The Grind

My output here has been lacking, the reason being that my reading has been monochromatic and that my responses to Cloud Atlas have been published elsewhere and don't merit being reprinted at all. It is such a fascinating novel, raising questions that I ponder through the night about progress, culture and whether The Fall is inevitable. I am nearly finished with such and my wife has intimated that she would rather I read something else for a spell so as to allow her to move ahead in Magic Mountain. That is fine with me, though I think I will read up to p. 250 in the Mann so as to not lose the significance of the quotidian threads. It will likely be Shiloh from this year's To Do List. That my wife recently bought "us" the new Murakami and i bought her The Line of Beauty for orthodox Christamas: both of which are very tempting but it will likely be Mr. Foote as the novel appears to be manageable in a few days.

I have been reading the odd articles out of Oxford American and Bomb, which I bought at Randy's and such has typically illuminated new vistas on the horizon. The latest issue of Bomb is devoted to the art, music and literature of Haiti and i have found it fascinating. The issue, in fact, introduced me to Madison Smartt Bell, of whom I was completely oblivious before reading about her. Her trilogy of the Haitian Revolution is at the library and appears quite promising, even as I insist I will focus on the American south and Russia for my material this year. Anyone conscious would smile and ask me about the geographic affinities of either Cloud Atlas or Magic Mountain (not to mention Murakami or Hollinghurst). Marshalling some hubris, i respond per Whitman that I am multitudes.