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This was a good book but it difficult to read now days. Action packed back then was not what it means now, not sure if that is good or not.

Actually its still a very good book; what happens is that over time, modern audiences fall away in terms of their competence and capacity to be reached by it.

The Grapes of Wrath is still relevant now. Issues like poverty, recession, class structure and the pitfalls of capitalism still exist now.

In essence, the story is timeless. You feel no less empathy for the characters' involved just because they're from another time. I agree with Feliks, the quality of the book hasn't changed, just the ability and tastes of the readers (sadly mostly for the worse).

Going to school right now and I find the sad fact that students can't write a simple grammatically error-free sentence or paragraph. The world has advanced technology but the people are forgetting how to appreciate the finer aspects of the written word.

I agree with all of you. Real readers are diminishing rapidly. But there is always hope. We are still starving for story telling, but many are satisfying that hunger with movies, a much more passive way of interacting with the world we live in. I loved Grapes of Wrath, even choked up with the Pieta scene at the end. I once thought Steinbeck and Faulkner were timeless; now I seldom even hear of them. Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ is one of the last bastions we readers can find. Maybe one day the Harry Potter, Twilight, Hunger Games readers will come around. I certainly hope so.

The principal problem with the fading of great literature is that the language becomes archaic. I am sure the same will happen to the current greats. People will just find it difficult to read them as the diction, writing styles and sentence syntax will seem to be outdated. It`s too bad. I wish I could enjoy the 19th century writers better than I do. George Elliot and Melville are fantastic writers. If they wrote like Steinbeck I would be reading them more often.

Geoffrey wrote: "The principal problem with the fading of great literature is that the language becomes archaic. I am sure the same will happen to the current greats. People will just find it difficult to read them..."

This is a sad note. Vocabulary, sentence length, syntax: is it too much for a book to ask the reader to participate in the experience of creation?

Unfortunately, yes...it is too much to ask many readers. I lament the fact.....I have always found George Elliot one of the most interesting writers and yet so many people have never even heard of her.

I wish it were otherwise but that`s the simple, sad truth. It is too much to ask....

I hope that someday in the future, and I can almost hear the groans and cries of horror and disgust, that some of the classics be rewritten in a more modern literary style for current literary palates. I am throwing the idea out for people to discuss....I am not so sure I would strongly advocate this avenue but the idea has occurred to me. How do people feel about this? Crime and Punishment written as if Truman Capote wrote it?

Unfortunately it depends on the writer as to how the literary styles result. Thinking about authors of today and the violence and language content of many of the rewritten works/movies would certainly make the point in the current climate. That being said I would imagine the tone of the play would be lost. Wouldn't it be interesting to allow the great writers of yesterday to write in the current era. Makes one wonder about how many would have written differently if the times allowed more freedom back then.

Crime and Punishment written by Capote, interesting concept, but not worth pursuing. I'm not a fan of modernizing classics, who could possibly be the judge of how to rewrite a great work of art. I'm of the mind that it isn't too much to ask for people to adjust to writing styles of different eras. Yes, certain writers are more challenging than others and I wouldn't expect everyone to read Chaucer or Henry James. But Steinbeck, Jane Austen, Dostoevsky, Turgenev, Tolstoy, Orwell or Huxley and the like are still very accessible to anyone who is willing to put in the effort.

Movies and television have drastically damaged the amount of attention or patience that people have. Ayn Rand writes in depth on the subject, about a possible future where people have no conception of what is good any more (not in the ethical sense, but in the quality sense). A world where the Hunger Games is more Popular than War and Peace. Though it isn't all bad, as long as the books are there for some of us to enjoy them, it isn't so bad.

What's wrong with The Hunger Games I think this has become a classic. Come to think of it how do you classic status anyway. I have read Grapes of Wrath and loved it. At one time Grapes was a new book and people probably talked about it in the same way that The Hunger Games is being talked about. BTW I'm new to this site and it makes reading more interesting. I love to get an opinion about a read and then see what other people think. Media is good and bad I guess because without this site I haven't been able to talk to anyone who has read Grapes of Wrath.

There is nothing wrong with the Hunger Games, but classic? Nope. There are always going to be different opinions on what constitutes a classic, in saying that, i'll gladly argue with anyone who is willing to say the Hunger Games fits the criteria. Popular doesn't equal classic.

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That is certainly true. I have read several Balzac novels in which he refers to other popular books in the 1870`s (?)in France which are not classics and no one reads anymore.
The Caine Mutiny was very popular in the 50`s. Is it a classic? Exodus was the same in the 60`s. Is it a classic?

I think the difference between popular and classic is the amount of work that goes into the characters and theme. It's easy to write an action packed page-turner, but if no one grows or succumbs or otherwise experiences aspects of life we are often don't realize are there, it's not really classic...though I guess I'm lumping "classic" with literary fiction. Maybe that's wrong. Anyway, Steinbeck is wonderful when it comes to the characters and depth, and I think he will remain classic.

I think it is an excellent book to read now. So many people complain about what we haven't got today. If you read this you realize how lucky we are.