The Page Count

Tag: Book Review

  • The Outlaw Ocean

    Ian Urbina , 2019

    Non-fiction 

    Read: May–June 2025 (re-read from 2021)

    Edition read: Vintage, 2020, 544 pages 

    Investigative journalism 

    Illegal fishing and whaling; under-resourced coastal authorities; vessels not fit for sea; human-rights abuses; abortions provided outside of national jurisdiction; stowaways castaway in the middle of oceans; slavers, slaves and unpaid mariners; repo men for stolen ships; oil explorations and environmental campaigners; waste disposal at sea and territorial disputes: Ian Urbina’s The Outlaw Ocean covers a litany of crimes and otherwise legally unclear practices at sea. 

    This is a highly readable book, combining an exhaustive approach towards small details with careful analyses of the big picture, which, chapter by chapter, rarely turn out to be black and white. Even when presenting a morass of details – sometimes legalistic, sometimes moral, sometimes technical – Urbina knows how to structure a story in a way that makes each of these 14 chapters captivating. 

    The chapters tend to fall into one of two categories: slightly more rote – but still highly engaging – matters, such as Palau trying to police fishing in its huge seas with limited resources, fishing vessels not fit for service sinking when trying to take in huge catches, people being trafficked to work at sea (there are a couple of chapters on this), oil exploration and environmental campaigning against it. The other category could be roughly phrased as ‘the unusual’ – the formation and continuing existence of Sealand, an organisation which provides abortions at sea on a dedicated yacht and the repo men who specialise in retrieving stolen ships. 

    Although it could have started with any of the chapters, Urbina plays it smart and starts with the thriller of Sea Shepherd chasing the illegal fishing vessel The Thunder through the Southern Ocean for nearly four months. Given that Sea Shepherd can be a polarising group, it was more nuanced than I expected, showing how groups of all shades sometimes chose to work with the law and sometimes outside. 

    It’s a chunky book but it’s never slow going; this is a re-read on my part, and should Urbina write any other books, I would read them based on the quality of this one. A bit of sailing on my own part has imparted the knowledge that the more time you spent at sea, the greater the sense that you know even less about it. In a kind of parallel to this more philosophical musing, one of the recurring themes from Urbina’s trips to sea, and present throughout Outlaw Ocean, is how easy it is to hide crimes and questionable behaviour at sea. Here be monsters. 

    Worth reading? Yes. 

    Worth re-reading? Yes. 

  • The Offing

    Benjamin Myers, 2019  

    Read: September 2024 – April 2025 (stuck in the book traffic jam) 

    Edition read: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2020, 260 pages 

    Fiction – Bildungsroman 

    The plotline of The Offing is slightly more pedestrian than Myer’s more typical ‘Northern Gothic’ novels; working-class boy (Robert) from post-WW2 English mining town meets eccentric upper-class woman (Dulcie), who has retreated from society due to long-lost love, where they experience mild culture clash and she exposes him to the better things in life. 

    Told in the first person, the story takes an analeptic form, which somewhat explains the rich vocabulary, but for a narrator introduced as painfully ancient, he has a remarkable memory for details. Read this deliberately rich vocabulary with patience and the five senses get a workout; the colours, smells, feelings, sights and sounds of nature all feature regularly and prominently and there are some great turns of phrase (‘The ashen sea roared in the distance like a football stadium witnessing an extra-time injustice’). However, the plentitude of what I came to feel were overly frequent and verbose descriptions of nature did get monotonous. 

    There are two main sections – Robert by himself, which if anything is slightly more interesting, capturing the landscape(s) of northern England as he walks across it, and then when he encounters Dulcie. There is a subplot about poetry, which seems slightly meta – is Myers talking about how Northern working-class people aren’t supposed to like poetry, but if you take them out the pits, they do? 

    If there had been something else happen, it could have had a more compelling sense of drive; unfortunately, besides the over-the-top descriptions, the stakes just feel a bit low. 

