I can taste the dust. I feel it blister my eyes, and I have just finished the first chapter of "The Grapes of Wrath." I have never felt more a part of any story before. I actually have read about 3 or 4 chapters, and it isn't like I am reading a book as much as I am experiencing what these people are experiencing. Steinbeck has so completely captured reality and while the story is fiction, you feel like you are looking out a window on the life of the Joads and the rest of our country during this time period. The chapter where he talks about the banks being more than mere men is amazing in its power to describe what people felt then, and to some extent what we often feel today about government agencies and big corporations. I can't wait to read the rest of it, so I think I will go do that now.