August 24, 2007

• Fine Art Friday & The Grapes of Wrath

  

  Dorothea Lange’s Migrant Mother

  

  The other five images Dorothea Lange took.
  I know zip about photography, but the lesson here is clear:
  Zoom in close. Lange’s famous photograph has so much
  more power than the others; you can see the wrinkled brow.
  More about the subject, Florence Owens Thompson.

  Added Later:

  “This benefit of seeing…
  can come only if you pause a while,
  
  extricate yourself from the maddening mob
  of quick impressions
  ceaselessly battering our lives,
  and look thoughtfully at a quiet
  image…
  the viewer must be willing to pause,
  to look again, to
  meditate.”
  ~  Dorothea Lange

  This famous picture had to accompany the Steinbeck review.

  The obvious connection was confirmed in this quote from the Wikipedia article.

  Florence remembered that “when Steinbeck wrote in The Grapes of Wrath about those people living under the bridge in Bakersfield – at one time we lived under that bridge. It was the same story. Didn’t even have a tent then, just a ratty old quilt.”

  The Grapes of Wrath begins with a drought and ends with a flood.  The book was disturbing, uncomfortable, and yet … compelling.  Since most of you read this in high school English (why didn’t I ???) I’ll leave the plot and characters to your memory.

  I’m always comparing books.  This book reminded me in many ways of Cry, The Beloved Country.  Both deal with tragedy, injustice, greed, violence.  But more than that, they both have these incredible little essays tucked in between the chapters that move the plot along.  The commentary and descriptive prose in both are haunting; they visit your mind long after you’ve finished.

  Can we talk about obscenity and profanity in a book?  I don’t normally swear or cuss and I never use the Lord’s name casually in speech.  I inwardly cringe when someone says, “Oh God” let alone J.C. or C. Almighty.  For the most part,  my days have been insulated from a steady stream of profanity.  What I found with this audio version was the obscenity was in. your. face.  Or, rather, in my ears.  Inescapable.   I debated with myself about continuing. 

  I thought Steinbeck had a message worth listening to, an indictment on corporate business methods that starve the little farmer out of his farm.  I was sick to my stomach at the image of car loads of oranges doused with diesel and burned while people were starving, not just starving but dying, so the price of oranges stayed up.  

  So I struggled with the issue of keeping myself pure and the issue of being strong enough to sift through the grit.  This sounds unconnected, but last year I served on a grand jury rape case.   It was murky, messy, and needed the wisdom of Solomon.  At the same time that I felt slimed, I was able to inject some maturity and common sense into the debate.  I reflected that I was able to deal with the situation emotionally in a way that I wouldn’t have been able twenty years ago.

  Wiser folk have written about this.  It would be a good study for my son and I to work through. These are matters that require wisdom.

  “Wisdom doesn’t mean that you are smarter.  It means you are living out what you know.”   ~ Pastor Steve Schlissel

  • 2:04 pm
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