    Worth reading? No, even though I came into this wanting to like it – Myers has written some brilliant books. 

    Worth re-reading? No. Myer’s other books – The Gallows Pole and These Darkening Days – however, are well worth a read. 

  • The Ocean at the End of the Lane

    Neil Gaiman, 2013 

    Read: June 2025

    Edition read: Headline Publishing Group, 2013, 235 pages 

    Fiction – Fantasy 

    Read on a trip to Edinburgh 

    *Spoilers* 

    I saw a National Theatre production of this in November 2023 and did my best to follow the plot, but at a certain point it just took an absolute left turn to comprehension and I had no idea what was going on. Let’s see if I can do any better with the book.

    It starts with a funeral, which leads the (unnamed) narrator to revisit his childhood home, and the pond, or the ‘ocean’, at the end of the lane. In turn, he remembers a childhood memory – the story at hand – for the first time. As such, it is told in the form of analepsis. Here, death is a gateway.

    Much like Gaiman’s Neverwhere, the story takes place in a universe that could be ours, until it very much doesn’t, with the introduction of a different – perhaps parallel – universe. I spent a while considering whether this was surrealism or fantasy; despite the title, I think it’s the latter. The element of surrealism that is a lack of understanding of the rules of the universe, and the suspension of the normal rules – those of reality – evolves into fantasy as the sense of normalcy completely gives way to another, strange and unfamiliar, world.

    It is written from a child’s perspective, quickly deploying the trope of a child dealing with gaps in their knowledge and understanding, particularly of adult themes, with the early suicide of the opal miner. The narrator, who often articulates his feelings of a lack of agency, is convincingly passive as a child. I wondered what the significance of the opal miner was for a bit: he is gone almost as soon as he appears. Ultimately, besides this character providing a dark example of something beyond the child narrator’s understanding, as well as driving the plot forward, I read it as a note on the letdowns of adulthood. As this suggests, although it could be read by older children or young adults, it works on two levels, and in many ways this is quite a dark book; besides looking at loss (such as when Lettie is hurt protecting the narrator and has to ‘rest’ for what turns out to be a lifetime) it draws upon what adults say/look like versus what they actually do/how they act, the protagonist’s father’s affair with Ursula being an example.

    As this early development suggests, the plot whips along (I read this over a long weekend), although the logic behind ‘why is this happening?’ is not always apparent and re-reading a couple of pages proved necessary (this made me feel better for not having been able to follow the play). Gaiman is inventive, creating his own tropes, such as the suicide of the miner summoning the spirit/Ursula to distribute money. Although he has written a compelling fantasy, this book could be read on a purely symbolic level for memory and loss of childhood, the ocean being something to return to and submerge in but never cross.

    Worth reading? Yes.

    Worth re-reading? Yes

  • Shogun

    James Clavell, 1975

    Read: January – June 2025

    Edition read: Hodder & Stoughton 2017, 1125 pages

    Historical fiction

    *Spoilers* 

    In Down Under, Men at Work sing their way through a couple of culture clashes. These all turn out to be relatively benign; cars break down on hippie trails, people make Vegemite* sandwiches, beer flows and people chunder. There is an attempted drug deal, but the proud Australian tells the Bombayite that he comes from the land of plenty, and that Aussie rules is the best sport, so clear off mate.** In Shōgun, the learning curve is a bit steeper; the (Protestant) Elizabethan protagonist gets shipwrecked in ‘the Japans’, the only people who can translate to and from Japanese are pesky Catholic missionaries, people are either beheaded or expected to commit ritual suicide (‘seppuku’) for slight infractions, eating raw fish is a yes and daily baths are expected.

