I’ve always thought John Steinbeck books were meant to be read in the summertime.  There needs to be sunshine and green grass and the prospect of a warm wind kicking up through the leaves.

Those were the conditions when I read “In Dubious Battle,” most of it while I was traveling in Mexico.  The story involves a group of Communists who go to an apple growing area in California and try to help the workers there fight back against major pay cuts just put in place by the orchard owners.

I really enjoyed being able to look up from a page and see things like this rolling by as we traveled by bus:

What makes Steinbeck sing to me is the way he sets a scene, describing things in a way that puts you in the same air the characters are breathing.  I didn’t really flag anything in particular in this book, but I turned to a random page to find some of that description:

“The afternoon sun glanced on the tops of the apple trees and then broke into stripes and layers of slanting light beneath the heavy branches, and threw blots of sunshine on the ground.  The wide aisles between the trees stretched away until the row seemed to meet in a visual infinity.  The great orchard crawled with activity.”

I mean if that doesn’t make you want to spend an afternoon in a quiet field just reading I don’t know what to say to you.

This story is a slow burn of activity as you follow the organizers and figure out piece by piece what their goals are, often as they are figuring things out on their own on the fly.  The result is a kind of story that in some ways feels predictable, but at the same time is surprising.  Once you think you know what the outcome of a certain strategy or decision will be, you’re wrong.

After this one I’m slowly running out of Steinbeck books.  But I think if I stick to just reading them in the summer I can hold out for a few more years before I start re-reading my favorites.