American here. I could never "get into" American novelists like Hemingway and Steinbeck because I found their characters unrelatably thin automatons whereas Tolstoy's and Dostoevsky's characters are recognizably and deeply human. The only other English writer I have found who comes close is Graham Greene. I find it odd to think the socio-cultural understanding of a native is required to "get" the works of foreign authors as I consider such things ancillary to the point of art, which is to reveal what either cannot be or is insufficiently explained by direct language. I read to be able to get inside the minds of others and see what human existence is like in a way that is impossible from IRL interaction, not to imbibe the works as a socio-cultural commentary or to "deconstruct" them into the foundations for my own philosophical/political arguments/ramblings/delusions.