    The Erasmus, a trading ship of Elizabethan-era Dutchmen and an Englishman (John Blackthorne, the navigator and our protagonist), arrives at a key moment in the history of feudal Japan; the Taiko (Japan’s main man) has died, leaving an infant son and five lord regents to rule for him as a council until he comes of age. These five regents all want to kill each other off, but manners dictate that no one can even openly show that they are mildly offended by obvious stingers, so they resort to a lot of scheming instead. Talking of scheming, the Portuguese Jesuits are already there, facilitating their monopoly of trade between Japan and China, as well as working on The Treaty of Tordesillas. They are not pleased about a bunch (in fact, the very first bunch) of Protestants appearing. 

    As such, Shōgun covers the build-up to war and the requisite manoeuvring, moving between the perspective of various characters, including Blackthorne, to do its world building. Although based on a true story, from a post-colonial perspective, that a story about feudal Japan had to involve an Englishman seems a bit questionable, although Clavell’s approach does make for an interesting premise. (This is also not to mention that feudal Japan did a fair bit of colonising of its own.) Upon first consideration, it just seems improbable that Blackthorne is the protagonist (and also gets the main lady.) However, he is very much used as an oft-unwitting chesspiece in a game of political chess; it ends with an soliloquy from Toranaga (who, indisputably, grows into being the Shōgun of this story), rather than from Blackthorne, wherein it is revealed that the latter’s plans of sailing off into the sunset back home to England may not quite work out. Emphasising this point, the rest of the crew of The Erasmus quickly become minor characters; their main purpose is to show the tension between what Blackthorne was and what he becomes. Fortunately, Clavell doesn’t try to place Blackthorne on a typical hero’s path and make him become a great warrior who comes to surpass his (many) enemies in combat; instead, Blackthorne quickly comes to understand that he is no match for any samurai. 

    Shōgun packs a lot of plot into its 1000+ pages, and my initial assumption that there was going to be a swordfight on every page was incorrect – it actually ends before the major warfaring begins, being very much about the preceding manoeuvering. The flipside to this is that what with the politics, plotting, spying and power struggles, the plot can be hard to keep up with and the sections focused on social propriety make for slower reading. 

    When it comes to show versus tell, it leans towards tell, wherein a lot of historical information about Japan, and the personal stories of characters, are set up, generally via free direct discourse. It is a nice touch that Toranaga disappears at times, not just from the events of the book but also from the narrative, with Clavell resisting the urge to jump into his perspective and instead let the reader get a taste of the other characters’ confusion.

    Worth reading? Yes – it’s a long read, but stick with it.

    Worth re-reading? Yes, and given the complexity of the plot, would be a fruitful read with the added comprehension that a second read invariably brings. However, to compare apples to orangutans, the 2024 TV series is better than the book, so if you don’t have time, do that.

    Death is part of our air and sea and earth. You should know, Anjin-san, in this Land of Tears, death is our heritage.

    * Don’t listen to the Aussies – Marmite’s better.

    ** They cut this line, more’s the shame.

  • Lost in the Garden

    Adam S. Leslie, 2024 

    Edition read: Dead Ink Books, April – May 2025, 446 pages 

    Fiction – folk horror. Won a Nero Award for Best Fiction. 

    *Spoilers* 

    Three young women live in personal stases of varying degrees in a village in northern England where the dead meander and a six-year summer shows no sign of abating. This is the first interesting point (besides the dead roaming about and everyone seemingly just kind of…meh about it): a folk horror set in a warm, sunny, endless summer, inviting at least just a little bit of comparison to that most famous piece of work in the folk-horror oeuvre, The Wicker Man (we’ll come back to that later). 

    The title refers to the unnaturally ever-abundant vegetation created by the endless summer that these three female protagonists – Heather, Rachel and Antonia – inhabit. In this world, Leslie has a different take upon zombies; they are generally harmless until underestimated, at which point they close in, gang up and kill people with hard objects. No eating reported. 

