Before you get to excited, the subtitle to Obscene in the Extreme is “The Burning and Banning of John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath.” It’s what I call an academic book, which means it appeals to a small group of people in specific and specialized areas of study. That’s not to say the book is bad or boring. It’s neither. Being a teacher who teaches The Grapes of Wrath, I’m one of those people who have a specific interest in the subject matter.
Obscene in the Extreme will be released just in time for the American Library Association’s “Banned Book Week” (September 27 – October 4, 2008). Wartzman structures his historical study around the week the Kern County Board of Supervisors banned Steinbeck’s masterpiece from the public library. The Grapes of Wrath was a No. 1 bestseller in the U.S., and the Kern public library had 600 people on the waiting list to read the novel. The problem was the novel did what great novels do- it told the truth. It told the truth about the misery of the migrants in California; it told the truth about how people who are down and out talk and think; it told the truth about how the capitalist system will turn fascist in order to protect its profits and power.
Wartzman uses that week in 1939 in Kern county to set the stage, but the book takes the reader deep into the labor problems of 1930s California. Wartzman presents mini-biographies of important people on both sides of the fight: the big money farmers and conservative politicians vs. the migrant labor movement and the socialists. The book takes the reader on a tour of labor riots, migrant camps, and court battles. It’s hard not to side with migrants whose kids are starving while the bosses are making a killing on thousands of acres of crops, but Wartzman gives the farmers a fair portion of the book to present their side. The book is well-researched and well-written.
With all the rumors floating around about Sarah Palin trying to ban books in her public library, the book is especially relevant today. If you didn’t know, Steinbeck refers to “tits” and “peckers” and throws around a few expletives that were not mentioned in mixed company during that time, nothing as drastic as the f-bomb. The largest complaint was that it offended the farmers who wanted to pretend they were treating the migrants well, much in the same way southern slave owners wanted to pretend the slaves were happy in their captivity. A few migrants didn’t like being described as helpless and dirty, but the majority thought of Steinbeck as a hero. Overall, Obscene in the Extreme isn’t so much about the banning of a book, but about how those in power will do anything to keep that power, especially in the face of their own iniquity.
