Love, or a last gasp

Sometime in the late 90s Joel and I were sitting on my porch in the small hours of morning after a night all across creation. The focus shifted back and forth from his dissertation to the books I wanted to read in the near future. I found a pocket of eloquence and discoursed, or babbled, briefly on the virtue of hefty tomes, the sum of a writer's bile and joy; conversely, I noted my suspicion towards those novels between 300-400 pages in length, for such endeavors inevitably saddled up to speak of Love.

Fast forward to this past week and while the opening section of Kluge's masterwork is devoted to the Devil's hand in our daily meandering, the second has focused itself on that questionable subject highlighted in the above paragraph. It does end with the observation, "it is easiest to apprehend happiness in others." Hope has not been extinguished.