My sibling likes to read fiction. They’re a comically basic-ass shit-lib. This person says that they don’t like to talk about politics. They always take the bosses side at work, basically a reincarnation of our Rachel Maddow-parroting boomer capitalist fucboi parent.

I know it’s a tall order but: What work of fiction can I gift them that will break them out of their capitalist complacency and remind them that they’re nothing more than a wage slave before they can even resist the indoctrination? I want to be subtle but effective; it has to fly to under their radar.

To give you an idea of how hopeless this little lemming is: this person has been reading Vonnegut lately and legitimately didn’t even know that Eugene Debs was a real person. This person figured it out when I informed them of Debs when they were telling me that no one has ever run for President from a jail cell. 🤦🏿‍♂️

Halp!

    • CarbonScored [any]@hexbear.net
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      9 months ago

      I read Grapes of Wrath a few years ago after enjoying Of Mice and Men from school. I’m not bad with reading but I wasn’t sure how far I’d get with the thickness of it, then I finished it real quickly.

      But it was a gripping book and is certainly upfront about the problems of capitalism. If your family is that politically illiterate then it may fly under the radar, as Steinbeck doesn’t use explicit capitalism/communism terminology, just more a factual description of what people/systems of people are doing.

      • LeylaLove [she/her, love/loves]@hexbear.net
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        9 months ago

        Well I think that’s the best way to do it. It’s up front about issues, there is no language to abstract what is actually happening in that book and I think that’s what sells it.

  • the_post_of_tom_joad [any, any]@hexbear.net
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    9 months ago

    Is he a reader who will read on his own? Can you show em steinbeck simply because he’s a great American writer? Like don’t show him “grapes of wrath” but maybe “tortilla flat” or “east of eden” and see if he comes back for more.

  • MF_COOM [he/him]@hexbear.net
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    9 months ago

    What’s wrong with reading Vonnegut vonnegut and not knowing who debs was is just normal. Most people can’t name an unsuccessful politician from 100 years ago.

    I don’t think any text will do what you’re hoping, that kind of progress is usually made through conversation. But I’d recommend George Saunders’ In Persuasion Nation (2006), which is a short story collection about cranked up capitalist inconsistencies. He’s a lib but he’s got a good radar for the savage idiocy of a society under late stage capitalism.

    Alternatively I might suggest The Fever (1991) by Wallace Shawn.

  • NephewAlphaBravo [he/him]@hexbear.net
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    9 months ago

    The Jungle is like the opposite of a fun read so it might not be good for this purpose, but the Fun Trivia Fact that everyone utterly fucking missed the point really got under my skin and was a seed of my own leftward move. The idea that this story had such a huge real life impact but in a way that didn’t address the actual point of the story at all was super memorable but also non-threatening at the time, it was just a fun bit of american history trivia.