This Day In Literary History
On April 22nd, 1960, To Bedlam and Part Way Back, the classic first poetry collection by the famous American poet Anne Sexton, was published. A former model, throughout her short life, she suffered from severe mental illness.
After her second mental breakdown in 1955, she began seeing a therapist, Dr. Martin Orne. Diagnosing her with a condition now known as bipolar disorder, he suggested that Anne take up writing poetry as part of her therapy.
She decided to attend a poetry workshop, but was so nervous about it that she had a friend accompany her to the first session. The workshop was led by John Holmes - the poet, not the porn star.
It unlocked a talent Anne never knew she had. All of a sudden, her poems were being published in The New Yorker, Harper's Magazine, and The Saturday Review.
She later attended Boston University, studying with Robert Lowell, alongside soon-to-be famous poets such as Sylvia Plath and George Starbuck. The Pulitzer Prize winning poet W.D. Snodgrass became her literary mentor.
When Anne's first poetry collection was published in 1960, it established her as one of the finest confessional poets of her generation. Her third poetry collection, Live or Die (1968), won her a Pulitzer Prize. Around this time, she had become a counterculture celebrity.
She would perform live readings accompanied by a jazz-rock group. The ensemble billed itself as "Anne Sexton and Her Kind." The name of her band is also the title of one of her most famous poems, which appeared in her first poetry collection. It was the signature piece of her performances:
HER KIND
I have gone out, a possessed witch,
haunting the black air, braver at night;
dreaming evil, I have done my hitch
over the plain houses, light by light:
lonely thing, twelve-fingered, out of mind.
A woman like that is not a woman, quite.
I have been her kind.
I have found the warm caves in the woods,
filled them with skillets, carvings, shelves,
closets, silks, innumerable goods;
fixed the suppers for the worms and the elves:
whining, rearranging the disaligned.
A woman like that is misunderstood.
I have been her kind.
I have ridden in your cart, driver,
waved my nude arms at villages going by,
learning the last bright routes, survivor
where your flames still bite my thigh
and my ribs crack where your wheels wind.
A woman like that is not ashamed to die.
I have been her kind.
Unfortunately, while Anne's fame and fortune grew, her mental illness grew worse. She committed suicide by carbon monoxide poisoning (she locked herself in her garage and started her car with the windows open) at the age of 45.
During her short life, Anne Sexton wrote over a dozen poetry collections and a play. She also co-wrote four children's books with her friend, Maxine Kumin. After her death, her troubled life would become the subject of controversy.
Her former therapist, Dr. Orne, gave audiotapes of his sessions with Anne to biographer Diane Middlebrook, whose book revealed many troubling details, including the fact that Anne had been sexually abused by her mother.
Her mother and some of her relatives vehemently denied that any abuse took place and accused her therapist of planting false memories during their hypnotherapy sessions.
Other relatives, including Anne's daughter Linda - who approved the biography - confirmed that Anne had in fact been abused by her mother. The biography is still hotly debated to this day, as is the issue of whether doctor-patient confidentiality should remain in effect after the patient dies.
Quote Of The Day
"The beautiful feeling after writing a poem is on the whole better even than after sex, and that's saying a lot."
- Anne Sexton
Vanguard Video
Today's video features rare documentary footage of Anne Sexton reading her poems. Enjoy!
On April 21st, 1947, the legendary American children's book writer Barbara Park was born. She was born Barbara Lynne Tidswell in Mount Holly, New Jersey.
In 1969, after graduating college with a degree in education, Barbara married her husband, Richard A. Park, with whom she had two sons, Steven and David. She planned to teach history and political science in high school, but found her calling in writing.
When she was a high school senior, her classmates had voted her Wittiest. Later recalling this, she said, "So several years later, I decided to try my hand at writing humor and see if I could be witty enough to make some money." It turned out that she could.
After a few rejections, her first children's story, Don't Make Me Smile, was published in 1981. The following year, she published two books: Operation: Dump the Chump and Skinnybones. It was the latter that made her name and became one of her most popular books.
Skinnybones is narrated by its main character, Alex Frankovitch, an awkward and unpopular gradeschooler with a big mouth. He's been playing Little League baseball for six years but he's "really stinky" at it, and is constantly berated by his nemesis T.J. Stoner, who's a great ballplayer.
Alex lets his big mouth get the best of him and he challenges T.J. to a pitching contest. Can he talk his way out of it, or will he be humiliated again by the biggest jerk in school? This novel established Barbara Park's talent for combining the hilarious and the heartwarming.
