my neighborhood saw some recent strife. an older neighbor in regard to the trouble asked me in passing if i had read steinbeck's winter of our discontent. when i said i hadn't, he simply replied with an "oh". when i asked why he asked, he said "no reason". given he's an overly curious fellow to me, i figured it was worth discovering the reason.

now having read the work, i see the neighbor's point. but more relevant to how this work spoke to my community woes is how it's been too long since i've read something by this man. holy crap is he a bender of words. and, when he truly hits his stride (because, of course, not all sentences are equal) the culmination nears ridiculous unbelievability.

in case you fear i have whimsical or exaggerated memories of the read, you should first know better (smile) and second know that i have tangible proof of my claim. the evidence comes from a practice i have of marking books up when i read. this marking up involves highlighting and flagging and coding any passages that strike my as unusual or special. one of my most pedestrian coding conventions involves simply flagging a sentence or paragraph in the margin with a sweep of the pen noting the start and stop point of the noteworthy bit. if the marked passage employs an extra tasty use of the language, i add a star to the block and then dog-ear the page so i can re-visit the best parts of a book in the future. when you look at this particular book from the side when closed, there are so many folded corners it looks like there was a problem at the printers. that small nuance is how i know this bit of writing is something special.