Julia Keller on Roads

Julia Keller writes a column called "Lit Life" in the Chicago Tribune on Sundays. Back on June 15th, she reviewed Marianne Wiggins' novel "The Shadow Catcher" and summed up old roads as well as anyone can.

"Show me your favorite road, and I'll tell you who you are.

Mine would have to be Route 23 heading south from Columbus to Portsmouth, Ohio. At Portsmouth you have to head east on Route 52 to get to Huntington, W.Va., my hometown, but for the length of time you're on Route 23, you know you're in the presence of a real road. Not a sleek and impersonal expressway, not a coyly intricate cloverleaf, but an actual, honest-to-goodness, peerless path hacked through life's vagaries and vicissitudes, as unique and distinctive as a grubby thumbprint."

Ok, at this point, I had to look up vagaries and vicissitudes. I kind of knew vagaries, but not the other.

OK, vagaries means unpredictable erratic action. Whimsical,wild, unusual.

Vicissitudes means change or variation.

So, I have increased my vocab by a couple words. Good words, too. I'll never be able to write like that. She is GOOD.

I really like that "unique and distinctive as a grubby thumbprint" part. Just not my "thumbprint anymore which has been wracked by cellulitis. My thumbprint has developed vagaries and vicissitudes after the two operations.

More Good Stuff to Come. --RoadDog