My Holiday

Yes, for all intents and purposes I can see the aperture is closing, the field is being cordoned and the lights have begun to flicker. It was sublime. I went to Chicago again, didn't buy as many books as I had feared. I finished five books this week and may finish two more before Monday. My wife's brother has been a treat and I have sat by reading while they worked on the house all week.

I bought Coetzee's Master of Petersburg Sunday in Chicago. I was actually leaning more towards a book of Brodky's essays. It is impossible to explain the myriad swarming inclinations which push and pull in-and-out of every book's orbit. I read with awe this week other people's, who opinions I champion, about the struggle and the near-mockery of all those unread books. I view my own relations as somewhat of a pathology. I recall Nick Hornby using just such an aside in The Believer, stating that there is neuroses at play that to counteract a sense of deficiency one must be reading constantly.

That certainly applies in my case.

So I started reading the Coetzee last night and I love it. I love it more for Dostoevsky's sake than that transplanted S.A. Nobeliak. I read into the night, something i haven't attempted this week, being respectful of those hardworking souls with diurnal motivations. I am only about 40 percent into such but I do have a spark, one i hope to finesse for some time.