In Dubious Battle - Rambling Readers

English language

Published May 30, 2006

ISBN:: 978-0-14-303963-1

(1 review)

In Dubious Battle is a novel by John Steinbeck, written in 1936. The central figure of the story is an activist attempting to organize abused laborers in order to gain fair wages and working conditions. Prior to publication, Steinbeck wrote in a letter:

This is the first time I have felt that I could take the time to write and also that I had anything to say to anything except my manuscript book. You remember that I had an idea that I was going to write the autobiography of a Communist ... There lay the trouble. I had planned to write a journalistic account of a strike. But as I thought of it as fiction the thing got bigger and bigger. It couldn't be that. I've been living with this thing for some time now. I don't know how much I have got over, but I have used a small …

In Dubious Battle is a novel by John Steinbeck, written in 1936. The central figure of the story is an activist attempting to organize abused laborers in order to gain fair wages and working conditions. Prior to publication, Steinbeck wrote in a letter:

This is the first time I have felt that I could take the time to write and also that I had anything to say to anything except my manuscript book. You remember that I had an idea that I was going to write the autobiography of a Communist ... There lay the trouble. I had planned to write a journalistic account of a strike. But as I thought of it as fiction the thing got bigger and bigger. It couldn't be that. I've been living with this thing for some time now. I don't know how much I have got over, but I have used a small strike in an orchard valley as the symbol of man's eternal, bitter warfare with himself.

3 editions

bondolo@bookwyrm.social reviewed In Dubious Battle

An apple for your thoughts

4 stars

Quite an impressive novel though not timeless. Despite all of our problems today the world has made progress. Maybe this serves as a reminder to be ever vigilant against backsliding, but also how little has changed. I can't find any fault in this book but the characters don't speak to me. I don't see myself in any of the protagonists or antagonists. Perhaps a view from one of the other men on the scab train could have shown someone lost in it all and struggling to make sense and choose sides.