/lit/ - Literature

This is the first real novel I have picked up in over 20 years. I wanted to stop reading books like Stephen King and Tom Clancy because they just weren't fulfilling anymore. This book has heart, frens. It has heart.

>I'm tar'd
>I'm hungry, I aint et
>Fella just want to work
>Mans gotta eat
Shut up already you dumb Okies

Its too real my friends. It hurts. It's the strength in these poor people. I'm not sure what I'm trying to say. I just wish life was easier for people.

I felt like picrel got too preachy in certain parts, even when I fundamentally agree with it's message and mostly share Steinbeck's political leanings. At times it read more like a manifesto than a so called "great American novel".
It was not very subtle or nuanced when putting it's point across, but it was absolutetly wonderful when talking about the character's struggles and when it dug deeper into their psychology, like it does with Uncle John and Rosasharn.
Can art still be great when it has such an explicit political compromise?
What are some other political novels that can be considered great literature?

kino

>>19697716

>Tractor bad
>Tradition good

Did I miss anything?

Anyone else get kind of turned on at the end?

What did I think of it?

based

What book is the TRUE king of classic American /lit/?
>protip: I already posted it – fite me

what the fuck was that ending?

This is propaganda

why were those grapes so wrathful

>PROPERTY BAD
>SHARING GOOD
yeah, no thanks. dropping this commie trash. east of eden was good. what went wrong here?

What a great read. Makes me wish I was born before the advent of the online workplace, the abandonment of traditional gender roles and the dissolution of the nuclear family. I almost felt envious of the Joad family when I was reading it. They may have had a lot of hardships to face but at least they had each other.

Why have novels tended to be more culturally significant than actual, nonfictional accounts of events? Perhaps this is just due to my poor education but the only first person accounts I can recall that had much relevance that I learned of, were Night, Anne Frank and the Narrative of Frederick Douglass. The rest is fictional novels. Granted they may be about serious topics or their time period, but they are still just fictional stories. I would kind of expect that real accounts would have a mass impact on the public; real accounts of wars, of depressions, of being detained. If anything I would expect novels to not have that much cultural significance in general.

>>16521485
The Grapes of Wrath because we are truly living in the greatest economic depression since the Great Depression.

>>16383628
I know I'll probably get shit on, but I always felt The Grapes of Wrath was The Great American novel.

I read everything apart from the first chapter in one day. Proper had me hooked and that. I'd also say The Red and the Black and The Karamazov Brothers, I could read hundreds of pages of these in one go and not feel any kind of fatigue or need to take a break.

Just read, highly enjoyed, is this book Steinbeck's best or what other novels come close to this?