its commitment to the original work but it's just so polished and reverent. It doesn't have the same desperation and urgency as the older version. Malkovich's Lennie is wonderful but it's a studied, actorly Lennie. I find Lon Chaney Jr.'s version of Lennie more disturbing because it's just so huge and unpredictable. A lot of times a perfect adaptation of a work can seem like a museum piece and I feel that the 1939 version is just closer to the essence of the story than the 1992 version. The 1939 version is just older and clunky and it's more stage bound but it just feels more like the core of the story than the 1992 version. That's just me though.

In the new cast of characters in Sweet Thursday, Suzy is an interesting icon. She is new to Cannery Row in this sequel to Cannery Row and brings a new relationship to the troubled Doc. Suzy is a strong, courageous, yet very vulnerable young woman, who wants to build a better life for herself. Her relationship with the lonely Doc is not that of a party girl but of two wounded people who hopefully find some solace in each other. Instead Suzy represents a step towards domesticity and personal happiness after the more communal excesses of Cannery Row. Whilst not as iconic as the characters from Cannery Row Suzy shows another facet of Steinbeck’s characters and again the unchanged backdrop of the Row can contain new events and characters for the inhabitants to become involved with in hopes of finding second helpings of happiness.

I should note that as a writer I think the intercalary chapters in The Grapes of Wrath are the best part of the book and really make it the national epic of the Depression era instead of just another family’s journey. Those short essays on everything from a turtle trying to cross the road to the history of how land was taken from native people to the current treatment of migrants are amazing. They zoom out from the Joads to provide a sense of the disaster that is unfolding ecologically, economically and historically. None of the other Depression novels that I’ve read use structure in as brilliant a manner to further drive home the author’s point. It’s not just a novel set during the Depression; it’s an analytical, poetic and furious dissection of the time.

John Steinbeck’s first novel, Tortilla Flat, was written while the author was living in Monterey and drew from his observations of the paisanos and their unique lifestyle. Despite the poverty and hard work of the paisanos, Steinbeck noted their happiness and wrote Danny and his friends into a series of adventures. The paisanos’ simple lives are also reflected in Steinbeck’s portrayal of Danny’s house as a modern Camelot. Overall, Steinbeck clearly has a great deal of affection for the paisanos and wrote Tortilla Flat as a tribute to their camaraderie and their sense of belonging.

The awards Hugo Cabret has won are impressive proof that sophisticated literature can be written for kids. The book won the Caldecott Medal and the Boston Globe-Horn Book Honor and the Carnegie Medal. Interestingly, the Caldecott Medal committee had to change their criteria in order to grant the award to this book. Hugo Cabret is a book about early cinema. It is also the inspiration for the Martin Scorsese movie “Hugo”. I call that meta. I think the most impressive award this book could receive is when teachers tell me that it is the one book that reluctant readers finish in a single sitting. The book is long–the spine is thick–but it moves like clockwork.

In many ways, the most interesting novels are those that are full of symbolism. John Steinbeck’s novel, The Pearl, is a rich and interesting work filled with many different symbols that add layers of meaning to the simple story of a man trying to better himself. The simplest symbol in the novel is the pearl itself. At first the pearl seems to represent hope for a better life, but as the novel progresses it becomes clear that the pearl also has the power to destroy. The novel also portrays the destructive nature of greed. In the end, Kino is able to recover from his mistakes and return to his roots by throwing the pearl back into the sea. Animal Farm by George Orwell is another good novel that uses allegory and many different symbols to explore complex themes. Steinbeck develops his symbolism in such a way as to allow full exploration of the potential of the objects of nature that recur throughout the novel. For example, the pearl undergoes a complete reversal in meaning, from symbolizing hope for the future for Kino and his family to a destructive force. The canoe of Kino’sforefathers is another recurrent object that has significance for the protagonist. Its destruction in chapter four signifies not only the physical destruction of the canoe but also the loss of a part of Kino’s cultural heritage. The scorpion that stings Coyotito is another symbol of Steinbeck. For a novel that is so charged with the symbolism of objects of nature, readers who enjoy such a richly symbolic novel as The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne may find The Pearl of interest as well.

If you want to read a great crime novel with a lot of heart, then I think The Life We Bury by Allen Eskens is your best bet. This is his most highly decorated book and for good reason. The intricate plot is excellent but it is also a very emotionally charged novel. Joe and Carl is a story about a man who has spent his life burying things and searching for answers to the questions surrounding a murder that occurred twenty years prior. Along the way, Eskens also explores themes of guilt and redemption. Eskens and his book were awarded the Rosebud Award last year. So, if you’re a fan of the genre then this is definitely one you should read.

I await other comments herein concerning international awards. The UK’s Waterstones Children’s Book Prize is a very notable literary award in the UK. US-focused comments are always interesting to me given that this book has read and resonated globally with so very many readers. Its themes of injustice, identity, and voicing one’s intellectual and creative views are universally relatable, even if a highly American context is given to their expression.

But the physicality of grapes, for example, is that they are soft and can be crushed for their juice, to make wine. Or else the grape can be crushed in a most vicious way. The Joads and all the migrant workers of the story are being crushed by the economic and social forces that created the Dust Bowl and are sustained by the agriculture of California. Their ‘wrath’ is the juice of that crushing. Not a neat, clean, hard emotion. A messy, stubborn, powerful, pore-vibrating, potent, beery-winy, jug-Soupy liquid in constant ferment. Rose of Sharon’s gesture in the end is the most extreme embodiment of this title. The ‘grapes of wrath’ are here given a new and most unpleasant, yet life-giving use. The title prepares us for this most extreme moment of human contradiction — despair and hope, death and life, wrath and charity — all mangled together in the worst and most powerful way. The title is good on all three levels — literal, symbol, emotional — and thus remains most potent.

I listen to most books, and I have to say that Tim Gerard Reynolds does an awesome job of bringing ‘Red Rising’ to life. While I don’t think it won any specific award for an audiobook, it’s consistently ranked as one of the best science fiction audiobooks available. I consider the text of ‘Red Rising’ to have won the Goodreads Choice Award in Science Fiction, but there’s so much more. Endless lists that compare it to ‘The Hunger Games’ would have to count as some kind of award in terms of cultural acknowledgement. It’s become the primary comparison for relentless, brutal, transformative science fiction that tears the screws from society. Being the yardstick by which all other books of that sort are measured is in itself an honor.