Ok, so I've been gone a while. No posts in the month of October, because it was kind of a bad month. I had some personal things going on, and, at the end of the month, my grandmother passed away and we were out of town for a few days for funeral and family. Even if I was in my right mind, which I fully confess is not where I am right now, I would have had a hard time really getting anything substantial done. Also, they blocked a lot of sites accessible on the work computer, big, all encompassing categories like social networking and personal websites, so no catching up on posts on my lunch hour. I could, of course, write on a word doc and cut and paste, but that would be proactive and stuff. Can't have that.
I did manage to finish reading one book, My Year of Flops by Nathan Rabin, the AV Club writer who took a year to watch some of the most notorious cinematic failures in history. It was a quick read, and one that was easy to put down and pick up without losing too much. Maybe that is the answer for future reads. My backpack also has, unfinished by me, The Long Ships, by Frans G Bengtsson, a Swedish Viking adventure novel from the Forties, courtesy of my new favorite publisher, New York Review Books. If the link actually works, go there immediately. Lots of great old titles, both adult and children's, in very well-designed, mostly trade paperback editions. And my favorite book store, Book Culture in Morningside Heights (near Columbia University) has so many of them at discount prices.
(Ok, not only a digression from a digression, but two hyperlinks. Going off the rails a bit, here. I can tell I've been away for a while.)
Back to the point. So, the literary philanderer in me has been working in full force, as I have pushed aside The Long Ships aside to read My Year of Flops, and have also been cavorting with the copy of On Stranger Tides by Tim Powers, that I found among the titles in the left behind pile at my mother's house in Missouri. I also brought back a few Joseph Campbell books, and a copy of Vikram Seth's A Suitable Boy to add to the 1000-plus page titles on my literary bucket list. Maybe I will just take a year, and hit some of these doorstops and just see how far I get. Might be worthy of a blog. But, clearly, as I am right now trying to pick up the shattered pieces of my reader's psyche, that might be too much to ask. Ok, maybe Infinite Jest at the end of the year, when there's holiday days off.
I know, another digression. Clearly I am trying to say too many things at once. Trying to make up for lost time. I'm acting like I am on deadline with this thing, when it is not supposed to be that way at all. It's the same thing with the books: the guilt about not reading makes the reading a chore sometimes, when it used to be just the thing I looked forward to most. There's no reason I shouldn't have finished The Long Ships, On Stranger Tides, and My Year of Flops all by now, and a couple of others besides. But now, it's like work, and I'm in the strange position of loving books, but hating reading. The relationship with writing is similar, though I'm not going to pretend that the writing has ever been particularly easy. I just get a lot of satisfaction when I see words on a page that I've created. I think I've fetishized a minute part of the process. Is "fetishized" even a word?
I am ending this tale now, if for no other reason but to see a date other than September on my posts. Time to gather a few thoughts, and work from there. If the links work, maybe I will create more. Maybe this will just become a blog of links to other things. Maybe.
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