Great American Authors | John Steinbeck: The Observer | 4

American History Tellers

Wondery

Society & Culture, Kids & Family, History, Education For Kids

4.7 • 18.3K Ratings

🗓️ 13 December 2023

⏱️ 45 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Growing up in the Salinas Valley of Northern California, John Steinbeck dreamed of becoming a professional writer. In his youth he took on odd jobs and worked amongst ranch hands and migrant workers, who would inspire some of his greatest work, including The Grapes of Wrath. Published in 1939, the book captured the struggles of everyday Americans during the Great Depression, and Steinbeck became famous for his empathetic portrayal of the working class.

Steinbeck would go on to become one of the most decorated authors of the 20th Century, winning the Pulitzer Prize and the Nobel Prize for Literature, but he was plagued by marital struggles and chronic illness that threatened to cut short his writing career

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Imagine it's a hot July night in 1924. You're a World War One veteran, traveling with a crew of itinerant workers heading north from California toward Oregon.
0:22.0	You've heard there might be jobs at the lumber mills there.
0:25.0	You and your fellow travelers who proudly call themselves Hobos
0:28.3	have made camp for the night near a rail yard north of San Francisco.
0:31.9	You're sipping bootleg whiskey and swapping
0:34.0	stories with the other men and among them is a young college student who says
0:38.0	he's dropped out of school to travel and work. He's been scribbling in a
0:41.8	notebook as you and the others tell tales of life on the road.
0:45.0	Hey, what are you writing in that notebook, kid?
0:47.0	Ah, just some notes for a novel I'm working on?
0:50.0	A novel.
0:51.0	Yeah, haven't you ever wanted to write a novel?
0:53.0	No?
0:54.0	Read a few.
0:55.0	But write one?
0:56.0	No, I don't think so.
0:57.0	Well, I don't blame you, really.
0:58.0	It's the hardest damn thing in the world.
1:00.0	Doesn't seem so hard to me.
1:02.0	You just tell folks a story, don't you?
1:03.5	Well, that's the thing. I don't have enough stories and guess what the notebooks for.
1:07.5	To collect tales from people I meet.
	...

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