In Dubious Battle (20th Century Classics)

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Summary: Strike?
Review: A labor strike is a slow, monotonous undertaking. An organized labor strike, antagonized by an organized group of agitators is a repetitive and slow, monotonous undertaking.

Steinbeck writes of how an organized group of agitators, nicknamed "The Reds" come to California by train to perpetuate a labor strike of orchard workers. Steinbeck's writing mirrors just exactly what it is like to participate in a strike... with an emphasis on boring. The pages just creep by and dear reader has a difficult time wanting to finish reading to the last page. By written example, Steinbeck proposes that labor strikes may be provoked by union agitators, but also shows how local politics and media will attempt to skew the public opinion of a labor dispute.

Rating:
Summary: The best of Steinbeck's Career
Review: By far, Steinbeck had his finest moments writing this story. That says a lot about a man who did such great character studies as Of Mice And Men, The Grapes Of Wrath, The Winter Of Our Discontent, and The Pearl. In this story, Steinbeck hits a raw note rarely reached in American Literature. Few people would have it in them to write a story about the "Reds" in the 1930s. Steinbeck not only wrote the story, he made it his masterpiece. The story alone is the best he ever published. A story about a migrant worker strike in California and the effects of an ununionized strike unfold in the novel. The more important part of the novel is the humanist views Steinbeck took. Every man can feel the hate of the system tearing you apart. He captures that hate in all 300 pages of this story. In every aspect, he captured people who have been pushed too far in In Dubious Battle. He told the story of men who had nothing to lose and in the end lost anyway. This is not another story of the underdog. This is the story of the American Dream being left unfulfilled.

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Summary: A history of the working men's struggle
Review: Efforts of workers in this country to organize and to fight for fair wages and decent working conditions have been long and extremely arduous. The history of the labor movement has been fraught with violence and bloodshed. It was not until Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal that Congress passed laws allowing workers to organize and to strike for the conditions which should have been rightfully theirs all along.

Set in California in the 1930s, _In Dubious Battle_ accurately depicts individuals who strike when the owners of the orchard in which they pick apples decide to reduce their pay. The book documents these workers' extreme poverty and hunger, as well as their fears of bodily harm or even death at the hands vigilantes and police with whom they must contend during the strike. Their leaders, some of whom are on the extreme left political fringes, are men of fervor and dedication who are willing to sacrifice their own lives in the struggle. Steinbeck who often wrote of the sufferings of the common people, to his credit, presents a balanced portrait of these men. Bullying unarmed strikers into a fighting frenzy against men who possess deadly weapons, exploiting the martyrs in their ranks, and stealthily committing arson as methods of gaining them sympathy, were considered ethical acts that justified their worthy ends. One of the book's great strengths was its non-fictional, documentary feel. Admittedly, Steinbeck's matter of fact approach and dialogue sometimes dulled the book's dramatic impact. On the whole, though, I felt as if I were living amongst very realistic people, experiencing their disappointments fighting a dubious battle in an ultimately successful war for economic freedom of all working people.

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Summary: In dubious preaching
Review: I know it's considered sacrilige to be critical of the great John Steinbeck, but this book is an insufferable soap box bore. If the characters didn't repeat themselves so endlessly, 100 pages could have been shaved off, and the book would be better for it. There was not one character in the story I cared about, and I was relieved to reach the end.

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Summary: Classic Steinbeck - Don't Pass This One Up
Review: I'm disappointed to read that some folks regard the characters in this great book as caricatures - rather, they reflect the hard-working, strong-willed people that struggled so during the Great Depression, and made huge headway in business, that we today benefit from. With this in mind, I want to sing Steinbeck's praises for a moment, and thank him for making a difference in his own time. He was unafraid of putting the spotlight on a difficult truth in American history, and doing so effectively.

This book is distinct from The Grapes of Wrath, in that it studies closer the reality of an actual strike, and the involvement of the Communist Party therein. As the reader follows the experience of Jim and Dan, the lead characters, their strengths and flaws come to the surface, as they struggle to keep the strike underway, and the men and women involved strong. Their trials and tribulations are realistic, and depicted in an edge-of-your-seat manner. The ending, much like that of Grapes, is a heart-wrencher, perhaps even moreso. Any reader with heart and conscience is left stunned, and provoked. Although the book is a work of fiction, it is surely not far from the truth. Truly a worthwhile read.