The Kid in the Red Jacket (1987) told the funny and poignant story of Howard Jeeter, a 10-year-old boy who struggles to make friends after his parents move him across the country. The other kids act like he's invisible - except Molly Vera Thompson.
Molly is the annoying yet endearing six-year-old chatterbox who lives next door. Her constant attempts to befriend Howard drive him to the point of exasperation. He wishes that he were invisible to her. But he could really use a friend. And so could Molly...
In 1990, Park published Maxie, Rosie, and Earl - Partners in Grime, the first book of her Geek Chronicles trilogy featuring three very different grade school outcasts who become friends.
Maxie Zuckerman is the smartest boy in school, and everyone hates him for it. Rosie Swanson writes detailed notes about her classmates and gives them to her teacher. They hate her for being a snitch.
She doesn't see it as snitching; she wants to be a detective like her grandfather, and that's what detectives do - observe and report. Meanwhile, Earl Wilber is an overweight wimp.
The three kids meet in the principal's office. Maxie got sent there for striking back at his bullying classmates, Rosie for passing notes to her teacher again, and Earl for refusing to read in front of his class.
The principal is too busy to see them, so he excuses them from his office until Monday. The three kids see the perfect opportunity to escape - literally, as they team up to skip school...
Barbara Park's most popular and longest running series of children's books began in 1992 with the publication of Junie B. Jones and the Stupid Smelly Bus.
Juniper Beatrice "Junie B." Jones is a brash, adorable, opinionated, funny, and sometimes rude five-year-old girl known for her Runyonesque nicknames for people and wisecracks, and for taking expressions literally.
Her adventures began with this classic opening:
My name is Junie B. Jones. The B stands for Beatrice. Except I don’t like Beatrice. I just like B and that’s all.
Junie B. Jones and the Stupid Smelly Bus, narrated by its young protagonist, opens with Junie about to face that scary and surreal experience that all young children must go through - the first day of kindergarten. She already met her teacher, whom she just calls Mrs., though the woman has a last name.
Junie hates having to ride the bus alone. She finds school buses loud and smelly, and meets an obnoxious boy named Jim who turns out to be in her class. She makes a friend, Lucille, who lives with her wealthy grandmother - her "richie Nana" - and carries herself like a pint-sized Paris Hilton.
Later, not wanting to ride the bus home, fearing that older kids will pour chocolate milk on her head, Junie hides in the classroom supply closet at the end of the day. When everyone is gone, Junie has the whole school to herself. She pretends to be her teacher and the school nurse.
When she needs to use the bathroom, she finds that the girls' bathroom doors are locked. So are the boys' bathroom doors. Fearing that she's going to have an accident and not knowing what else to do, she calls 911. The school janitor finds her and opens the girls' bathroom door just in the bare nick of time.
Junie avoids an accident, but her happiness is short-lived when the school is beseiged by firefighters and police officers responding to her call for help. There are 28 books in the Junie B. Jones series, but with the release of the 19th book, Junie B., First Grader (at Last!) in 2001, the series became known as Junie B., First Grader.
In her Junie B. Jones books, Park used impressionistic language to convey the point-of-view of her very young heroine. This language, though hugely effective, often included misused words and bad grammar, causing some parents and teachers to hate the books.
This, along with Junie's naturally sassy personality and use of words like stupid and dumb, have earned the Junie B. Jones books a place on the American Library Association's list of the most banned and challenged books in America, with Junie labeled a bad role model.
In reality, the impressionistic language accurately depicts a very young child trying to figure out the world around her and cope with the fears, confusion, and frustration that come with it. In doing so, she proves her mettle and shows that she has a good heart.
A good example of this is in the series' 10th book, Junie B. Jones Is Not a Crook (1997). In this entry, Junie's grandfather buys her a new pair of furry mittens - which are stolen while she's playing with her friends at recess.
Junie goes through the school Lost and Found box, but her mittens aren't in there. She thinks they're gone for good, and they were the last pair at the store. Later, while getting a drink at the water fountain, Junie finds a pen that can write in four different colors. She loves it.
Thinking that the owner was careless, Junie wonders if the "finders keepers, losers weepers" rule should apply. Then her grandfather tells her how he once lost his wallet. He was devastated, but then someone - he never found out who - returned it, with all of his money and credit cards still inside it.
In the end, Junie catches the thief who stole her mittens, gets them back, then drops the pen she found into the school Lost and Found box, explaining to the principal's secretary, "I am not a crook."
