In a tortuous passage in his The Grapes of Wrath , Steinbeck describes the removal and replacement of a broken 'connecting rod'. The description is seriously detailed with precision accuracy as 'something' I did NOT expect from Steinbeck . It was written as if he 'knew' what it was TRULY like to crawl beneath a filthy, oil-laden engine block, and work in only quasi-light to effect a "life and death" repair . Sometimes just one broken 'push rod' can stop the operation of an entire farm . Been there, lived there .
Take a journey with Robert Frost and he may take you to an old abandoned house, there, he will point out the fire-place mantle and show you its carvings, hand wrought, by some unknown Master --- shunning Prose,, Frost employs Poetry, such is the nature of his INTENSITY . A Poem about an abandoned home, it's decay and degeneration ~~~~~~~~~ go figure .
Writers in the realm of the lowly worker , a realm they seek to elevate to Art , an Art that can survive said decay and degeneration --- but it's not only THAT . Here it is where the Worker becomes ARTIST, despite the day-to-day toil and drudgery of "just common shit" . Here it is where Manual Labor itself is Glorified to Ascendant Realms . Here it is where Work-gone-Art reaches Olympian Heights .
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