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Summary: One of the Best I ever Read
Review: In Dubious Battle seems to be a continuation of Grapes of Wrath, though I considered it far superior to Grapes when I was young. I read this one half a dozen times between the ages of 20 and 30 and loved it each time. Tried it again at 50 and didn't care a whit for it. We live, we learn, our tastes and ideas change.

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Summary: Warren French misses the point
Review: Like the preceding reviewer, I felt that Warren French's essay offered a very poor introduction to this novel. It isn't simply that French gives too much of the story away; that could be solved simply be reading the 'introduction' later. More bothersome is how his analysis is based mainly on elements that are exterior to the novel (a few comments in Steinbeck's personal letters, historical anecdotes...) but remains largely at odds with the novel itself.

Contrary to French's convoluted claims, the novel is first and foremost a careful study of various aspects of worker/capital confrontation, played out in the form a depression era fruit pickers' strike. Steinbeck uses his two main characters, Mac and Jim - two 'communist agitators' who are instrumental in whipping up sentiments of resistance among the workers - to offer a 'big picture' perspective of the organizational aspects of the confrontation. The bulk of the novel explores tactics, with many of the typical property owner ploys and worker counterploys represented, and it attempts to dissect and explain the vicissitudes of worker morale (and, to a lesser extent, to explore the psychology of those acting on the side of the forces of repression). The specifics may be dated, but anyone involved in social struggles today will immediately recognize most of the tactics and the psychology. I am thinking less of contemporary strikes in North America, which have generally evolved into less violent confrontations, and more of struggles where people are still fighting to gain the power of solidarity. Worker struggles in the third world come to mind, but also the larger struggle to establish unity against the neoliberal agenda. Participants in recent 'antiglobalization' protests, for instance, will see many familiar elements in "In Dubious Battle" .

French's contention that "In Dubious Battle" is a 'bildungsroman' is also pretty far off the mark. It is true that Jim, undergoing his apprenticeship as an organizer/agitator, is revealed to be a natural tactician. But generally the characters remain constants throughout the novel. I would agree with other commentators here who have complained that the personalities are somewhat stiff - ceratinly, that is, in comparison with the depth with which Steinbeck usually imbues his characters.

Steinbeck is only minimally concerned with 'character development' in this novel. He is more concerned with the ways in which broad social solidarity develops, and also with some of the concomitant tactical and moral issues. Steinbeck shows strikers resorting to violence, and yet he describes the overall situation accurately enough to make the reader fully aware that, faced with an enemy which has overwhelming control over property and legal apparatus, these are very often the only means for workers to trigger awareness of the need for larger solidarity.

French claims that the battle "is dubious not because the outcome is uncertain... but rather because it was the kind of struggle that should never have occurred at all." This, in my mind, totally misses the point. Steinbeck clearly recognizes that the battle *must* be fought for workers to improve their lot. The failure of the apple pickers' strike is certain, but just as certain is the fact that it will pull workers together in future and discourage the growers from being quite as mercilessly exploitative. The "dubious" part has to do with the means by which the battle is fought, and particularly the tendency to sacrifice individuals and small groups unscrupulously to a larger cause. Doc Burton is the only character who fully grasps the implications of this; namely, that the ultimate goal towards which Mac and the 'reds' are fighting - i.e. a classless (and non-violent) society - is undermined by the means which they are using.

For those who are new to Steinbeck and are looking primarily for a good read, I wouldn't recommend this as a starting point. "The Grapes of Wrath" offers a much more moving evocation of exploitation and discrimination. "In Dubious Battle" has its fair share of excitement, but it is a primarily a practical (and consequently more prosaic) analysis of the realities of fighting exploitation .

Rating:
Summary: Important now as it was then
Review: The best book by Steinbeck. Gritty down in the dirt daily lives of workers. In today's world people forget that it was the Communists who fought and won many benifits workers enjoy now.

Rating:
Summary: Not as good.
Review: This is novel was an interesting book to someone who is interested in history, but for most others it is rather dry. The main character, Jim Nolan, is at time likable and also despicable. The other characters are not as endearing as those from "Grapes of Wrath" or "Of Mice & Men". If you are looking to read a GOOD Steinbeck novel then read one of the aforementioned, but spare yourself from reading this novel. It reads quickly and is easy to understand, but it just doesn't grab you like his other books. The only reason I gave it 3 stars was due to the highly accurate portryal of migrant life in the 1930's.