When Junie enters the first grade in Junie B., First Grader (at Last!), either due to the complaints or because she's learned more about words, her grammar has improved considerably. She's still her old sassy self, though. She has a male teacher, Mr. Scary, who isn't scary at all.
He introduces the class to journaling, giving out notebooks to use as class journals and assigning the kids to write in them every day. In her first grade year, Junie deals with missing old friends, making new ones, losing a tooth, and having to wear glasses.
May, a new girl in class and obnoxious narcissist who shamelessly brown noses the teacher, becomes Junie's nemesis. Junie calls her "Tattletale May" and nobody likes her, but in the classic Jingle Bells, Batman Smells! (P.S. So Does May) (2005), Junie's attitude changes.
It's Christmastime, and Mr. Scary has decided that the class Christmas party will be a "Secret Santa" party. Each kid will choose a name at random and buy that person a present, but they won't know who the present is from.
Junie B. Jones, who has just enough money for a cheap Secret Santa present and the expensive Squeeze-A-Burp toy she wants, is appalled when she picks May's name. But she has the perfect gift in mind for May - a lump of coal, or rather, a charcoal bricquette.
Then Junie learns why May acts the way she does - she tried so hard to make friends, and nobody wanted to be her friend. At the Secret Santa party, Junie feels terrible when she puts May's gift with the rest of the presents.
May has been hoping like crazy that someone would want to give her something nice for Christmas. As she goes to get her present, Junie has a sick feeling inside. When May unwraps her gift, she's absolutely shocked and says, "I can't believe someone would do this!"
She shows her present to the rest of the class - it's a Squeeze-A-Burp, the best toy ever! Junie really wanted it, and can't understand why she gave it to May, but she feels good that she did. It was a merry Christmas after all.
A huge hit with boys and girls alike, the Junie B. Jones books have sold tens of millions of copies. Despite the controversy surrounding them, they're still beloved by readers of all ages, as parents who grew up with them now read them to their own children.
The books, which include whimsical cartoon illustrations by Denise Brunkus, were all released as unabridged audiobooks narrated by Lana Quintal, who gives each character a distinct personality in her dramatic readings.
Though the Junie B. Jones books and other novels succeeded largely thanks to Barbara Park's wit and talent for comedy, she was never afraid to tackle difficult subjects in children's books, as seen in her standalone novels Mick Harte Was Here (1995) and The Graduation of Jake Moon (2000).
In Mick Harte Was Here, 13-year-old Phoebe Harte's family is devastated when her younger brother Mick dies from a head injury in a bicycle accident. He chose not to wear his bike helmet that day, and their father blames himself for not making Mick wear it.
Phoebe struggles with her own guilt as his older sibling, her anger at Mick for not wearing his helmet, and her grief over his loss. As she explores her memories of him, she tries to overcome her pain and anger enough to participate in a school assembly on bicycle safety.
The Graduation of Jake Moon tells the story of the title character, a boy about to graduate eighth grade. Jake Moon has always been close to his grandfather, Skelly - a source of wisdom, strength, and stability in his life.
Then Skelly is diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease, and Jake watches his mind slowly disintegrate. To make matters worse, most of the responsibility for Skelly's care is placed on Jake's shoulders, which he begins to resent. Finally, he rebels - and something terrible happens...
Barbara Park's final book, Turkeys We Have Loved and Eaten (and Other Thankful Stuff), the last entry in the Junie B. Jones series, was published in 2012. She died the following year at the age of 66, after a long battle with ovarian cancer.
Quote Of The Day
"There are those who believe that the value of a children’s book can be measured only in terms of the moral lessons it tries to impose or the perfect role models it offers. Personally, I happen to think that a book is of extraordinary value if it gives the reader nothing more than a smile or two. In fact, I happen to think that’s huge."
- Barbara Park
Vanguard Video
Today's video features a reading of Barbara Park's classic first Junie B. Jones book, Junie B. Jones and the Stupid Smelly Bus. Enjoy!
This Day In Literary History
On April 17th, 1981, the original, unexpurgated version of Sister Carrie, the classic, controversial novel by the famous American writer Theodore Dreiser, was published by the University of Pennsylvania Press.
Dreiser, then 28 years old, wrote the original manuscript of Sister Carrie in eight months, between 1899 and 1900. The first publisher he approached found his writing "[Not] sufficiently delicate to depict without offense to the reader the continued illicit relations of the heroine."
Fearing the novel would never be published in its original version, Dreiser began work on a major rewrite. With help from his wife and his friend and fellow writer Arthur Henry, he cut 40,000 words and made other changes, including an alternate ending.
