Steinbeck's Socialism on Display

In Dubious Battle by John Steinbeck
Reviewed by Jason Koivu
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

At a time when the divide in this country between rich and poor is as great as it's ever been, a book like In Dubious Battle becomes quite pertinent once more.

It's the Great Depression and the Red Scare has the nation suspicious of anyone who might organize a strike for better wages, for something higher than the starvation-level pay the bosses are handing out to hard-up fieldworkers.

Steinbeck's In Dubious Battle follows Jim, a newcomer to the Communist Party. Mac, a strike agitator takes him under his wing and off they go to a California apple valley, where the bosses have cut wages. Here they meet a number of different individuals who represent the various sides of the conflict.

Steinbeck's character development is quite impressive here, considering he constructed an ensemble cast and breathed life into each of them, so that they all appear almost real and not just two dimensional caricatures. And while the author originally set out to write a non-fiction account of a workers' strike, he has succeeded in portraying this as an utterly believable fiction that does not drag due to political agenda proselytizing.

While Steinbeck is for the working man, his sympathies do not make him entirely blind to the failings of the "radical left". He does question why, when man rules the Earth, would man subject man to a sub-subsistence existence? Why not share the wealth? Well, Steinbeck points to the lazy, shiftless who prefer to shirk duty and steal to get by rather than do their fair share. And then there's the greedy need in some men to rule, to gather up all the wealth and power they can for their own selfish desire. There it is again, those extremists who go screwing it up again for the rest of stuck in the middle.




View all my reviews

A romping pantomime showcasing people's obsessions with secrets and confessions.

Survivor by Chuck Palahniuk
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

"Pacy, inventive, often funny, dark, disturbing and plain weird! Welcome to the mind of Chuck Palancuick"

Testing, testing, one, two, three

Are you reading this?

Testing, testing, one, two, three

Is this thing on?

Testing, testing, one, two, three

Yes Chuck, I get that you like writing a lot of that literacy term called, drama of sensibility. Maybe it's time to look at using something different.

Survivor makes Fight Club look like a mild experience when leading towards the angst spewing forth from the authors mind. Pessimistic is the word I'd use. Half glass full sort-of-guy? No, more like empty glass sort-of-guy.

So, say hello to Tender Branson, our narrator and crazy-guy ex-cultist and now a handy man/chef, who is (soon to be) the last survivor of a religious suicide cult. The opening starts with Tender narrating how he hijacked a Boeing 747 and then leads on to how he found himself in that situation. Why's he hijacked a plane? He wants to go out in a blaze of glory (que Bon Jovi, thanks). While yapping into the recording blackbox, he tells the reader about his experience within the Creedish Cult, which is overlapped with narrative from his life outside the cult - that working for a rich-to-do couple and his past-time hobby - picking up the phone and giving those in need advice... to kill themselves. Life is dull, the world isn't kind, so why bother? Here's the empty glass sort-of-guy metaphor. Even when stardom hits, he is still the death-wishing, dull, pessimistic persona that begins to grate in the prose later. I did enjoy how Tender's stream of consciousness unravelled throughout the narrative. What I didn't, was how depressing the read was. I was feeling like I needed to shower after reading or grabbing something alcoholic to sedate myself. I was soaked in irony.

The writing style is just lax, informal, yes, lax to the point of being sketchy. At times I was having difficulty piecing together what was being said, especially between Tender and Fertility (great name). Their dialogue, at times, made absolutely no sense at time. It was in affect wordplay, that is all. Overlapping themes are placed to both confuse and entice the reader to piece together what the hell is going on. Very clever. We've got themes of religion, fame, pornography, sex, philosophy of life, drug abuse, how to eat and lobster and how to keep to your daily planner. Brilliant.

There are some strong comparison to Fight Club the social dissolution one man has against society, yes. Homemade recipes and self tips on how to remove stains too how to make bombs and chemical weapons, yes. One man's narrative with so many twists and turns, involving ambiguous characters and towards the end, leading to death, yes. Why change it if it isn't broken? Well, it's just lazy writing to rehash something over and over again. Take note. Good read, just a little on the 'read it, skip it' sort-of-thing.

We're all living within this fake plastic hotbed of social dissatisfaction - celebrities rule and we feed them.

Welcome to planet Earth.


View all my reviews