    The descriptions of this eternal summer are rich without being saccharine (‘Very occasionally it was a dry heat, a soily heat smelling of bug carcasses and stones, but usually the air sweated as much as the people’), and rural scenes abound, with the action sticking to the countryside and villages.* In this garden, there are no old(er) people and no authority figures, although there does exist the accepted aphorism, ‘Don’t go to Almanby’. No one seems to know why; just going there is taboo. Plotwise, Heather is trying to find her boyfriend, Steven, who disappeared to – of course – Almanby around six months earlier, although a difficulty in keeping track of time is a recurring theme, getting pushed to extremes later on in the book, with one particularly atemporal slippage of reality. 

    Rachel needs to deliver a package – the contents of which she keeps a secret from Antonia and Heather – again, to Almanby! This is the start of the story proper. Roadtrip! 

    I started off quickly, then slowed down, finding the irreverence of Rachel and Heather a bit grating, then got back into it as the narrative drive picked up. Rachel clearly has something to hide, but we aren’t just let in on what. She receives mysterious, nonsensical transmissions via a portable radio. The unknowns, including an ever-elusive ice cream van, build up the mystery, driving the story via intrigue, and although the unanswered questions ultimately add to the feeling of a bad dream, these don’t all resolve as clearly as possible. For example, it’s implied that Antonia is a murderer, which doesn’t go anywhere, nor does it really seem to inform her character. Her love interest in (but seemingly never with) Heather also just fizzles away at the end, without any requisite epiphany. 

    Although it moves between the perspectives of each of the three main characters, it can sometimes be hard to remember the ‘whys’ in this novel; why did David hold them up? He is also being manipulated by Steven? What’s the deal with Rachel – is she addicted to something? At one point I wondered if Almanby was an analogy for addiction (‘it was the best feeling she’d ever experienced, and she never wanted it to stop, even as she knew it soon would’), but this isn’t developed and her motivation remains unclear. 

    Jumping back to that use of ‘folk horror’ and The Wicker Man – when they arrive in Almanby is when it really becomes clear that the normal rules of this universe have fallen aside and that something is off, although Leslie does a good job of maintaining the build-up and making it hard to place what. As suggested, a lot remains unexplained, which at times really adds to hazy feel, such as the farm building which turns into a looping maze, but this doesn’t deliver on all fronts. Is Heather struck by lightning towards the end? Is Steven trying to destroy Almanby? The theme of sacrifice also comes up, but not as a heavy-handed copy and paste of The Wicker Man. So, although the composition falls apart towards the end, the ending is still delivered with considerable interest, and does leave a satisfying chill. 

    Worth reading? Yes.

    Worth re-reading? Yes, although the strength of the writing carries the plot a bit.

    *These were pleasingly effective compared to another recent read, Benjamin Myer’s The Offing. 

  • The Firm

    John Grisham, 1991 

    Read: April 2025 

    Edition read: Arrow 1991, 421 pages 

    Legal thriller

    Besides a nice view, slightly wonky drawers and Cornwall’s slowest TV, my holiday accommodation came with this book. It’s a legal thriller and using tell, don’t show (rather than the reverse), it succeeds in being a page turner. This keeps the pace up, a mark of success for a book about a law firm (and Grisham is not shy about the legal terminology). 

    Most of the story is told from the perspective of the protagonist Mitch McDeere. It switches to those of other characters to feed the reader information to smash that plotline out. This makes it a bit too easy a read; for example, there would have been more narrative tension if it wasn’t made explicit that McDeere’s house had been bugged. 

    It also reads as a certain amount of wish fulfilment, with Grisham accentuating the materialistic details; McDeere is a working-class boy (who was also quarterback!) who done good and now wants to drive a car that shows it. His wife, Abby, has great legs. His eventual accomplice, Tammy, has great breasts. The in-laws – who are the wrong type of materialistic – suck. This last point says a bit more than I think Grisham intended to; while masquerading as a takedown of these things – materialism, sexism and racism (on this last point, stereotypes abound), The Firm simultaneously accentuates them. 

