With the Joad’s now at the government camp I keep thinking about Solzhenitsyn’s experience in ‘One Day In The Life Of Ivan Denisovich’, however, only as a counter example.
Steinbeck seems to be extolling the virtues of communism or at least the virtues of the poor who share.
I never know how to feel myself since I can see both up and down sides. They are both extreme points of view.
I can’t believe how slowly I’m needing to take this incredible novel (I’m going half pace), but it is a lot of fun going back and re-reading every chapter to pick up on the details and the texture of the story.
From a cultural point of view: any culture that views the world in terms of the miraculous would actually find the miraculous to be quite ordinary and what we consider mundane they would be in awe of.