When Dreiser approached publisher Doubleday, Page and Company with his new manuscript, junior partner Walter Page loved the novel and accepted it for publication, offering the author a verbal contract. Unfortunately, senior partner Frank Doubleday had a different reaction.
Doubleday found Sister Carrie extremely distasteful and unsuitable for publication, but Page's contract with Dreiser was binding, so he couldn't cancel it. So, he decided to sabotage the novel instead. He refused to promote the book in any way.
Not only that, Doubleday gave it a bland, red cover, with only the names of the novel and the author on it. Less than 500 copies were sold. When Doubleday's wife complained that the novel was too sordid, he withdrew it from circulation completely.
Theodore Dreiser earned only $68.40 from the ill-fated first publication of Sister Carrie. The ordeal drove the writer to a nervous breakdown and turned him off writing for ten years. Ironically, it also ended up saving his life.
In 1912, Dreiser had originally planned to book passage home from England on the Titanic. Unable to afford tickets for the ill-fated luxury ocean liner, he sailed home earlier on a less expensive passenger ship.
Sister Carrie was later republished when Frank Norris, a reader for Doubleday, sent a few copies to reviewers who raved about it. All future editions of the novel would come from the edited version of the manuscript.
Still controversial even in its edited version, the novel told the story of 18-year-old Caroline "Carrie" Meeber, a young girl living an unhappy life in rural Wisconsin. So, Carrie takes a train to Chicago, where she has made arrangements to move in with her older sister Minnie and her brother-in-law, Sven.
On the train, Carrie meets a traveling salesman named Charles Drouet. He is attracted to her and they exchange information. Carrie finds life at her sister's apartment not much happier than it was in Wisconsin. To earn her keep, Carrie takes a job at a shoe factory.
She finds her co-workers (both male and female) vulgar and the working conditions squalid, and the job takes a toll on her health. After getting sick, Carrie loses her job. She is reunited with Charles Drouet, a married man who is still attracted to her.
He takes her to dinner, where he asks her to move in with him and lavishes her with money. Tired of living with her sister and brother-in-law, Carrie agrees to be Drouet's kept woman. Later, Drouet introduces Carrie to George Hurstwood, the manager of his favorite bar.
Hurstwood, an unhappily married man, falls in love with Carrie, and they have an affair. But she returns to Drouet because Hurstwood can't provide for her financially. So, Hurstwood embezzles a large sum of money from the bar and persuades Carrie to run away with him to Canada.
In Montreal, Hurstwood is trapped by both his guilty conscience and a private detective and returns most of the stolen money. He agrees to marry Carrie and the couple move to New York City, where they live under the assumed names George and Carrie Wheeler.
Carrie believes she may have finally found happiness, but then she and George grow apart. After George loses his source of income and gambles the couple's savings away, Carrie, who has been trying to build a career in the theater, leaves him.
She becomes a rich and famous actress, but finds that wealth and fame don't bring her happiness either and nothing will. Sister Carrie would be rightfully considered a classic American novel, and its author would finally be recognized as one of America's greatest novelists.
Dreiser would go on to write more classic novels, including his Trilogy of Desire - The Financier (1912), The Titan (1914), and The Stoic (1947) - and his masterpiece, An American Tragedy (1925).
For the rest of his life, Theodore Dreiser was haunted by the ordeal he suffered in getting Sister Carrie published. He felt that just like his anti-heroine, he had prostituted himself to survive and thrive. He died in 1945 at 74.
Though he wouldn't live to see it, his original manuscript for Sister Carrie would finally be published - over eighty years after the edited version was released. In 1930, during his Nobel Prize Lecture, legendary writer Sinclair Lewis said this about the novel and its author:
Dreiser's great first novel, Sister Carrie, which he dared to publish thirty long years ago and which I read twenty-five years ago, came to housebound and airless America like a great free Western wind, and to our stuffy domesticity gave us the first fresh air since Mark Twain and Whitman.
Quote Of The Day
"Words are but the vague shadows of the volumes we mean. Little audible links they are, chaining together great inaudible feelings and purposes."
- Theodore Dreiser
Vanguard Video
Today's video features a complete reading of Theodore Dreiser's classic novel Sister Carrie. Enjoy!
This Day In Literary History
On April 16th, 1962, The Golden Notebook, the classic novel by the Nobel Prize winning English writer Doris Lessing, was published. The novel is rightfully considered a seminal early work of feminist literature.
