Balzac.

One of the most unexpectedly positive things to enter my life over the past ten to twelve years was being forced to read a Balzac novel back when I was teaching freshman writing in a highly-structured introductory curriculum.

If I hadn't have done that, I don't think I would have ever read a novel by him, necessarily.

And, it's like someone once said about him, the best thing about him is that there's always more.

It really is like you just pick up some random-ass novel of his that you've never heard of before, and it hits all the sweet spots with taking some characters from some social class, describing how and where they live, putting them in some situation, and then you're over and out.

Often, my most favorite parts are where he just spends pages minutely describing shit that really have nothing to do with the plot per se, like what the interior of a whore's apartment looks like in Paris, or the details of some card game that some upper-class provincials have played and have joked about for over fifteen years.

He also has these amazing insights into situations and characters, that I often find myself photographing and texting to friends.

They're just delicious -- it's like he's an inveterate people-watcher -- and like my one (professor) friend who studies (modern) (Czech) literature has said, they're probably so much better in the original (French).

The latest novel I'm reading is very weirdly structured, though -- we're a third of the way in, and we're just getting to a chapter where they introduce the title figure, and it's like an entire chapter where someone relates their back-story in a huge detailed monologue.

Even that, though, is endearing to me; it's so nice to have eccentric structures.