Grapes of Wrath: Opening Thoughts

Alright, I'm going to be completely honest here. The only novel I have ever disliked more than this novel was Wuthering Heights. I wouldn't go so far as to say I absolutely hated this book (only that trash by Bronte deserves that tag) but the list of things I enjoyed about this novel is so few it's not even funny. Honestly one of the only things I liked about the book was the character Rose of Sharon's name. And that's only because one of my favorite songs is called Rose of Sharyn which I thought could have been a reference to the character in this novel. It wasn't however and I was severely disappointed by this. The writing style of the novel was one of the main things that turned me off right away. Now I'm all for making the story atmospheric and really getting the reader into the world but good lord did Steinbeck take it over board. The amount of trivial and extremely boring stuff he added in was so unessential it wasn't even funny. I think the only good thing to ever come out of this novel being written was the South Park parody episode, other than that I really wish that he had never written this novel. Another thing I just hated was the character of Rose of Sharon. The whole saintly and Virgin Mary role she played in my opinion was just stupid, and I couldn't care less how her character developed from a non-talking recluse into suddenly this symbol for holiness and redemption and whatnot. Ugh I could just go on and on about the list of stupid stuff that I didn't like from this novel but I won't because that would probably go on forever and I could submit this as a college thesis paper at that rate. So as you can tell there will not be a lot of positive entries from this section of my blog so prepare yourself for the worst as I analyze the second worst novel I have ever read.