    Returning to the issue of narrative tension, there a couple of things that left me scratching my head. The incriminating photos of McDeere with the prostitute never become of any significance. This would have made the story more dramatic in terms of Mitch’s and Abby’s relationship, but in the final paragraph this whole lapse of character – a moment of reckoning – is just dropped. Why does McDeere’s colleague, Lamar Quin, turn a blind eye when he spots his brother, Ray (ultimately allowing Mitch to incriminate him)? When Avery is killed off, it is reported via dialogue between two other characters, without the intimacy of being taken to the scene being granted. Given how much information The Firm does feed to the reader, it feels odd for this sense of distance to be deployed here. Only two of the five murders of former lawyers are delved into; is it realistic for a firm of brilliant, perceptive, high-flying lawyers to not look into the other three? Tammy also receives little in the way of resolution, although I felt that here, Grisham keeping her at arm’s length, rather than drawing her deeper into the narrative, did work, in that the theme of people cutting the ties that bind and reinventing themselves recurs. Likewise, when the stereotypes are left alone, The Firm does come across as a strong piece of Americana; motels, diners, roads, reinvention and losers abound. 

    There are a few other things that work better; the death of the third brother, Rusty, in Vietnam, is mentioned, as is Mitch’s and Ray’s mother, but both of these elements are kept peripheral. The closest the latter comes to entering the story is Mitch almost – but not quite – visiting her. This is one of the more interesting, literary aspects of the novel, with this relationship being shown rather than told, and this estrangement never being fully revealed. The end feels rushed, with the last third dropping the ‘legal’ from ‘legal thriller’. Little detail is given about the ultimate fate of the firm and the mob. Mitch gets his ending. Abby doesn’t (or rather, she gets Mitch’s ending and is apparently completely fine with it). They have loads of money, but it seems like they are limited in many other ways (they can never return home; McDeere, the dedicated lawyer, can never practise law again). Arguably this is more realistic and grittier than everything just working out and the hero getting to carry on as he was (the FBI aren’t depicted as angels, and in some ways, McDeere is their victim), but the closing line of ‘Let’s get drunk and make a baby’ reads like a somewhat Victorian idea of a happy ending. 

    Worth reading? It’s a tempting yes, because it’s a quick, easy read, but ultimately, no.  

    Worth re-reading? No. 

     

  • The Sweet Science: Boxing and Boxiana: A Ringside View

    AJ Liebling, 1956

    Read: January – April 2025 

    Edition read: Penguin Modern Classics 2018, 232 pages

    Non-fiction 

    Liebling was a sports correspondent and this book was originally a series of articles for The New Yorker.

    Liebling covers a multitude of fights spanning – from what I could figure out – 1951 to 1955, over 18 articles (it’s hard to say how many fights exactly, because he refers to historic fights – some of which predate him – on a regular basis). These fights include boxers who are considered to be some of the best ever: Sugar Ray Robinson, Rocky Marciano, Joe Louis, Willie Pep, Sandy Saddler and Joe Walcott.  As such, this is widely considered to be a classic of boxing literature.

    The old-timey, black-and-white quality comes off the page; sometimes this is charming, sometimes it feels dated. Liebling, as befitting a writer for The New Yorker, has an elaborate vocabulary, which at times comes across as archaic (such as the use of ‘milling coves’) or stuffy (just because you can use a French phrase, doesn’t mean that you must*). He does also write with great sarcasm at moments. Largely set in New York, many of the figures read like a Looney Tune character; this is not necessarily a criticism of the writing, but at points some of the dialogue reminded me of Bugs Bunny (‘waidle you read the papers tomorrow’), which does make it hard to take seriously. 

