I’ve always loved Steinbeck, his language is straight-forward, and a little romantic, and his characters can be thin, but he, like Tolstoy, get to the heart of a subject. Yes, Tolstoy’s characters were vivid and real, and he was unflinching in his realism, but he, like Steinbeck, captured the soul of something, the golden, gleaming, wet light of wonder.

And Steinbeck’s cinematic writing, so visual, like a movie.