That wasn't what the author intended, though the book does have feminist themes. The Oxford Companion to English Literature described it as "inner space fiction." A more accurate description would be experimental existentialist fiction.
The Golden Notebook uses a fragmented, stream-of-consciousness narrative to tell the story of Anna Wulf, a middle aged writer and single mother who has come apart - literally and metaphorically. She keeps four notebooks, each one representing a part of her personality.
In her black notebook, Anna records her experiences in Africa, where she helped fight the colonial oppression of black Africans. In her red notebook, she records her idealism, specifically her political idealism, as she first becomes a passionate young communist.
Over time, however, she changes into a sober realist, disillusioned by the crimes of the Stalin regime and the realization that communism can't create the better world she had hoped for.
Anna's yellow notebook contains her novel, which is a fictionalized version of her life. Her blue notebook is her personal diary, a record of her day to day life.
The narrative is comprised of alternating fragments from each of her four notebooks, which reflects her chaotic state of mind. Fearing that she might go insane, Anna tries to weave together the threads of her four notebooks and create one complete Golden Notebook.
In doing so, she embarks on a harrowing journey in search of her true self, confronting her anxieties and the painful truths at the heart of her personal crises.
The Golden Notebook is a classic existentialist novel written in a post-modernist style. In 2005, Time magazine listed it as among the 100 best English-language novels since 1923.
In 2007, Doris Lessing was awarded the Nobel Prize; at 87, that made her the oldest person ever to receive the award. The Swedish Academy lauded her as "that epicist of the female experience, who with scepticism, fire, and visionary power, has subjected a divided civilisation to scrutiny."
Quote Of The Day
"With a library, you are free, not confined by temporary political climates. It is the most democratic of institutions because no one - but no one at all - can tell you what to read and when and how."
- Doris Lessing
Vanguard Video
Today's video features a BBC documentary on Doris Lessing. Enjoy!
This Day In Literary History
On April 15th, 1755, A Dictionary of the English Language, the classic reference book by the legendary English writer Samuel Johnson, was published. Neither the first nor the last English language dictionary ever published, it was, however, one of the most memorable dictionaries ever published.
That's because it was written by Samuel Johnson - the legendary English poet, essayist, critic, biographer, and lexicographer considered to be "arguably the most distinguished man of letters in English history."
Most dictionaries of the time were found to be unsatisfactory at best, so in 1746, a group of London booksellers commissioned Samuel Johnson to write a dictionary for £1,575 - about £250,000 in today's money. Johnson claimed that he could complete it in three years.
Actually, it took him almost nine years to finish his dictionary. It took Johnson a whole year just to draft a plan for the design of the dictionary. The plan received the support of statesman Lord Philip Stanhope, the 4th Earl of Sandwich.
After the dictionary was published, Stanhope wrote an anonymous essay endorsing the work and complaining that the English language lacked structure. Johnson didn't like the tone of the essay and felt that Stanhope hadn't done enough to fulfill his obligations as a patron.
The first edition of A Dictionary of the English Language was published in a ponderously large sized volume, (18" tall by 20" wide) on the finest quality paper available.
This made the dictionary incredibly expensive to print and affordable only by nobility and royalty. Johnson called this volume Vasta mole superbus - Proud in its great bulk.
Johnson's dictionary contained the definitions of 42,773 English words (only a few more words would be added in its revised editions) and was innovative in its use of literary quotations to illustrate the meanings of words.
The dictionary contained some 114,000 quotations by authors such as Shakespeare, Milton, and Dryden. In addition to the quotations, Johnson's dictionary was the first to use humor in its definitions of words.
A famous example is Johnson's definition of the word oats as "a grain which in England is generally given to horses, but in Scotland supports the people." The legendary American writer Ambrose Bierce would employ similar humor in his masterpiece of scathing satire, The Devil's Dictionary (1911).
A Dictionary of the English Language was a huge hit in England, receiving rave reviews and becoming famous throughout Europe. In America, however, it was poorly received, especially by one Noah Webster.
Webster, an American lexicographer, argued that British English should no longer be the American standard because "the taste of [Britain's] writers is already corrupted, and her language is on the decline." He would later write a famous dictionary of his own - a dictionary of American English.
In England, Samuel Johnson's dictionary would be the standard English dictionary until the Oxford English Dictionary was completed and published in 1884. It earned Johnson a £300 pension from King George III and a legacy that continues to this day.
Quote Of The Day
"Books, like friends, should be few and well-chosen."
- Samuel Johnson
Vanguard Video
Today's video features a BBC documentary on Samuel Johnson and his dictionary. Enjoy!