    Nonetheless, The Sweet Science remains a valuable insight into a particular period and captures what Liebling accurately believed to be a vanishing world. By the fourth paragraph of the introduction, he has already raised his contention that TV was killing off boxing for the sake of advertising (hence his repeated references to beer and razor blades at any opportunity). With that said, he regularly goes to what he readily depicts as sold-out fights, such as Rocky Marciano versus Archie Moore – as captured in his many descriptions of crowded New York streets, bars, venues, restaurants and gyms. These pieces also show his obsession with boxing; no dilettante, he goes to sparsely attended fights as well as the sold-out ones (hence the subtitle). 

    Liebling takes on the unenviable task of describing different boxing styles, although he perhaps reads a bit too much into the physique of fighters. As with Norman Mailer’s The Fight, this always extends to covering the exact shade of black fighters’ skin. 

    Of course, Liebling didn’t know that he was writing in what is now considered one of boxing’s golden ages, and often seems somewhat underwhelmed. It is interesting that Liebling denounces aspects of this era.  

    Ultimately, its dated nature made it hard to read at points. If you stick with it, it is an interesting snapshot into boxing and where it sat within society. In this sense, because of these flaws, it is comparable to Mailer’s The Fight. 

    Worth reading? Yes, although it is dated. 

    Worth re-reading? No. 

    * Besides boxing, apparently Liebling loved eating and writing about French food. An improbable pairing.

  • Onward Towards Our Noble Deaths

    Shigeru Mizuki, 1973 (translated by Drawn & Quarterly in 2011)

    February – May 2025

    Page count: 372

    Graphic novel

    Onward Towards Our Noble Deaths is a semi-autobiographical, black-and-white graphic novel about a battalion of Imperial Japanese infantry who were commanded to hold New Britain, an eastern island of Papua New Guinea, in 1943, against approaching US forces.

    It dissembles the image of the Imperial Japanese Army as being entirely made up of fanatics; the main characters are conscripts (‘rookies’), who are poorly trained, clumsy, grumble and are subject to abuse from their commanders, including physical beatings for no reason. Shigeru depicts these commanders with little sympathy; they are largely sadistic and inept, and refuse to recognise the strategic advantage that a guerrilla war – as opposed to the culminating banzai charge – would offer. The rank-and-file come across as most likely happy to surrender if they hadn’t been commanded to die fighting  and told by their ranking superiors that to live would be dishonourable.

    In the spirit of its original language and country of publication, it is printed in reverse, read right to left. The style combines somewhat quirky figures – heads and limbs fly from explosions and there are ‘BOOM’ onomatopoeias – with the naturalistic and textured backdrops of the rainforests of Papua New Guinea. This is, until the panels that depict the aftermath of conflict, where the death and destruction is no longer semi-comic and more like inked versions of war photos; prone bodies, trees shorn off, clouds of black smoke. The closing scenes switch exclusively to the photo-realistic drawing-style for these couple of pages, as if to say, what a waste.

    There are lots of characters – enough for a dramatis personae to be provided at the the beginning – who begin to die at a rapid rate as US planes, tanks and troops close in. The US soldiers, when they arrive, are depicted with so few details as to come across as Green Army Men, but as much of the Japanese soldiers’ fight is with malaria, rationing, clean water and sadistic officers. 

    It is hard keeping up with so many characters at times, and placing who is who on first read-through; the only character arc to speak of is of a doctor who ends up openly questioning his superiors’ morality. Fewer characters, with fuller characterisation, would have made this clearer. Likewise, the narrative direction is not always clear, and occasionally details are elided; one situation suddenly leads to the next with no transition presented. On second read-through, this does come to feel like part of the unclear, disorientating experience, but this could have still been delivered with a slightly more considered narrative.

