Back when those books were written, it wasn't terribly obvious what we were going through and enduring. It took literature to show us the possible ways through the quagmire----and it was sort of romantic to be shown in the mirror of fiction just what was askew and how it might could get fixed.
These days, it's pretty obvious where we went off the road and, as always, it's up to the youth to see the way clear to finding the answers. The young have the energy and the testosterone/estrogen to make good (or bad) things happen. (I know I'm too exhausted to do it.) No need for a Steinbeck to create a Joad family to tell us that homelessness is a travesty. No, the books aren't needed. Ral life is enough, now, to show us the obvious. But building huge piles of gold like the dragons of old just to hoard it away even though they had no clue what to do with it (or with captive virginal maidens for that matter). We, like those dragons, seem no more inclined to use the gold of the realm to solve our problems than they did. ------------------ The literature of our times is on the screen and not between the covers of many good books--or even of bad books. Our imaginations have become vestigial remnants that it's hard to hot-wire into starting up. Hollywood's special effects get us going a few hours at a stretch---------only to fall limp and flacid afterwards like a dream that, upon awakening, we'll never be able to recall...

Art Thieme