On The Mend

Over the weekend I finished both The Dynamite Club and Eric Ambler's Journey Into Fear. I appreciated both, but wasn't moved. This glib calm allowed me to proceed headlong into a terrible cold. I quickly discovered that my immobilizing illness didn't allow the panache to address the sinuous sentences of Javier Marias. Instead I pushed into Balzac's deeply cynical Cesar Birotteau.

Strange to say, I haven't been able to read much, not even the aromatic pulse of Balzac's prose.