It's not really apples to apples of course. Steinbeck describes much more, but also takes much more time to consume. The point though is that it's possible to convey very complex emotional states in literature or poetry
I mean, if your best argument is that one of the greatest authors of a generation needed an entire book to capture the emotion of a single picture, that argument doesn’t seem very strong to me :)
It's not really apples to apples of course. Steinbeck describes much more, but also takes much more time to consume. The point though is that it's possible to convey very complex emotional states in literature or poetry