After contemplating a rating I decided I couldn’t let my differing beliefs alter the final rating. While the book started out slow and dry, it quickly picked up and was enjoyable to read. The book provides evidence of why unions were started and certainly were justified at the time. The government camps were portrayed as a utopia, clearly not the case in real life. It was definitely worth reading and I recommend it to all.

2,5

Het begon goed! Maar daarna zakte het in en bleef eigenlijk behoorlijk saai. De hele mentaliteit van deze karakters bleef me wel boeien, net als de medemenselijkheid en volharding van het volk dat tijdens the Great Depression Amerika doorkruisten op zoek naar werk. Maar daar bleef het bij, voor mij een beetje underwhelming.

——

“Before I knowed it, I was saying out loud, 'The hell with it! There ain't no sin and there ain't no virtue. There's just stuff people do. It's all part of the same thing. And some of the things folks do is nice, and some ain't nice, but that's as far as any man got a right to say.”

“Muscles aching to work, minds aching to create - this is man.”

“Our people are good people, our people are kind people. Pray God someday kind people won't all be poor. Pray God someday a kid can eat. And the associations of owners know that some day the praying would stop. And there's the end.”

“Fella had a team of horses, had to use'em to plow an' cultivate an' mow, wouldn't think a turnin' 'em out to starve when they wasn't workin'.
Them's horses - we're men.”