Literary Philandering, Part 2

(Continued from 9/16)

...when it comes to books, I mean.

How many times have I found myself in the middle of a book, only to abandon it for the siren call of another book that catches my fancy?  Some parts of my reading history are just a series of flirtations, cast aside like the cad I apparently have become.

Sometimes, I just have reading expectations that are too ambitious.  Right now, for instance, I am reading The Kindly Ones by Jonathan Littell.  This is a novel about the Nazi final solution, told as if from the memoirs of a German SS Officer.  Tough going in the best of situations, given the subject matter and the main character, but the book is about 800 pages long, and contains what has to be some of the longest paragraphs in written history.  Seriously, in the 100 pages so far, I'd venture to guess there are less than 50 paragraphs, which is a roundabout way of saying that the paragraphs seem to average out to about two pages long.  Any dialogue is buried in these paragraphs, and let's not forget the liberal use of German military designations, which pretty much accumulate syllables like US generals get stars.

So, I slog to page 150 or so, and the books relentless brutality just does not sync well with my mood.  Life is full of its own difficulties and turmoils, so this book does not necessarily provide the comfort or escape I probably need at the moment.  I still want to read the book, really I do, but right now it just depresses me to no end.  I had a similar experience with Blood Meridian a year ago, and that book lies unfinished on my shelf as well.  The seeing other books on the side began about two weeks ago in the current case, as I would put a volume of poetry, or some short stories in the bag with the Littell book, almost like I was flaunting my infidelity.  I wandered around, rootless, for a bit, and I think I have finally given up on the book, for now.  My psyche is really not up to 800 pages of Holocaust depravity.

Today, my copy of In Search of Zarathrustra, a part travelogue, part journalistic history of the ancient Middle Eastern prophet, began to catch my gaze from across the crowded room.  We danced a bit, and I tore off the dust jacket, and read the first chapter, sort of the equivalent of a quickie in the cloakroom.  The  book sits next to me on the desk, and it's telling me to stay awhile, hang out, have a little fun.  And my mind is asking for something to help the spirit, so, I think I have ended the relationship with the Littell book, for a while at least.  I can only hope it will take me back some day.

Literary Philandering, Part 1

My life is filled with abandoned reading.  I look across the room right now, and I see two very tall bookcases filled with volumes, some shelves have smaller titles in front and back rows.  A single one of those rows probably holds somewhere around 25 to 35 books.  14 shelves total, and with doubling of some shelves, it means 25 "shelves," and that means there are anywhere between 625 and 875 books on those shelves.  That's probably a conservative estimate, and there are a few stacks of books in my closet, and some stray stacks elsewhere in the house.  So, 1000 books, probably.  It boggles the mind.

Some of these books are foundlings.  Some are new purchases.  Some have traveled with me from Missouri, and have been with me for decades.  There are remainders, galleys, book club purchases, Borders, B&N, The Strand, Labyrinth Books/Book Culture, Shakespeare and Company, purchases from stands in Grand Central, Penn Station, and various airports, and from my years at the Drama Book Shop.

It would be great if I could look at this vast collection of titles, and proudly state that I have read all of that material, or even most of it, but to be honest, I don't think that I have read completely even half of these books.  Some, of course, are reference books that are more for specific research questions rather than wholesale consumption, but that isn't a huge number of the unread, or unfinished.  Even excepting out poetry and short story collections that are acceptable for less than complete perusal, there is a staggering amount of unused paper on my shelves.  I look over the uncracked spines, and ask myself why, and I have come to this conclusion.

I have a bit of a wandering eye.

(to be continued)

The distraction that is the internet

So, another day of one hour of lunch break, spent sitting at my desk, searching through the web for, I don't know what.  Check Facebook several times, go to the AV Club website, what's going on at Thinkprogress and Democratic Underground, and do I have any emails?  That's gmail, hotmail, and yahoo.  Going home, it's the same thing.  Such a time waster.

Often enough, I find myself on the internet rather than do other activities, such as reading whatever book I'm into, and with my time divided between that and Nate, I don't get as much done as I could at night.  What, exactly, am I looking for during that extended web surfing session.  My email and facebook don't get updated that much!

Of course, to write this, I am on the internet yet again, but I consider this at least an active use of the time, rather than passive old surfing.  I'm am putting some words down, and maybe will get some use out of them, if I keep it up enough.

Just what I need though-justification to stay online longer...

A mission statement, of sorts...

Ok, so here is this blog thing, that will eventually be filled up with all kinds of words, links (if I ever get proactive enough to figure that part out) and all sorts of other yummy goodness, but to what purpose?  What do I hope to get out of this?  What do you hope to get out of this?  Will there be money exchanged?

Perhaps I should at least answer the first question.  As the title of the blog suggests, I once devoured text at an alarming rate, and it was good.  Then, one day, I got cable television.  Eventually, I got married.  That produced a child, and I had to get a real job that taxes my brain to no end (they made me learn Excel, ma!  It was horrible!).  Such is the lapse in brain power that I really don't feel that I can make a proper introduction at this time.  The best I can hope for right now is to finish typing and hope it makes sense.

I've become a creature of distractions.  I procrastinate, I start projects, only to abandon them, and I generally feel like I haven't had an original thought in eons.  It wasn't always that way, and I want to at least try to reclaim some of that feeling of accomplishment, and maybe if I can manage to keep up this blog for more than a couple of posts, it may help.  Or perhaps not, but the illusion of accomplishment is preferable to no accomplishment at all, right?

At any rate, here is the blog.  Hope you like it.  I will try to keep the windows clean, and the rugs vacuumed.  I've tried to enforce the shoes-off inside policy, but hell, half the time I forget I have them on.      The peanut butter in the fridge is mine, though.

The problem, as I see it

The problem with free association is that you generally get what you pay for.