This Day In Literary History
On April 14th, 1939, The Grapes of Wrath, the classic, Pulitzer Prize winning novel by the legendary American writer John Steinbeck, was published.
Steinbeck had previously scored a literary triumph with his acclaimed and controversial novella, Of Mice and Men (1937). The Grapes of Wrath also courted controversy.
The Grapes of Wrath - the title comes from a line in the song The Battle Hymn of the Republic - told the story of the Joads, a poor family of Oklahoma sharecroppers.
Driven from their home by the Great Depression and the dust storms, the Joads go to California hoping to improve their fortunes. Instead, they encounter more hardship. The novel opens with son Tom Joad being paroled after serving time in prison for manslaughter.
On his way home, he meets Jim Casy, an ex-preacher he once knew. Casy, who shares the same initials as Jesus Christ, lost his faith after having affairs with his congregants and realizing that religion can provide no real answers or solace for the difficulties that people are experiencing in the Depression.
Tom and Casy go to Tom's uncle's house, where Tom finds his family loading their truck with their belongings. Their crops were destroyed by the dust storms and their farm has been repossessed by the bank.
So, the Joads have decided to go to California after an advertisement convinces them that the Golden State holds the key to prosperity. Leaving Oklahoma would violate Tom's parole - a risk he believes is worth taking.
They head out on Route 66, and soon realize that their prospects in California may not be as good as they thought. The road is full of other families on the same journey and the makeshift camps in which they live.
The Joads hear many stories of hardship from people who have been to California, but they feel they have no choice but to continue their journey.
When they finally arrive in California, the Joads find no hope of making a decent living. There's an oversupply of labor and no rights for workers, thanks to a collusion of big corporate farmers. Smaller farmers are suffering from a collapse in prices.
The Joads find hope at Weedpatch Camp, a clean camp operated by the Resettlement Administration, one of President Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal agencies. Since the camp is a federal facility, the poor migrant workers are protected there from sadistic California state policemen.
The vigilante cops had been constantly harassing and brutalizing migrant workers, trying to drive them out of the state. Unfortunately, there's not enough money and space at Weedpatch to care for all the needy.
The novel reaches its apex when the Joads end up working (unknowingly) as strike breakers at a peach orchard. A strike turns violent and Tom Joad's friend Jim Casy is murdered. Tom witnesses the crime and kills the attacker to avenge his friend's death.
Now a fugitive, Tom says goodbye to his mother and flees, vowing that wherever the road takes him, he'll act as a defender of the oppressed.
The publication of The Grapes of Wrath in 1939 was described as:
...a phenomenon on the scale of a national event. It was publicly banned and burned by citizens, it was debated on national radio hook-ups; but above all, it was read.
Loved by most and denounced as communist propaganda by some, The Grapes of Wrath would become one of the most thoroughly discussed and studied novels of the twentieth century.
John Steinbeck was accused of exaggerating the camp conditions, but he had actually underplayed conditions that he knew had been much worse than what he'd described in his novel to avoid being labeled a propagandist. He was denounced as one anyway.
In 1940, The Grapes of Wrath was adapted as a feature film by legendary director John Ford, starring Henry Fonda as Tom Joad and John Carradine as Jim Casy.
Though the ending of the film differs greatly from the novel, it's still rightfully considered one of the greatest films ever made. It won big at the Academy Awards, taking the Oscars for Best Actor (Fonda), Best Director (Ford), Best Picture, and Best Adapted Screenplay.
The legendary American folksinger Woody Guthrie was a big fan of the film. After he saw it, he wrote a song summarizing the plot for people who couldn't afford to see the movie. The result, Guthrie's classic song Tom Joad, was so long that it had to be broken into two parts.
In 1962, John Steinbeck won the Nobel Prize for literature. The prize committee cited the brilliance of The Grapes of Wrath as one of their main reasons for giving Steinbeck the award.
Quote Of The Day
"The writer must believe that what he is doing is the most important thing in the world. And he must hold to this illusion even when he knows it is not true."
- John Steinbeck
Vanguard Video
Today's video features a lecture by Dr. Gary Hylander on John Steinbeck's classic novel, The Grapes of Wrath. Enjoy!
I'm pleased to say that two of my poems, Mary Halstead, Runaway Slave, Spring 1776 and Ann Bates, Loyalist Spy, will be published in Highland Park Poetry's US250 Persona Poem Project.
It was interesting to research these historical women's lives and to create poems about them. The anthology will be released later this year.
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