of mice and men is so fucking terrific

of mice and men is the most beautiful book in the world! 

i mean, it's too obvious to be good, it's found in high school classrooms. it must be good the way a truncheon is good at crowd control, a thing with which to herd students towards knowledge and adulthood. 

but it's SO GOOD! it's wrenchingly beautiful. it is so fucking touching! AMERICA, YOU MAKE PEOPLE SO SAD! 

like it's so beautiful how curley's wife's face sets after she, you know. when it isn't so heavy with broken dreams anymore, no more bitterness about "pitchers"

when i talked to k about the book, raving with love, she spoke of her horror of it, horror at the uncanniness of lennie. and he is a monster. and she's right of course. but it "wadn't never done in meanness." it was, if anything, done with the wildest misunderstanding and terror. 

and slim! slim the sage! and the poetry of the unlearned working man, the beauty of speaking like you spit. 

and george's rhapsody about land. that book makes a terrible sucker out of you. what a tantalizing thing. 

and the repetition of it! the spareness of the metaphors and the rhythm of their lives. this goes with the poetry of the working man, really. it's so elegant, it's got the suppleness of old leather, of a thing done many times.

man i LOVE that book.