I remember struggling to get into this the first time I tried to read it like last year because it does start off pretty heavy with the poetic and esoteric language, but it really is a beautiful way to insert you into this story of almost wild and kind of random mundanity. or at least the core habits and features of this life Suttree has chosen may be mundane but the pacing and the encounters and situations he gets himself into are constantly entertaining and funny and tragic and beautiful often all at the same time. the workhouse section towards the beginning is so good and it just doesn't stop being entertaining from there. there are some dips and lulls between set pieces but I love the picaresque sort of form that the story takes and its reflection of the life choices we all make and the meaning of them and the darkness of alcoholism and apathy and how a truly beautiful soul can break through all of that..... sometimes. maybe picaresque is a pretentious and overused word nowadays but it really is such a goated form. for me, Suttree captures a universal aspect of being in your late twenties that transcends the time and place. I'm completely sold that this is his best work next to Blood Meridian and probably even better than that