    Obviously, depicting the perspective of Axis troops is to venture out onto thin ice, but this feels less like a justification than a exposé of the abundance of pointless death. One of the few humane officers feels compelled to commit suicide as he did not die in the first charge, and two others are ordered to commit seppuku – one of whom beforehand tears up a keepsake letter into the sea, which turns out not to even be from a girlfriend, but from his mum. On multiple occasions the infantry break into song; ‘Can’t hate the hateful enemy/forced to smile for smug soldiers/why am I stuck working this shitty job/no way out/all for my country’; as they sing this just before making their final charge, panel by panel they are shown simultaneously breaking down into tears.

    It’s not a comprehensive look at the Imperial Japanese Army during World War Two, instead focusing on the author’s experience in the Imperial Japanese Army. He writes himself in as one of the characters, with the key, unsparing difference that instead of just losing an arm and contracting malaria, as he did in real life, the character survives a mauling in the suicide charge, only to be shot by an American soldier. A noble death indeed.

    Worth reading? Yes.

    Worth re-reading? Yes – the added clarity allows the poignant moments to come across more clearly.

    I wonder if surviving the suicide charge wasn’t, rather than an act of cowardice, one final act of resistance as a human being.

  • The Grapes of Wrath

    John Steinbeck, 1939

    Read: November 2024 – January 2025

    Edition read: Penguin Modern Classics 2000, 476 pages.

    Literary realism

    * Contains spoilers *

    A realist novel about American tenant farmers (monikered more literally in the book as ‘sharecroppers’) whose crops failed in the dustbowl during The Great Depression. In the process of their subsequent eviction they are completely disenfranchised. It is a documentation of the shift from one way of life to another – a hallmark of the Great American Novel.

    This road trip of the Joad family, as they are forced to become migrant works and drive from Oklahoma to California via Route 66, is defined not by a sense of adventure or a historical sensibility, but by a precariousness; they, alongside thousands of others, have to pack up their entire lives into a single truck and find a new home.

    As opposed to, say, Cormac McCarthy or Virginia Woolf, Steinbeck’s straightforward writing style doesn’t initially draw attention to itself, but its clear, earnest manner brings a gravitas to the story being told. More complex yet still authentic, the speech is conversational and as spoken (‘just set and figured’; ‘don’t get ornery now’, etc.) Likewise, there is a strong layer of symbolism (I particularly liked the rising flood waters and downed tree towards the end), although it’s interesting ow rich the story remains even when read without these.

    This declarative quality serves the depiction of life being harsh and people being poor; when Grampa dies, the family have no choice but to bury him in a field; even the tractor driver, who can do the work of dozens of sharecroppers, talks about having yet to buy shoes for his youngest child; and Rose of Sharon, self-centered, pregnant, abandoned by her husband and suffering from malnutrition (fried dough does not a well-rounded diet make), is shown little in the way of sympathy. The family unit is consistently depleted, with family members either dying or wandering off on a regular basis. The ties that bind are severed as misfortunes assail the Joads day by day.

    This builds into the major theme of the individual versus the collective. Some of the people taking part in this exploitation hate themselves for it, as they know what they are doing, but are subject to the same downwards financial pressures. When the employees unionise, they are immediately denounced as ‘red’ and attacked, verbally and physically. There is no ignoring that this is more than just a story – this is a political book.

    The longer chapters, which are directly about the Joads, are interspersed by short chapters of exposition, wherein the narrative point of view is anonymous and omnipotent; I read this as the voice of Steinbeck. Either way, these shape up as what the introduction refers to as ‘atemporal interchapters’, serving to show the scale of the suffering.

    Worth reading? Yes.

    Worth re-reading? Yes – this was a re-read from seven to ten years ago. Perhaps Steinbeck’s best book, combining the human struggles of Of Mice and Men with the scale of East of Eden.

    Wherever they’s a fight so hungry people can eat, I’ll be there. Wherever they’s a cop beatin’ up a guy, I’ll be there […] I’ll be in the way guys yell when they’re mad an’ – I’ll be in the way kids laugh when they’re hungry n’they know supper’s read. An’ when our folks eat the stuff they raise an’ live in the houses they build – why, I’ll be there.