In Dubious Battle
- ISBN13: 9780143039631
- Condition: NEW
- Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
Product Description
Today, nearly forty years after his death, Nobel Prize winner John Steinbeck remains one of America’s greatest writers and cultural figures. We have begun publishing his many works for the first time as blackspine Penguin Classics featuring eye-catching, newly commissioned art. This season we continue with the seven spectacular and influential books East of Eden, Cannery Row, In Dubious Battle, The Long Valley, The Moon Is Down, The Pastures of Heaven, and Tortilla Flat. Penguin Classics is proud to present these seminal works to a new generation of readers—and to the many who revisit them again and again…. More >>
I know it’s considered sacrilige to be critical of the great John Steinbeck, but this book is an insufferable soap box bore. If the characters didn’t repeat themselves so endlessly, 100 pages could have been shaved off, and the book would be better for it. There was not one character in the story I cared about, and I was relieved to reach the end.
Rating: 1 / 5
I’m perhaps the only Steinbeck lover not to have yet read “Grapes of Wrath” or “East of Eden.” Instead I have focused on “Of Mice and Men” and his lesser known works, such as “To a God Unknown” and, my personal favorite, “Pastures of Heaven.” I’ve been enamored with his ability to vividly craft characters in particular.
When I began reading “In Dubious Battle,” it appeared the most engaging of all Steinbeck’s work. Telling the story of American Communist party workers Jim and Mac, it begins with the story of hardscrabble Jim initiating himself into Mac’s radical cell. There is a great (and misleading) sense of intrigue – Mac and Jim travel by boxcar, work secretly through letters, go from secret contact to contact and finally arrive among disgruntled orchard workers. Early on, the pace is fast, exciting, and engaging.
Suddenly, Steinbeck simply fails to deliver, leaving the reader wondering when he’s going to pick up the pace again. After Jim and Mac slowly initiate a worker’s strike, I expected the sense of excitement to continue. It simply never does.
Summary of “In Dubious Battle” – Workers get mad. Workers get tired. Workers get mad. Workers get tired. Workers get mad. Workers get tired.
The rest of the book mostly concerns Jim and Mac talking – and talking – and talking – and talking. And while their philosophical chats are mildly interesting at first, they simply repeat themselves for the rest of the book. Most of the action takes place in the dark or far away from the narration, and most of the story simply concerns the strikers bickering over petty nonsense…
…and eating. Steinbeck must have been peckish while writing this story, because at least a good 25% of the story concerns finding, eating, and (worst of all) TALKING about food. There is plenty of action that Steinbeck could have shown during the story, but for some reason he prefers to focus on Jim and Mac endlessly walking from tent to tent in their encampment, discussing whatever comes to mind.
Steinbeck’s sense of intrigue and social injustice is worth reading the first few chapters. But I advise any reader of “In Dubious Battle” to take this course – after the strike is initiated, simply set the book down. You won’t miss anything. Nothing of great import happens, and only a very few memorable characters ever surface, and they are lost among the sea of forgettable faces.
I suppose now I’ll give “Grapes of Wrath” a go. Perhaps if it isn’t one of his “greats,” it isn’t worth reading.
Rating: 2 / 5
I love this book! I don’t know how many times I’ve reread it, but it is my favorite of all of Steinbeck’s works.
Rating: 5 / 5
This is novel was an interesting book to someone who is interested in history, but for most others it is rather dry. The main character, Jim Nolan, is at time likable and also despicable. The other characters are not as endearing as those from “Grapes of Wrath” or “Of Mice & Men”. If you are looking to read a GOOD Steinbeck novel then read one of the aforementioned, but spare yourself from reading this novel. It reads quickly and is easy to understand, but it just doesn’t grab you like his other books. The only reason I gave it 3 stars was due to the highly accurate portryal of migrant life in the 1930’s.
Rating: 3 / 5
“In Dubious Battle” reads like the last few chapters of Upton Sinclair’s “The Jungle”: polemical, propagandist, and two-dimensional. Of course, Steinbeck is always a fabulous writer, but this work simpply can’t compare to “Grapes of Wrath” or “East of Eden”. The characters are types (the cold-blooded radical, the hot-blooded radical, the straight and simple working-class leader) without the perfect nuances of individual character that one usually finds in Steinbeck’s creations. The prose is less poetic than in his earlier novels; if you’re the sort that hates Dickens and Hardy and you skipped the rambling descriptive chapters if “Grapes of Wrath” I guess that wouldn’t be a minus though. But unless you’re a die-hard Steinbeck fan, you might as well skip this one in my opinion.
Rating: 3 / 5