Progress and Challenges

I finished Tartuffe last night while stewing marinara sauce and resting my aching knees from the slow-motion assault on the asphalt, remembering crossovers past and Sherman Douglas' running one-handers in the lane. I am growing old but I love shooting ball in church parking lots, contemplating and chasing errant rebounds.

I have made it to the second chapter in the final volume of the Foote. Being on vacation next week, my ambitious goal is to finish both the Foote and the second volume of the Gulag Archipelago, nearly 1700 pages remain betwixt' and 'tween. there are books that I struggle with, for lack of acuity or patience; Diamond, Thomas Mann and John Ralston Saul spring to mind: lots of hard work, but I appreciate the results. Then there are books that I feel compelled to read, Solzhenitsyn and, to a lesser extent, William Vollmann. The there are books that are true bliss to devour: Kluge was a recent discovery and, now again, Shelby Foote. I may disagree with his estimation of Fort Pillow, but his delightful pen moves with such grace that disputation will wait for another day.

My wife said that Moliere has aged, his plays don't have the modern air of Shakespeare or Sophocles. I find that interesting and not able to adequately respond. I did like both the Beckett and the Weiss much more than I did Tartuffe. I have checked out another play by Weiss from the library -- Marat/Sade and N and I did see the film adaptation a year ago before going south for a holiday. I think our next play in tandem will be something by Garcia Lorca, which I know little except for his grisly end in that other Civil War. Perhaps Ed was joking, but he asked what trilogy we will read next together. I must admit to pondering that over the last handful of minutes. We will see.