What the classics
held until the last page
was one verse.
Steinbeck's *Grapes of Wrath*, Melville's *Moby-Dick*, Dostoevsky's *Crime and Punishment*, Hugo's *Les Misérables* — the great novels of the 19th and 20th centuries built their spines on a single biblical verse. *Les Misérables* grows from one line in Luke 6:37; *Crime and Punishment* turns on one chapter of John read aloud at midnight.
Sonya read aloud from one chapter. The verse held the novel — I am the resurrection.
Dostoevsky placed the entire weight of the novel on a single chapter of John. Sonya reads it. Raskolnikov listens. Eight years later, in Siberia, the verse begins to do its work.
Steinbeck named the novel from one verse. He wrote it from another — I was a stranger, and ye took me in.
The title points to wrath. The book itself is closer to the Beatitudes — hungry, thirsty, foreign, naked, sick, imprisoned. The verse names the audience Steinbeck wrote for.
The bishop gave away the silver. The verse named the gift — forgive, and ye shall be forgiven.
Valjean stole the silver. The bishop gave him more silver. The verse beneath the gesture is older than the church the bishop served — and is what the rest of the novel grows from.
Melville framed the novel with a sermon. The verse opens the sermon — Jonah rose up to flee.
Father Mapple preaches Jonah before the Pequod sails. Ishmael listens. Ahab does not attend. The verse names the choice the rest of the novel turns on — accept the call, or rise up and flee.