Tag Archives: John Steinbeck

Trump as a Sadistic Steinbeck Bully

As bully, Trump resembles Curley in “Of Mice and Men.” Recently Biden, like Lennie, struck back.

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Life Lessons from Russian Masters

Acc. to George Saunders, much of what we need to know about life can be learned from Chekhov, Turgenev, Tolstoy and Gogol.

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What Russia Can Expect If It Wins

If the Russians were to conquer Ukraine, Steinbeck’s “The Moon Is Down” gives us a good picture of what could happen next.

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Michelle Obama’s Favorite Books

Tuesday The indispensable “By the Book” column in the New YorkTimes recently interviewed Michelle Obama about her favorite books, and her answers are fascinating. I’ll list them and then discuss the patterns I see: Novels she’s currently reading –Zadie Smith, White Teeth, which Malia also loves –Tayari Jones, American Marriage –Mohsid Hamid, Exit West –Anne Patchett, […]

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Facebook Didn’t Know Its Own Strength

A Facebook employee compared Mark Zuckerberg to Lennie in “Of Mice and Men,” a man who didn’t know his own strength in the 2016 election.

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Can Art Thwart Trump? A Debate

In which I argue with a writer who claims that art and artists have an inflated sense of their power and that they are irrelevant in the battle against Donald Trump.

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A Kind of Light Spread Out from Her

John Steinbeck’s “East of Eden” contributed to the naming of my latest granddaughter.

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The Joads & Steinbeck’s Lenten Message

“The Grapes of Wrath” has a Lenten message with the Joad family lost in the wilderness, led by the Moses/Jesus figure Jim Casy. After Casy is killed, Tom Joad becomes the apostle who takes his vision of a transcendent humankind to the wider world.

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Steinbeck Described Anti-Migrant Protests

The social unrest caused by the flood of immigrants crossing the American border is described in “The Grapes of Wrath.”

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