But I agree, the book is a wonderful book, flabby and extravagant, humane, ??? and I think this impulse toward humanity might be the purpose of that chapter about slang, as well as the heroic ???Merde!??? of Waterloo ??? the idea that even things like this are worth recording and loving and acknowledging, that everything is, even the slime of the sewers (therefore that chapter about sewers, the ce