Remembering Steinbeck

.

Today would have been the 120th birthday of Nobel Prize-winning novelist John Steinbeck.

I read Grapes of Wrath, East of Eden and Of Mice and Men when I was a young man. And I adored the comic genius of Tortilla Flat and Cannery Row. But it was In Dubious Battle that helped fix my political course.

I believe Steinbeck’s reputation is mixed these days: the right hates him for his pro-union leftist works, and some of the left dislikes him for his Vietnam reporting. Regardless, he was a terrific writer who rarely failed to entertain and educate.

Happy birthday!